Jeff Sullivan wrote Tuesday in Fangraphs an interesting piece about the Tigers signing former Wolverine/brand-new Rosebud Justin Upton. I want to say two things about this:
First: NOW Upton becomes a Tiger? It’s been so long since I had a high-profile Tiger — since Alan Trammell, maybe, in the old league? I had Jose Iglesias last season, which was nice, but not the same thing. Rats.
Second: Sullivan describes Ilitch as being essentially without financial limits. Ilitch is 86 and famously wants to see his Tigers win the World Series before he dies. Which could be any time. So Ilitch has every incentive to spend endlessly for this season (or, to give him credit, the next two seasons) and completely ignore what happens to the team after than when, very likely, he’ll be dead or senile.
Since Ilitch doesn’t plan to stick around, he’s willing to consolidate several teams (the 2017, 2018, 2019… 202n Tigers) into one team (the 2016 Tigers). Since the other MLB owners are unwilling to torch their futures so completely, they are not playing the same game as Ilitch.
It’s like Ilitch is on steroids for owners. Who cares if what Ilitch is doing will kill him (or the Tigers) in three years? He wasn’t going to live that long anyway! When the doctors give me six months to live, what do you think will happen to the ice cream consumption rate in the Mock household? Well, that’s what’s happening to Ilitch’s consumption of cash, and that’s why the Tiger lineup is beginning to look suspiciously muscular.
Notice we haven’t invited Mike Ilitch to join our league. Who’d want him? We do have a salary cap, so there’s a limit to the shenanigans Ilitch could play with the EFL. But there are still ways to concentrate much of your next five years of talent into this season.
We can tolerate a little time-shifting when a pennant-fever-crazed owner is going to have to endure the barren wasteland he makes of his future. But when he’s planning to be out of the league soon? Maybe we need a new rule that
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OK, I’ve had one of those epiphany things, just now. I was about to suggest a rule barring trades to any owner whose actuarial table looks too grim, or with a medical diagnosis of impending death.
But, you know, on second thought that sounded heartless. I mean, if you look at it really closely from a certain point of view.
This league would probably want to be generous toward an owner whose time was almost up.
In fact, if all of a sudden people start offering the Wolverines star players on expiring contracts for the W’s budding prospects and draft picks, I’m going straight to my doctor to ask him what they know about my prognosis that he isn’t telling me.