And The Favre Rolls On

While the press seems to be taking sides on the whole Brett Favre thing, I’ve been mostly ridiculed for my decision to return to my previous job as a stockboy for a local grocery store. But I’ve got this fire inside me that I can’t get rid of just by sitting around and drinking beer with my pals.

Seriously, though, Favre has to respect the fact that he signed a contract to retire, and then decided to officially announce his retirement in front of a national audience. Whatever he’s done for the team historically, he’s still an employee of the Green bay Packers and needs to accept the fact they would rather have him more as an insurance plan than their starting quarterback. Maybe they can trade him to a better opportunity, but the team also has to act in a manner that benefits themselves.

Unfortunately for Favre, most of the blame for the Packers’ stance has to go on his own shoulders. If he hadn’t spent most of the previous offseasons jerking the team around on whether he was going to retire or not, the team may have been more willing to work with him on returning to football. But his own dawdling probably forced the team’s hand in making sure they had an adequate back up plan in Aaron Rodgers.

If the Packers remain unwilling to unload Favre on another team, I hope that he can amicably accept his position with the team and even possibly return to the team as a back up to Rodgers. Since the Packers seem unwilling to completely release Favre as a free agent, maybe he can put his money where his mouth is and go play in the Arena league or something. Either way, its time to have an offseason where the worry is not on Brett Favre’s availability, but on the success for the Packers’ themselves.

Summer Months

With the summer coming to an end, I’m starting to get ready for college sports to start up in stride. With the summer sports slowly coming to an end its starting to shape up that my favorite teams are in a bit of a bind. The Red Sox are struggling to overcome “America’s Team”, the Tampa Devil Rays and the Cincinnati Reds just plain continue to suck.

Following the Red Sox gets hard after a certain period of the season, Theo Epstein seems to make good decisions and the ownership is willing to seemingly do whatever it takes to get the players it needs to improve the teams, which leads the fans subject to hoping for good luck in terms of injuries and the other teams in the division. With the Rays keeping their young talent rolling along and winning I can’t help but wonder at what point Boston will have to look towards winning the Wild Card. Tito Francona has followed with his plan of looking more towards he long haul instead of pushing to win every game of the season–which is good, but there comes a point at which you have to wonder when a strong push for the postseason becomes more worthwhile. I assumed the Rays would eventually fall off the earth and their young pitching would stop being effective, but so far it hasn’t happened.

The Reds on the other hand are in the opposite end of the spectrum. For another season in over a decade it looks like Cincy will have to decide whether to buyers or sellers at the deadline with another season passing them by. Past GM moves by Castellini has made following the team even harder to swallow. As much as a I like seeing the ownership profess a dedication to winning, knee jerk moves in the name of “competing” has once again brought a new regime to the Queen City–bringing a new “plan” and new names along with it. At what point do you accept that rebuilding will take years and that you need a guy patient enough to accept losing for a season and building a strong nucleus that will help the team to contend in 2009-10. Unfortunately Krivsky has been let go and Jockety is now in charge of helping to update the young guys enough to build a playoff caliber team.

Now, do the Reds trade Dunn or Jr. to help their young nucleus or do they try to keep both and possibly get quality draft picks? In my opinion it’s worth keeping a high priced player such as Dunn in order to keep some sort of veteran presence(and of course the Reds don’t have a strong outfield prospect in their minors to take over for him). I think you gotta try and get whatever you can for Griffey, while still maintaining enough salary room to sign Dunn in the offseason and bring in coaches who can bring along the young pitchers and hitters on the big team and let them advance. Give the youngsters a chance to develop while they’re still in your control and look to compete in 2010 with a marquee free agent signing in the next couple of years. Try to give Jr. away to a place that’ll let him play without the fans getting on him like they have in Cincy(probably Tampa) and look to take a little less back in players in order to let go of some payroll in the future. Try and sign Mark Teixera or someone similar and use the young pitchers you have now to build around. Move Votto to right field or left field and keep Keppinger in short. The defense will take a hit, but as long as you upgrade the offense by bringing in Teixera or a good hitting catcher(although I would like to see the Reds sign a catcher that is better defensively and can catch the ball on a play at the plate, unlike David Ross and Paul Bako).

With that happening the Reds can hopefully bring in a veteran pitcher for leadership after the 2009 season and bring the young guys to a new level in their development. With a team only needing three strong pitchers in the postseason, you can easily build around Cueto and Volquez with a strong veteran pitcher to pick up the slack when those two struggle.

And if all else fails, there is of course always college basketball season to look forward to in the next couple of years…