MLB allows Red Sox a 41-man roster

Well, try as I might, I just cannot see how this is an acceptable contract under Major League Baseball league rules. Andrew Miller, the once-promising Tigers prospect who flamed out in Florida, has signed a minor league deal with the Red Sox. He could have gotten major league contracts from the Pirates and Indians of the world, but he's with the Red Sox.

That's something baseball can't fix. People will take less to win, just the same as the Heat loaded up on decent veteran players who decided to take 50% or greater pay cuts to play with Wade/James/Bosh.

Miller's contract, on the other hand, is not the same thing.  The contract he has with the Red Sox is egregious and unfair to the game.  If the Red Sox put him on the major league roster, he gets $1.3 million.  Fair enough. If he then gets sent to the minors, because he can no longer be optioned, he would have to be designated for assignment and, therefore, made available to all teams.  But in this case, it's different. If he gets DFA'd and someone claims him, he has an option for $3 million that vests for 2012.  In other words, the Red Sox have a ready-made 41-man roster, because they can take him off the 40-man at will, so long as no one feels interested in paying $3 million for a player the Red Sox deemed unworthy of playing in the majors.

That MLB allows this kind of provision defeats the entire purpose of being designated for assignment.  The 40-man roster is supposed to make it so that teams like the Red Sox will occasionally have to lose off 26th men that might prove to be solid roster pieces -- or even starters -- for lesser clubs.  Instead, it will just make the rich richer -- players will sign these poison pill contracts with the teams they don't want to leave -- the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Phillies -- but the Indians? No way.  Bud Selig needs to exercise his authority to act in the best interests of baseball and void the contract.

As a side note, this blog will now be mirrored at MLBLogs

Indians sign Orlando Cabrera

You know those environmental ads from the 1970s that had an Indian (given what this blog covers, I should emphasize that I mean a Native American and not, say, Rico Carty or Rick Manning) seeing a polluted and litter-covered landscape shedding a single tear? (Well, I don't, not really, I was born in 1980.)  But, since for some reason I am culturally aware of them, that's pretty much the response I have to the latest Indians signing.  It takes such little effort to not litter, to not spew toxic pollution into the sky, and to not sign Orlando Cabrera. And yet people do these things anyway.

Which, whatever, I'm sure there's a reason to sign Orlando Cabrera to a minor league deal, let him come to camp Grudzielanek-style, then release him in May despite the fact that he's playing better than the alternatives (again, Grudzielanek-style) to make room for a worthless player like Luis Valbuena to negative-WAR his way through the season. The move also means that the Indians could move Asdrubal Cabrera back to second base and see if that helps their woeful infield defense or it means that Orlando Cabrera is a candidate to replace Jayson "The Head Lice Eliminator" Nix.

Nope. Wrong (major league deal). Wrong (won't play as well as Grudzielanek, who was an experienced 2B and a career 90 OPS+ player, well better than Cabrera, though Cabrera has a chance to notch an extra-base hit this season -- more than Grudz did in his 30 hits last year). Wrong (AsCab's staying at shortstop). Wrong (reports have Cabrera playing second base). 0-for-4. Well, that looks pretty much identical to what Cabrera's statline will 4 days a week.

So let me be the first to say...Ugh.