Re: Travis

["Lance Jacobson" <lancejacob@xxxxxxxxx>]

Joe Hironika posted a terrific analysis of the actual dollar costs of Rodney (Roy)
Rodgers after he rode out of town on his horse Silver (Benz).

No question that Pond was shuffling his cards and shifting his gaze as he recited the
costs in his off-the-cuff (but don't look up my sleeve) references to the millions of
dollars he was being "responsible" for.  Sounds like a Clinton budget manager to me.
I'm just tired of the spins these guys are putting on deals that could have been
forecasted a year ago, long before Rodney came up as a prospect.  So WHAT if the TV
revs dropped the cap a single Million.  How does THAT translate into a $16M expense on
a guy that Wallace supposedly spent 4 months wooing AFTER the trade?  It's a whole lot
of crap, and it's insulting to have to digest.  I've written before that the next
owner's being insulted too, because the cap that's being met THIS year is at the
expense of any roster moves for 4 years!!!!!!!  Won't the next owner look at the nice
bottom line for 2002 and ask about the future commitments?  No other team has made
such a large and long term (and risky, based on Baker's value) commitment to three
players, yet Simmons believes the team's for sale and these moves were made to that
end.

I don't buy any premise of cost-containment, because we've given so many inexpensive
picks away to get mediocrity (Delk) as a result.  Rumor has it that we may show
interest in Alvin Williams for EWill and a pick--didn't we essentially walk away from
AWill for the guys that got us EWill straight up?  Point is, we need to draft players
that are ready-to-play, not projects, because we kill their value here.  JJ and #22
plus $1M in Randy's cap relief for Delk and a few playoff wins?  Puh-lease.

It's a sickening equation when we cry poor and give away top-25 draft picks by the
bushelful. And we still don't know what Kedrick's all about.