The Buhner.com Blog

I called that one, didn’t I? The Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the team with the third worst record in baseball, a team with three tradable commodities in Aubrey Huff, Danys Baez, and Julio Lugo, a team that - according to various reports - had numerous teams contacting them about the first two of those commodities (and Lugo wasn’t being overly shopped, but would have gotten decent interest if he was), made zero trades at the trade deadline. Their team is exactly the same as it was through July, on a pace to go 62-100. They are not in playoff contention, and barring a 30 game winning streak, will not be any time soon.

Instead, they:

- Held onto Danys Baez, who was in high demand from various teams, with the Mets and White Sox being the frontrunners. Baez has a 2.96 ERA, which is good. He also has a 1.86 K/BB ratio and 7 blown saves in 29 tries. That means that every four times Lou Pinella pats Baez on the butt in the ninth inning, one of those times he’ll be sitting in the dugout saying “what the hell just happened?” Baez has a club option in ‘06 for $4 million (with a $1 million buyout), and is making $3.5 million this season. He’d probably get claimed on waivers, so the Rays are either going to lose him completely without compensaion, will be forced to trade with the team that claimed him (and not get nearly the value they would have gotten pre-deadline), or will end up holding onto him and bringing him back for 2006. Since his option is 25% of his salary, you’d think that they’d pick up the other 3/4 and try to deal him again next deadline. You’d think.

- Potentially ruined one of the biggest blockbuster trades in recent history, fiddling around with the prospects they were to receive from Boston and the Mets as they tried to deal Manny Ramirez. Tampa stood to receive top prospects from both Boston (Kelly Shoppach and Anibal Sanchez) and the Mets (Yusmeiro Petit and Lastings Milledge) in exchange for Huff and Baez, but reportedly tried to sweeten their deal by asking for top Boston prospect Hanley Ramirez, to which Boston, who already felt that they were not getting the value they should be receiving for Manny Ramirez AND two top prospects, took Tampa completely out of the equation and attempted to work out a deal with the Mets alone, before finally watching everything fall apart.

Not to get things completely out of the realm of baseball, but recent hockey discussion brought up the trade of Eric Lindros to Philadelphia for six players and two first round draft picks. At the time, Lindros was considered one of the best players drafted that hockey had seen in some time (mentioned among the “all time greats”), and Quebec, the team that had drafted him, was faced with the situation that Lindros refused to ever play for them. Quebec was a horrible team then - usually one of the bottom three teams in the league, filled with very young players and a bunch of past their prime veterans. Lindros looked to be the savior of the team, but his scorn for Quebec left the team with an uncomfortable position - they would have to trade him, or get nothing.

Quebec ended up trading Lindros to Philadelphia for a package of prospects and players. Quebec took the players and put them into the starting lines - giving them a team that could immedately contend. These major league capable players, some who were free agents the following season, some who also weren’t crazy about playing for Quebec but had little choice, turned the Nordiques around and put them into the playoffs. Later trades of some of those players gave the team the basis it needed to develop into a winning franchise int he future - albeit in another city.

Tampa is in this exact situation that Quebec was in, but they have no Lindros. They have no Philadelphia to deal with to bail them out. And even if they did, they don’t have the GM to be able to make the deal and the later deals to turn Tampa into a contending team. But they keep waiting for the Lindros deal, and it’s not going to happen.

Not sure what the big lugnut is doing over in Iraq, but I finally got around to writing him. I’m such a lazy bastard. For whatever reason, I know I have to write the guy, but I can never seem to sit down and write anything anymore (evidence: this blog). I’m not really sure why. I don’t think it’s depression - I’m just not inspired to do anything lately.

That’s Kelsey Grammer at the Bridgehampton carnival a few weeks back. We were in the process of leaving when we saw him - I caught a quick pic on the cameraphone. He was there with his family, so I didn’t want to interrupt the guy, even to say that I enjoyed his work. When you’re out alone, maybe you appreciate that stuff, but when you’re at the carnival with your kids, you just want to be left alone - the torture of trying to shoot those basketballs in undersized baskets is bad enough as it is.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled gloating about Tampa to address current events.

Rafael Palmeiro, who recently hit his 3,000th career hit, who broke the 500 home run mark in 2003, failed a drug test under Major League Baseball’s newer drug policy that includes testing for steroids, performance enhancing drugs, and agents that mask them. What, exactly, Palmeiro is being accused of taken is unknown, and will likely never be known unless Palmeiro himself says what they are. Palmeiro has already gone on record as saying that he did not take any steroid of any kind. He’s since amended this statement to say that he hasn’t taken any steroid of any kind “knowingly”, maintaining his innocence despite having evidence otherwise.

The question with Palmeiro is whether or not he’s to be believed. Palmeiro’s main argument - that holds any water at least - is one of logic. Palmeiro asks why he’d be taking steroids at this point of his career. Palmeiro is 40 years old, and has admitted himself that this is likely his last year in baseball. Palmeiro’s only reason for staying, from an outsider’s perspective, is his love for the game, or to get that 3,000th hit, which would help his Hall of Fame case. Either way, there would be no reason for the steroid use - Steroids don’t help with getting base hits, and “enjoyment of the game” means just being happy to be there, which most beer league softball players would kill to sit on the bench of a major league team, having fans aska bout autographs.

But let’s play with a senerio. Perhaps Palmeiro was a steroid user in the past. With sanctions in place and suspensions looming for players who use them, Palmeiro looks at his career and decides that he doesn’t need the juice in ‘05. He’s going to go out, play every day for a mediocre Orioles team, put up numbers that are lower than his normal, but that’s to be expected of a 40 year old in his final season. He’ll get his 3,000th hit (he only needed 78), move aside if need be, and call it a career at the end of the season.

But there was a bump in the road. Palmeiro hits bad in April, putting up an ugly .247/.298/.325 line. He’s not getting the cheers that he was, and he’s losing his spot at first base and finding himself DHing more. This wouldn’t be so bad if the Orioles were in 3rd or 4th, but the Orioles as a team are outperforming expectations, despite Palmeiro’s performance. Instead of going out like a hero, Palmeiro’s being looked at as the reason the O’s are being held back. Rumors swirl that the O’s are looking into bringing in Todd Helton. If it comes down to going to the playoffs or giving Raffy his 3,000th hit, what do you think the Orioles are going to do? He saw what happened with Fred McGriff, who couldn’t get the opportunity to just hit 9 more home runs to hit 500. Already a question mark for the Hall of Fame, if he couldn’t get hit #3000, his argument would be that much harder.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. In the month of May, Palmeiro suddenly snaps out of his funk, batting .302/.412/.558 in May with 6 home runs. Dropping off a little in June, he continued his hot hitting in July, putting up a .280/.354/.472 with 18 home runs at the time of his suspension. The feel good story (he got his 3,000th hit) finally takes the hit when he gets busted.

What did Palmeiro have to lose? Perhaps he felt he wasn’t getting into the Hall of Fame without hit 3,000, and wasn’t going to get 3,000 unless he started hitting the ball better, and therefore had to take measures into his own hands. If he takes the juice, there’s three outcomes - he takes it and gets hit 3,000, enjoys a last run at the playoffs, and rides off into the sunset; he takes the steroids, it doesn’t help him, and he leaves just short (damn age); or he takes the juice, gets busted, and doesn’t make the Hall anyway (or maybe even does, who knows?) If he doesn’t take them, there’s only one outcome in his eyes - failure.

Palmeiro’s case is very similar to that of that of Shelley Levene in Glengarry Glen Ross. He tries to do his job, sees himself starting to fail, fears losing his job, and takes desperate measures into his own hands. Levene, like Palmeiro, seemed to succeed thanks to their rule-bending, but in the end, both end up getting caught in the end.

In Palmeiro’s case though, he might still get away with it.