Lessee – how does the old song go? (with apologies to The Clash)
“Roger you gotta let us know
You gonna stay or will you go?
You such a tease tease tease
You allus want us beggin PLEEZE
The arbitration question’s here
Decision time is drawing near
If there’s no offer there will be trouble
An’ if you say yes it will be double
Well come on and let us know
Gonna commit or gonna blow?”
Sigh.
Same old run around. Look Roger. You KNOW we want you back. You KNOW we can’t be foolin around waitin to trade/sign other guys until after there ain’t nobody left. We KNOW you hafta be ready to pitch in March in that assinine “world classic” thingy. We KNOW you fell apart in September and we gonna have to be more careful with you than Pedro and maybe only pitch you every 6 or 7 days.
But we HAFTA set the roster. We HAFTA find a least ONE decent bat.
Now a lot of us have LONG since figgered out that McLane don’t wanna spend any of that playoff money or increased revenue streams that every single other team has and he pretending he don’t have so he won’t increase payroll. We all know that McLane is REAL touchy about anything that might could be thought to be bad media PR. He remembering the Nolan Ryan catastrophy which is why he insisting that Biggio and Bagwell play full time until they drop dead or retire whichever comes first even if it ain’t in the team’s best interest.
And we ain’t fooled with all the reporters talkin bout how you gonna go and pitch for the Yanks/ Red Sox again.
Roger, you KNOW the arbitration rules. If we don’t offer arbitration, we lose a draft pick. If we DO and you accept and get another 18 mill, we stuck with the same team. If we DO and you accept, then decide to retire at the end of January, we lost 7 weeks of finding players to fill the enormous gaps we have.
If we offer and you reject (yeah, I know that game) it’s STILL another 5 weeks of not being able to get players.
So cmon Roger, be a decent guy. Stop the tease stuff. Let’s get this done one way or another without making us look bad.
Or you look like a thoughtless insensitive jerk.
UPDATE 6 PM
The Organization has decided not to offer arbitration to Roger. I guess he wouldn’t agree to work anything out with him. So IF Roger comes back, it won’t be until May 1. I read somewhere that Roger was on WFAN in Boston (or is it NY) and he was annoyed that the Astros kept pressing him to make a decision – he TOLD them to go ahead and do whatever they needed to do (get a bat) and he wouldn’t make any decision until at least January anyhow.
Fine.
Now 29 teams are trading, signing, doing what needs to be done. Purpura got NO excuse sittin around no more…
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB
Yup, sum up my feeling pretty well.
I just can’t believe the Rocket would once again string along the Astros.
After all, those $18 million could have gone to many players. I’m glad I’m not Purpura. Stuck with Biggio and Bagwell’s contract and Clemens’ indecision while having to improve the team that won the NL.
Couldn’t the Rocket just take time off and go pitch in the World Baseball in March and then join the Astros in May for less money? Maybe he can pitch in half as many games all at home and last all the way to the playoff. After all $18 million is nice but I bet even the Rocket would love to win 5 more games with only 12-15 more runs in those games.
I think this has worked out well–I was hoping the Astros would not re-sign Clemens anyway, since $18 million or more is a huge gamble on a guy that old.
Yeah, this is 1/2 good news. I imagine the Astros brass are still thinking, “yeah, but we still might need to spend $18M later” which hardly lets them shop the candy store with full pockets!
I hope they are thinking straight on this issue and Bagwell. Come spring, if Baggy can’t toss to major league standards, they should exit him gracefully. We’ll see.
Bring Roger back just before the All Star break for $10M, if he’s available. If not, oh well.
fuggedaboutit; let’s trade everett for tejada.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2252946