Well its official. We have another Snyder on our hands.
Champs of the offseason.
Your Washington Nationals: The holy grail for every slightly above average aging ballplayer for the next decade.
I just have one question: Has ANY contract ever given to any player in any sport because you HAD to overpay ever worked out? At least worked out for the team not the player.
As for the "At least everyone knows we're serious players now" argument to defend this "deal" (or more accurately this surrender): yes, they know you are serious . . . seriously dumb. If they had given this contract to Albert Pujols, OK. Joey Votto I would get it. But the 13th largest contract ever, the 3rd largest deal to an OF in history?
To me, this puts all the Plan talk exactly where the more cynical critics had already placed it: in the garbage can.
Clearly, they have no confidence in their ability to build from within, no confidence in their ability to spot undervalued assets, no confidence in their ability to make marginal players better. Instead, they are going to flash the checkbook and hope no once notices.
Its hard to feel bad for someone who just got eight figures deposited in their bank account, but there is a twinge of sadness in me for Jayson. He seems like a decent guy not a prima donna type. Now, he'll forever be judged by the fact he totally failed to live up to this massive deal. That will be his legacy. In one fell swoop, he's gone from underappreciated to overhyped.
He'll be grinding out his typical season, the kind of seasons for which he's recieved lavish praise and all of a sudden, it won't be enough. He'll wonder why he's getting all this flak, he's just doing what he's always done. Then, he'll start pressing, trying to do too much and he'll go into a slump. Pressure mounts and the slump grows worse. Soon, he becomes the symbol for all that has gone wrong with another Nats season. If he's lucky, the team will at least have his back, if not they'll throw him under the bus as the reason they stink and the reason they can't spend to fix the problem.
So I guess I'm saying, Welcome to Hell Jayson. You're down here with us now but at least you can afford a bitchin a/c unit.
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