Fish out of water

It seems the Marlins won't be able to sign rising star Josh Johnson to a contract extension because they won't offer him more than a three-year deal. Hell, why would you want to lock up a 25-year-old stud who struck out 191 in 206 innings, had a 1.16 WHIP and a 3.23 ERA last year?

As much as I love baseball, this is the problem that keeps gnawing at me. If the Marlins can't (or won't) sign a guy like this long-term, what's the point of rooting for them? Way too many teams have this same problem, and it really takes away from the sport.

What's the solution? I don't know. A number of things would help (equal revenue sharing, salary cap, contraction) but none of these seem feasible because all of these options are unacceptable to either the owners, the players or MLB itself.

I will say this - eventually something is going to have to change. I don't know when or how drastically, but at some point fans of these small market teams are going to get really sick of being out of contention on May 15.

And the dinosaur of the year award goes to...

Congratulations, Mike Scioscia and Jim Tracy. You guys just won the most overrated award in sports.

Scioscia and Tracy were named the top managers in baseball today by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Now I'm not trying to belittle their achievement, but... but... okay, that's exactly what I'm trying to do.

I'm sure both men are very bright and great guys. Actually, I'm not sure of either of those two things, but regardless, I'm not taking a shot at them personally. Just professionally. As in their profession stinks.

Let's start with Scioscia, who I don't think is a particularly bad manager, he's just not a particularly good one (Lifting ace John Lackey in the seventh inning of game 5 of the ALCS this year against the Yankees is one of the all-time blunders), if there even is such a thing. I'm also sick of him getting so much credit for doing well with a stacked team.

I know he had to deal with injuries to his team and even the tragic death of young pitcher Nick Adenhart, who died in a car accident in April. But it's not like he was working with the Bad News Bears here. He's got plenty of talent with a payroll of almost $119 million (sixth-highest in baseball) and the Angels win their pitiful division every year even when he hits his worst hitter third in the lineup (See Maicer Izturis in 2008) and people praise him for going with his (big) gut. So what's the big deal?

Oh, and enough with the so-called "experts" talking about how the Angels are always putting pressure on their opponents by being agressive on the basepaths. Only the Yankees, who basically have an All-Star at every position, scored more runs in all of baseball. You can't be that productive simply by running as proved by the fact that Scioscia's supposed team of scrappers posted the game's fifth-highest slugging percentage.

Then there's Tracy. He was promoted to manager from bench coach (talk about your all-time joke of a job) in May after Clint Hurdle was fired. Yeah, that same Clint Hurdle who took the baseball world by storm when he got this same team to rip off an incredible 21 wins in 22 games down the stretch before losing to the Red Sox in the World Series. Like all dinosaurs, he eventually hit a cold streak (let's just call it the Ice Age) and was exposed for the fraud he really is.

Unlike Scioscia, Tracy doesn't have as much money or talent at his fingertips, so he'll go the way of the Hurdle-saurus within the next few years (He already failed with the Dodgers and the Pirates). But for now, he's on the top of the heap and getting paid big bucks to do a job that could be done by a below-average trained chimp. Must be nice.

Chalk up another one for the baseball writers

The postseason baseball awards are beginning to trickle out and there's already been an egregious error. Not only did the baseball writers get it wrong for the National League Rookie of the Year, they weren't even close.

Let me throw some stats at you. How does an 11-4 record with a 2.89 ERA and 116 strikeouts and just 46 walks in 127.2 innings pitched sound?

Pretty good right? Maybe even good enough to be in the Cy Young mix? Well, apparently, it wasn't even good enough to be in the ROY mix, as Braves phenom Tommy Hanson found out.

Hanson finished a distant third behind winner Chris Coghlan of the Florida Marlins and the Phillies' J.A. Happ. I'm not saying those players didn't have good seasons, just that neither performed at Hanson's level.

So why then did Hanson receive 37 total votes to Coghlan's 105 and Happ's 94? Because baseball writers are a bunch of prehistoric creatures roaming the earth and looking for anyway to show that they are still relevant.

For the record, Coghlan, who's 17 first-place votes were four more than all other NL rookies combined received, had a very good on base of .390, a more than respectable OPS of .850, but an un-meaty total of nine home runs in 504 at bats.

But ding, ding, ding! He posted a .321 batting average! And there's the answer. Nevermind that he had a .365 average on balls in play, fifth-highest in the NL or that despite his Jacoby Ellsbury-esque pop, he possesses Jose Molina-like speed with eight steals. And as a converted second baseman playing outfield for the first time this year, he's not exactly the second coming of Willie Mays when it comes to roaming Land Shark Stadium.

Happ on the other hand, wasn't as impressive as Hanson, but had similar stats with his 12-4 record and 2.93 ERA. He also pitched for a contender, something that the writers usually eat up, but even that wasn't enough to prevent the third-best candidate from winning this award. It wasn't enough to offset a bunch of bloop singles.