Coming into the 2016 season, common wisdom had the Phillies as an ongoing laughingstock and the Braves taking a short hiatus before returning to contention at their new stadium next year.
What I saw was a rebounding Philadelphia squad already populated by many of the young players who would rescue them from oblivion, and a Braves team utterly abandoned by its front office and left almost completely without Major League assets.
Not Peachy in Georgia
That's not a knock on the Braves front office, just an acknowledgement that they've stripped the roster of talent, forsaken a perfectly comfortable 20-year-old stadium, jilted downtown Atlanta for the suburbs and left a Triple-A team on the field.
Besides Nick Markakis, mysteriously signed to a free agent contract last year before losing all his power, and the young tandem of Freddie Freeman and Julio Teheran, the latter of whom has scuffled early this season, there's not much big league talent. Management has its eye on 2017 or 2018, this year be damned.
Frankly Scarlet, They Don't Give A Damn
Which is why it's so sad to hear the Braves' broadcasts and talk to Braves fans. They suffer every loss, which have been legion; every opponent rally, which has flowed like honey; and every exhibition of ineptitude, which promises a spring, summer and fall of more torture. Still just April, the announcers are already running out of expressions of woe. It seems they aren't aware that this is just part of the plan and there isn't any purpose to agonizing over what doesn't even rattle the bosses. Frankly, Scarlet, they don't give a damn.
The Braves have plenty of talent down below and figure to be, at least, a representative team in the coming years. The Phillies, it appeared to me late last season and is now more evident, have a year or two head start. So really the only difference is that the antacid sales have moved south.
Whatever else you want to say about Jon Singleton, he's a millionaire ten times over.
Singleton is a 22-year-old, 6'2", 255-pound behemoth called up to play first base this week by the Astros after he agreed to a team-friendly deal that guarantees him $10 million over the next five years and could lock him up for another three at well-below market rates.
Singleton was battering Triple-A pitching while Houston first basemen were making their own Triple-A case. The team offered Singleton the contract with the proviso that he would get promoted if he signed.
Teams have lately offered these risk-reward deals to their prospects before they reached arbitration. Offering it pre-promotion is the next logical step.
If this deal appears weighted towards the club for a phenom there are two good reasons for it. One is that there are holes in Singleton's swing. He may very well exit the yard his share of times but struggle to put distance between himself and the Mendoza line.
Another is that the California high school product is an admitted pot addict who returned from rehab last year in worse shape than when he entered. He may have been selling low on his own stock.
Why do it then? Because the call-up to the Bigs was contingent on a contract. Give Houston brass credit for working the system. The Astros aren't going to compete this year, so they weren't in any hurry to promote their best farmhands.
Of course, as with all such deals, Singleton has eight figures to put in the bank if it all comes apart, and 35 of these millions if it all works out. That's a pretty good fallback plan for a youth with a spotty record.
