Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

A final coda to the season

Oh yeah, I have not updated since the end of baseball season.  People keep commenting about the Yankees buying the World Series, because it’s great to hate the Yankees.  My general opinion on that is, “eh.”  It’s no secret teams with high payrolls have more success, except the Mets have the second-highest payroll and 2009 didn’t work out so well for them (24th place in win/loss); the Cubs threw down about $135 big, third in payroll size, and finished like 7th in a 5-team division.  (OK, it was 16th of 30) The Marlins were dead last in payroll and almost won a wildcard; the Mariners shed almost $20 million, but they still spent more money than the Phillies did to win the World Series in 2008.  Houston is in the top ten money served, but finished 24th.  And my beloved Rockies just barely made the top twenty in the salary department, but were sixth place overall. So more payroll means more success, except when it doesn’t.

I’m pretty neutral about the whole Yankees hate thing, except for the fact that I’m a fan of whoever is playing the Red Sox, and that makes me somewhat happy they were able to win.  But I only passively watched the games.  It seems like it was months ago that the Rockies lost, and I’m starting to get the itch, wishing I was back at Coors Field with AM radio in ear, and a bag of Cracker Jacks in my lap.  I think this will be a tough year, hot stove-wise, since a lot of my favorites from the 2007 series may be going elsewhere.  (Hawpe, Atkins, Torrealba) and some of the big weapons of this year will also wander elsewhere (Beimel, Giambi, Betancourt).  Hopefully, the owners will lock down some good names for 2010.  And hopefully, I’ll get at least one weekend at altitude to see a few games.

Until then – winter ball?  I don’t think the iPhone has an app for that…