The MLB Winter Meetings arekindafuckin bullshit.
A lot like road tripping with your friends to Milwaukee Summerfest in the late 2000’s.
Some years it was awesome, and some years it was just Milwaukee.
Some years you get drugged and robbed at a riverfront strip club.
The good was great.
The bad, equally traumatizing.
And most (if not all), completely outside your control.
That’s MLB’s winter meetings to me and this year is no different.
Of course I want Shohei Ohtani and Admiral Yamamoto signing with the Cubs.
One of the few joys left in this sick cruel life is good clean baseball.
You’re on fuckin pluto if you think otherwise.
Here’s my problem
The whole thing is a clusterfuck.
We got zig zag reporting.
Anonymous front office sources.
Scumbag agents and scumbag owners manipulating a desperately employed populace.
Even more tortured fans, hoping waiting watching judging
Look at the baby.
Look at the baby.
Season ended a month ago.
They gave out awards for 2 weeks, paused for Thanksgiving, took a dump and went to Nashville.
Call me crazy but the turn around time here’s a little tight.
Or maybe going full live auction with one of those professional GOINGOINGOINGOING-DO-I-HAVE-$535 MILLION guys.
Make the boys get the checkbooks out on a Saturday night?
Who says no to that?
Rob Manfred’s going to fix this and that’s because Rob Manfred is a good commissioner.
Earlier this week it was obvious Shohei was hijacking the meetings.
There was minimal activity.
A splash of Erick Fedde rumors from Korea.
Sloppy reporting from Bob Nightengale and some weird Dodger conflict.
Otherwise, all quiet and extremely awkward with everyone confused about appropriate Shohei coverage.
Reporters genuinely conflicted about how to handle what appeared to be a bizarrely delicate situation.
(This is my working theory.)
So Rob (again, working theory) gets Shohei to agree to commit to signing before the weekend.
Rob then gets that information public through his own channel: MLB web link.
They break that news yesterday and a bunch of shit flows downhill.
That’s what Rob did yesterday.
He got Shohei to give a date and those chips fell.
Just a working theory.
But my sense tells me Rob intervened in some capacity on behalf of the greater good of baseball.
Meanwhile Adam Silver’s making geo-political moves and preparing to lead the first installment of a surveillance-heavy global government.
But Rob Manfred’s a bad guy?
myfuckinass
We’re really off the rails here.
My point is that the Winter Meetings are hard/impossible to control.
This week was off to a shitty start.
And scout’s honor, I think the Cubs end up #1.
I think this Saturday afternoon during Army-Navy, I’m gonna get a notification.
BREAKING: The Chicago Cubs and Shoheyman Ohtani have agreed on a 10 year contract worth $535M.
It’s gonna be fuckin awesome.
And for that, I thank Rob Manfred first and foremost.
