By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
August 1, 2016
Earlier this morning, I rushed to post a response to an awful column that I believed was written by new MLive.com Tigers’ beat writer Evan Woodbery.
I make the mistake because Woodbery had Tweeted out the article entitled, “Tigers not likely to repeat sins of the past at trade deadline.” So, I ignored the byline and assumed it was Woodbery who penned the piece.
I apologize to Woodbery for nuking the poor guy when he didn’t actually write the article. Instead, it was recently promoted columnist David Mayo who showed us his ass this morning with this embarrassing drivel.
And considering Mayo has been working in the Michigan market for decades, it’s actually worse that he wrote this crap as opposed to a dude who just moved to town.
You might remember Mayo as the Pistons beat writer for MLive.com over the last couple of seasons. Or you might recall Mayo as the convict who almost lost his journalism gig because he maintained a drug house in Grand Rapids back in 2009.
And actually, since the DSR’s official position is that marijuana should be legal, Mayo’s plant-growing operation isn’t even the biggest knock against his character.
No, that would be his constant fanboyish defense of Floyd Mayweather. His coverage of the best pound-for-pound boxer this century has been absolutely embarrassing through the years.
Mayo has consistently been an enabler for Mayweather and has been more a public relations spokesman than a journalist. His “coverage” of Mayweather’s atrocious behavior towards women has been almost non-existent.
Instead, Mayo has perpetually glorified the boxer who, on at least one occasion, beat his children’s mother in front of them.
Which leads us to today. And while not as offensive as being the hype man for a serial abuser of females, Mayo’s column was outrageous in both its stupidity and utter disregard for history.
Because Mayo’s piece titled “Tigers Not Likely To Repeat Sins Of The Past At Trade Deadline” was about the most nonsensical piece of trash I have read recently. This dipshit showed absolutely zero knowledge of his subject.
I mean, I read the headline and could not imagine what this drivel could be about. The sins of the past Tigers trade deadline moves? Like, what??!!?!?!?
How could this clueless wonder not know that almost ALL of the Tigers recent deadline moves worked out extremely well, and as of this writing, none of those deals have come back to bite the team in the ass?
The sins of past trade deadlines? In this era, Dave Dombrowski almost always flawlessly added pieces to the roster without giving away any prospects that eventually burned the franchise.
Starting in 2006 with the addition of Sean Casey in exchange for Brian Rogers (who?????), Dombrowski had a penchant for acquiring key pieces for prospects that NEVER panned out.
I could go on and on rattling off the tremendous Dombrowski pick-ups that not only helped in August and September of the season in which the trade occurred, but in ensuing seasons as well.
Remember Giovanni Soto? Of course you don’t because the pitcher never made a dent in MLB after he was dealt for Jhonny Peralta. An All-Star shortstop.
Do you recall the Hall of Fame careers of Francisco Martinez, Charlie Furbush and Chance Ruffin? Probably not, but I am guessing you do remember the tremendous contributions of the man acquired for that trifecta of trash …..
Doug Fister.
That trade was so awful for the Mariners that they ended up sending Martinez back to Detroit for pennies on the dollar and Bruce Ruffin’s son QUIT on the sport not long after that deal was consummated.
Remember when Detroit News baseball writer Lynn Henning told us that we’d rue the day we acquired Anibal Sanchez? Well, how many times has Jacob Turner been DFA’d since Detroit acquired the 2013 AL ERA champion? And Rob Brantley? Pretty sure he is selling Hondas in Little Rock, Arkansas or some shit.
Jose Iglesias for Avisail Garcia? Did you like that one?
Hell, even the deals that didn’t pan out, like adding Jarrod Washburn or Aubrey Huff, did not really come back to haunt the Tigers because Luke French and Mauricio Nobles were garbage anyhow.
A decade of making trade deadline deals for the present while selling off the future has never backfired on Detroit. Now, could Willy Adames or Jake Thompson end up enjoying quality MLB careers? Of course, but even if that occurs they would basically be the first prospects the Tigers have traded away recently to make an impact in the majors other than struggling Tampa pitcher Drew Smyly, a guy who has been a disappointment this season and who might be dealt away today. And Smyly really wasn’t a prospect when that trade was made anyway. He was an established major leaguer.
And even if Thompson and Adames pan out, the blow will be softened because in the Kevin Bacon Six Degrees of Separation of baseball trades, the franchise ended up acquiring Daniel Norris, Justin Wilson, Matt Boyd and JaCoby Jones in deals that sprouted out of the David Price and Joakim Soria 2015 Fire Sale trades.
So WHAT THE FUCK WAS MAYO WRITING ABOUT WHEN HE RAISED THE SPECTER OF THE GHOSTS OF TRADE DEADLINES PAST?!?!??!!?
You aren’t going to believe this but he actually had to go back 29 years to the deadline trade of John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander. Yes. He went THERE.
Now, keep in mind that bashing that 1987 trade has basically become a Detroit sports IQ test because if you criticize the Tigers decision to send Smoltz to Atlanta for Alexander, you are a fucking moron.
What people forget is John Smoltz wasn’t a top-shelf prospect. He was a middling kid from Lansing Waverly who hadn’t made any positive impression whatsoever in the minor leagues. A 22nd round pick.
Twenty.
Second.
And the Tigers that year were in the midst of a dogfight with the Toronto Blue Jays which went down to the last day of the regular season. And without Alexander’s 9-0 record and 1.53 ERA in ’87, the Tigers NEVER make the postseason that year.
Hell, Alexander was even pretty dependable in 1988, as represented by his 2.6 WAR.
Nobody in the world at the time thought Smoltz was even a big loss, let alone that he’d develop into a Hall of Fame pitcher. Not the Braves, not the Tigers, not the baseball pundits …… NOBODY.
Crying over the Alexander-Smoltz trade during the 90s was asinine. It’s basically no different than a fan of a team other than the New England Patriots bitching that they passed on Tom Brady. Or, if you need a local comparison, lamenting that you could have drafted seventh-round pick Pavel Datsyuk.
But writing an article in 2016 (!!!!) and basing your doom-and-gloom on Doyle for Smoltz is not only tone-deaf, it basically shows that you never should never get high off your own supply.
The Tigers should buy big today. They should make a run at the World Series because, after a decade of dick-teasing, we still don’t have a ring. Just AL Central blue balls.
They have a $200-million-plus payroll and an owner who might be in hospice right now for all we know.
Go out and add a dominant starter and if it costs you Norris, Boyd, Christin Stewart or Matt Manning, who gives a shit?
Because unlike the moronic headline from Mayo today, there have been ZERO sins of the past GENERATION when it comes to trade deadline acquisitions.
At this point, we are playing with the house’s money.
Resurrecting the John Smoltz trade? Are you effing kidding me?
Go back to playing Flava Flav for Mayweather, dummy.
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