The Curt Schilling deal will no doubt be a topic of conversation among George Steinbrenner and his inner circle. The Yankees will hasten to sign Gary Sheffield, Bartolo Colon, LaTroy Hawkins and anyone else they think will restore the AL balance of power to New York.
Today, Boston is the clear favourite in the division. The difference between a healthy Schilling and John Burkett has to be more than six games, and Curt's DL stints last year had nothing to do with age or mechanical unsoundness: he had appendicitis, then some combination of getting hit by a pitch and punching out a Questec camera broke his hand. The Red Sox lineup that smashed even the '27 Yankees hitting records will return more or less intact.
Peter Gammons raves (again) about GM Theo Epstein, and makes several other points about the trade, dropping a line of particular interest to Jays fans.
Toronto's future, meanwhile, is looking better all the time.
I'm pretty sure that Gammons means their obsessive focus on the 2004 brass ring will ultimately weaken both the Yanks and Sox, just about the time that the Jays' prize prospects begin to arrive. That's how I see it, too. Although a softer early schedule might help them contend during the first half of '04, it would take an unexpected collapse by one of the "Beasts of the East" for the Fighting Jays to make the postseason.
Sooner or later, gutting the farm systems will take its toll on Toronto's rivals. Trading Casey Fossum, Brandon Lyon and lefty prospect Jorge De la Rosa (ESPN's John Sickels recently called the latter "one of the few young players they have that other teams are interested in acquiring") effectively cleans out the promising pitchers in the Sox organization. One reason they could outbid the Yankees for Schilling is that Brandon Claussen was already shipped out to Ohio in the Aaron Boone trade.
Gammons also suggests that most of the bounty (such as it is; I'm not a huge fan of Lyon or Fossum) received by Arizona will end up in Milwaukee, in a deal for Richie Sexson. It makes sense; the Brewers get cheaper, which is always their goal, though they may be a force in a few years when all their kids mature. Meanwhile, the Snakes can at least point to a new slugger as a decent return for Schilling.
For anyone wondering how Richard Griffin can spin this news into another backhanded slap at the Blue Jays, here you go:
In one fell swoop, the win-cheap cult of A's GM Billy Beane has lost one-third of its membership, leaving just the founder and J.P. Ricciardi to soldier on.
In Griffin-land, by paying big bucks for one of the game's premier starters, Theo Epstein is no longer included as a GM who openly embraces the sabermetric approach. What a crock. It's not like the Red Sox were in the "win-cheap" category last year. Epstein operates by the same principles as Billy and J.P., with a bigger budget. How hard is that to understand?
Every seat in Fenway Park is filled, and they can't build new ones fast enough. John Henry is committed to winning right now. Oakland and Toronto do not enjoy the same revenues, and can't afford the same expenses. Saying that Beane and Ricciardi are merely "soldiering on" implies that they haven't been successful, which is ridiculous. One club is a perennial contender, and the local nine is in the best shape it's been in for ten years.
However, Schilling coming back to the AL does tilt the playing field. The inevitable responses from Team Steinbrenner will make it that much tougher for Oakland, Toronto and the rest of the league to win in 2004. By 2005, the BoSox will have to dig much deeper into the vault, or say goodbye to Pedro and maybe Nomar, and the Yankees will be that much older. I'm not ordering my SkyDome playoff tickets just yet, but the Jays are poised to be in the hunt for the rest of this decade.
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