The Tiger, and the Trade

OK ok, enough with the emails and blog comments. Quickly I will give my opinion here on the whole Tiger Woods fiasco, and then on to more important things, this week's trade of Roy Halladay to the Philadelphia Phillies in their attempt to become the first National League team ever to appear in three consecutive World Series.

First -- Tiger. There's a reason that I haven't really mentioned this here before, and that's because, generally speaking, I just don't see what the real story here is. I mean, yeah it's another man in a position of extreme power, influence, fame or riches who it turns out is a raging pig-ass immoral bitch. Tiger isn't anywhere near the first, and he'll be nowhere near the last. Sure it's always a little disappointing to see a guy knocked down from the top of the world like this, but again, I am at this point far beyond the point of surprise when it comes to the illicit sexcapades of anyone with a modicum of recognizable success these days. It's more or less just like baseball players using steroids at this point -- I just assume that any man who again occupies any position of power, influence, fame or riches is in fact cheating on his wife. Repeatedly. And often it's with totally freaky-deaky people like hookers, porn stars, transvestites, minorities or others somehow different from the person involved, etc. It's just the nature of the beast.

Basically, what it comes down to is that men are weak, in particular men who have 18 billion pounds of pussy thrown in their face every single waking hour of every single day. It's real easy for me to sit here with my feet up on my desk and claim that I would never, ever cheat on my wife. And I believe it too. But throw a hundred hot pieces of ass at me every single day I am alive, all of whom would do basically anything I wanted them to do at any time, any position, in any way whatsoever, and have them be not only willing but really begging to get it on with me, and you just can't say in a vacuum what you would actually do in that situation. It's the sad truth about the way men are. And that's not intended to be any kind of an excuse. It's just a realistic observation about what I see in the world today. I doubt that Tiger set out to marry Elin but then immediately fuck as many other bitches as he could find. I bet for a while he believed he would stop womanizing along with his decision to get married. But it's just so much pussy, all the time. It's wrong as hell what Tiger has done, and frankly I cannot believe how reckless he has been with the voicemails, the sexts, etc. he has sent, but in the end this just shows that Tiger is no different from most other mega athletes, famous people or incredibly rich people in the world today.

I should also mention how much more this sort of thing seems to be happening since our own acting president got busted chasing blowies instead of fighting Osama Bin Laden back in the late 90s. I've said this a million times but I'll say it again now -- the worst result of the Clinton presidency was not the breakdown of oversight and regulation of areas that are in need of such oversight and regulation, and it wasn't even the lack of attention placed on very real enemies that were quietly amassing forces to launch attacks against our country. The worst result of the Clintons (and I do mean both of them, because Hillary staying with that pig for her own personal gain is just about as bad and unthinkable as what Bill did in my view) was the loss of morals that that entire regime based on lying, cheating and selling out set as an example for Americans -- really, for humans -- all around the world. When people see the acting leader of the greatest, most properous nation in the history of the earth fingering his fat young interns with cigars, splooging all over the White House, accepting millions of dollars to free outright serial-killing criminals in his last days of office, and going before Congress and before the cameras and outright lying under oath, this has a severe and long-term effect on morals of everyone alive. And I definitely blame the Clintons as a significant factor in the seeming growing habit of the rich and famous acting with absolutely no morals whatsoever, giving no respect whatsoever to the lives of their wives, children, other loved ones or the millions and millions of people who look up to them.

The last point I would make about the whole Tiger rigamarole is just how funny it is that men will cheat on any chick, no matter how hot she is. I mean it's great being a man, really. Elin, the hot, young blond thing that she is, gets cheated on a million times by Tiger Woods. He goes to hookers, porn stars, even Perkins waitresses for crying out loud, just to avoid boinking her one more time. Christie Brinkley has had like four husbands cheat on her hot ass. Frigging Hugh Grant cheated on Elizabeth Hurley with a transvestite hooker for crying out loud! You ever wonder why women paint their fingernails and toenails, have every hair painfully ripped from every nook and cranny of their entire bodies, color their cheeks, their hair, their lips, outline their eyes, extend their eyelashes, and get fake stomachs, fake tits, fake lips, eye jobs, chin jobs, elbow jobs, and I could go on and on and on? Because it's true what they say: for every super smokin hot chick you can show me, I can show you a man who is tired of fucking her. It's just the way we are as men.

Now on the real business of the day, which is the trade of Blue Jays pitcher Roy Halladay to the Phillies. In a nutshell, this looks to be a three-team deal that essentially involves the Phillies sending former Cy Young winner Cliff Lee to Seattle, along with top pitching prospect Kyle Drabek and another top prospect to the Jays, in exchange for the Phils receiving Roy Halladay and the Mariners' two top pitching prospects. There are various reasons for the Jays and the Mariners to do or not do this deal, but I'm only concerned here with the Phillies's motivations, which in this case relate to securing an appropriate long-term commitment from a staff ace. Here, Cliff Lee had indicated that he would be looking for a 5- or 6-year deal similar to the one signed by CC Sabathia with the Yankees before the 2009 season when Lee's current contract is up after the 2010 season, and the Phillies as a franchise prefer to keep starting pitching contracts to fewer than four years -- a strategy which I strongly agree with, as long as you can effectively continue signing good pitchers for shorter agreements over time. Halladay, however, had already indicated an extreme interest in signing a long-term deal with the Phils, among other things due to the team's spring facility's location just a few minutes away from his family's Clearwater, Florida home, and he has since done so, negotiating a 3-year extension with an option all at roughly $20 million a year in connection with this trade.

So what the Phils are getting out of this trade in a nutshell is swapping out Cliff Lee, who was going to pitch in Philly for just one more year and then would have left the team as a free agent since the Phils already knew they were not keen to giving Lee the deal he is looking for to make his millions now, and bringing in Roy Halladay instead, for the next four years instead of Cliff Lee's one year. As I said consistently all through last season, I believe that, even with as great as Cliff Lee pitched in Philadelphia, Halladay is still that much better overall of a pitcher. His career numbers are slightly better, and he is that much more of a workhorse than even Lee has been in his time in Cleveland and Philadelphia. And in contrast to Lee's shaky 8-9 beginning to the 2009 season in Cleveland, Halladay has been one of the most consistent pitchers in the game, finishing in the top five in the AL's Cy Young voting in each of the past five seasons. Halladay throws about 8-10 complete games a year, he goes deep almost every single night when his GM hasn't totally messed with his psyche by promising him a trade to a contender and then not following through with it, and the guy is absolutely awesome at all aspects of pitching in the major leagues. But Cliff Lee has been awesome as well, and ultimately again this is not a deal that says that Halladay is a far better pitcher than Cliff Lee. Instead this deal says that Halladay can be a Phillie at a "reasonable" price for four more years after 2010, whereas Cliff Lee is only staying there for one more year at most and then he will be gone to more lucrative waters (located in the Bronx, New York most likely).

The big question right now I think is how the people of Philadelphia will react to this deal. It does seem that Phillies' GM Ruben Amaro has made a shrewd long-term decision for his team, locking up one of the greatest pitchers in the game today for the next five seasons instead of retaining a slightly lesser pitcher for only one more season. But that's not necessarily how the Philly fans are going to react to it. Cliff Lee, even in his short time in the City of Brotherly Love, was beloved by the hometown fans. He came in at the midpoint this season and immediately took over the mantle that had been held by Cole Hamels in the Phils' run to the championship back in 2008. He pitched so good for his first several starts as a Phillie that he was the absolute talk of the town, and that only magnified with Lee's incredible shutdown performances in the 2009 postseason. The Phanatics love this guy, and now he's gone, seemingly swapped for a roughly equal talent in Halladay, but not someone who has done anything yet for this city like Lee already had. Shipping Lee off unceremoniously like this as part of this three-team deal is not necessarily going to make Ruben Amaro a beloved figure in the city, at least not until Halladay goes nine innings in his first three starts for the Phils in 2010.

And then there is the small aspect of Amaro giving up top pitching prospect Kyle Drabek to Toronto as part of this deal. You may recall that talks for the Phillies to acquire Halladay before the trading deadline last season eventually stalled out because of the Phillies' refusal to include Drabek in the deal. So, back in June Amaro turned down trading Drabek for Halladay, acquired Cliff Lee and kept Drabek instead. And now here we are some six months later, and Amaro is giving up Cliff Lee, getting Roy Halladay and giving up Kyle Drabek to the Jays after all. This, in addition to giving away the other top prospects the Phils traded away to Cleveland to acquire Cliff Lee last season when the Halladay deal eventually broke down. So to all those out there who say this deal is a slam dunk, I think that is a silly position. It seems like Amaro made a short-term decision in acquiring Cliff Lee last season without really thinking through (or knowing about) Lee's future contract plans, and now Amaro is trying to undo that trade and go back to the deal he had wanted all along for Halladay, except that now he has to give up Kyle Drabek as well to get himself back to where he preferred to have been last summer anyways. Only time will tell how good this deal really is, although my suspicions are that the Phillies would not be giving up Drabek to make this deal happen if they truly thought as highly of Drabek as they have led others to believe over the past season or two in Philadelphia.