...whenever a mainstream sportswriter evaluates teams' offseason activity, he or she always thinks it's a good idea when a team signs a big free agent, or trades prospects for veterans, or does something stupid rather than just doing nothing?
Can anyone explain to me how the White Sox had a better offseason than the A's? If there's a coherent argument to be made there, I'd love to hear it. The A's won four more games than the Sox last year and play in a weaker division, and Chicago finished 24 games out of first last year. And yet the A's wound up with Chicago's entire farm system. How does that benefit the White Sox? Can someone explain this, please? And how did the Nationals, who won one of the most lopsided trades in recent memory, do worse than the White Sox? I'm mystified. To this guy's credit, he does skewer a few veteran acquisitions, but only a few, and a couple of them are just gratuitous slaps at guys who've been implicated in the steroid scandal.
By the way, this writer ranks the Pirates' offseason 28th in baseball. It's about 99.9% certain that if the Pirates had signed Luis Vizcaino and Johnny Estrada, they'd be in this guy's top 20.