July 29: Instant Gratification: Now Even More Instant-Er

It's official. The future is now. Books and articles have been written about the impact the Internet has had on Generation Now. Every day more and more people were getting their news via the Internet and morning papers were going by the wayside. How could getting the news on the Internet get any faster? It couldn't, right? Wrong.

I don't "tweet," but I am on Twitter. For those of you that aren't members, it may seem pointless, but trust me, it's pretty cool. The way it works is a user has 140 characters to write a message. These messages can be anything from an update of events planned to a link to an interesting website. Other Twitter subscribers can then "follow" these updates (or tweets) and have each tweet sent to their Twitter account. Confused yet?

Let me try to clear things up. Let's say I have five friends that have Twitter accounts. These friends find me on the website and click the follow button by my name. Now every time I send a tweet, it is forwarded to each friend. If I decide to tweet, "I'm going wakeboarding tomorrow" that message will be sent to my five followers and they now know that I'm going wakeboarding tomorrow. I don't follow any friends or send any tweets myself, but I do follow the Padres, Major League Baseball Trade Rumors (MLBTR), Funny or Die, and a few others. And here is where today's topic comes into play.

The MLB trade deadline is on Saturday and teams that are chasing a division title are scrambling to beef up their rosters. The fun thing about Twitter is that anytime MLBTR or the Padres representative catches wind of a rumor, they can tweet via text message and that message will be instantly forwarded to me. I could speed things up even more by having all new tweets sent to my phone, but I choose not to. I was, however, at my computer when the rumors of Miguel Tejada being traded to the Padres started surfacing.

At first it was a forwarded message from a Padres' writer stating the Baltimore Sun was reporting he had been scratched from tonight's game. Could this mean he had been traded? Then it was a similar message from MLBTR followed by another Padres' tweet about a Minor Leaguer in Baltimore's system being scratched. Could this mean he was being promoted to replace Tejada? Within five minutes and three tweets of speculation later, MLBTR broke the story that the deal was, in fact completed.

In between tweets I kept visiting MLB.com to get an official word, but received nothing. It wasn't until about a half an hour later that MLB had updated its website and mentioned the trade. One could argue that without the Internet, there would not be Twitter, but the fact remains: A medium that is replacing newspapers with instant gratification has now become even more instant.

July 25: A Curse or a Blessing?

At the trade deadline in 2009, starting pitcher Cliff Lee was a part of a five player deal that sent him and outfielder Ben Francisco to the Philadelphia Phillies from the Cleveland Indians. Lee finished the season with a 7-4 record and a 3.39 ERA and helped the team to its second consecutive World Series appearance. He wasn't a slouch in the postseason either. With a cumulative ERA of 1.56 in five games pitched, he won four of his decisions with two complete games; one of which was in the World Series against the eventual champion Yankees.

On December 16, the Phillies traded their recently acquired ace to the Seattle Mariners in a nine player deal that landed them starting pitcher Roy Halladay from the Toronto Blue Jays. Suffice it to say, Lee was shocked when he heard the news. Arguments could be made that the Phillies would never have gotten as far into the playoffs as they did without Lee and here they were trading him away less than two months later.

Lee packed his bags and moved his family once again to a new city. What did he do for the Mariners? He only went 8-3 with two no decisions, held on to a 2.34 ERA and struck out 89 batters while only walking six. He did this all while Seattle flushed their season down the drain and sank to the bottom of the American League West. Then on July 9 the Mariners sent their ace to their division rivals; the Texas Rangers.

5,402 miles in 343 days. That may not seem like that big of a deal, but when you factor in a person's family, the stress of finding three new places to call home, moving belongings three times, and getting acquainted with three new cities, it becomes a "big deal."

You might be wondering why a player of Lee's caliber would be traded so frequently given his consistency to put up such good numbers during the regular season and prove to be a valuable commodity during the postseason. It's simple. A player that's as good as Cliff Lee at the ripe age of 31 and approaching free agency is a terrifying thought for any team employing the left-handed pitcher. 2010 marks the end of Lee's current contract which means that teams can bid on his services at the end of the season. A proven track record guarantees top dollar for those services and if a team isn't confident in being able to retain him beyond the expiration of his contract, trading him to a team that is willing to give up top prospects to acquire him makes the most sense for the good of the organization.

Today, starting pitcher Dan Haren was traded from the Arizona Diamondbacks to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. It's not quite the same situation as Lee's because Haren is in the middle of a long-term contract but it got me thinking. Is it more of a curse than a blessing to have so much talent? A player with such ability will eventually get paid millions upon millions of dollars to flex that talent, but what kind of toll does that take on a person and his family?

Until Cliff Lee can sign that contract and include a no-trade clause, he is at the mercy of whatever current club he's with. On one hand, the chances of him being traded to a contending club are pretty high. More times than not, a team at the bottom of its division won't trade away the farm system to acquire a pitcher they'll more than likely lose at the end of the season. A team that feels it's one piece away from having a championship club will gamble a few of its prospects in the hope of winning now. The Mariners knew they were out of contention so they sent Lee to Texas for some pieces that might help them win in the future. Instead of pitching in meaningless games, Lee is instantly a part of a team making a run for the postseason.

Hundreds of millions of dollars to have to move the family across the country multiple times within a short period. Cliff Lee will get the contract this offseason and he'll move his family once more; until, that is, the twilight of his career when a team is desperate for pitching. Is having the talent to make teams drool with dreams of pennants and trophies a curse or a blessing? I wish I could tell you.