Cliff Lee’s shocking signing with the Phillies means there’s a new team to hate in baseball, and yet another reason why the sport desperately needs to get this one-sided spending under control

SCOTT JACOBS

Move over New York. Stand aside Boston. There’s a new team to completely despise in Major League Baseball.

They may play in the City of Brotherly Love, but there is no longer anything to love about the Philadelphia Phillies.  Once the team that couldn’t get over the hump, the Phillies are now the team that buys the hump, builds an estate on it, and leaves anyone who may have been living on the hump left to dry.

Yup, the same team that was once supposedly done in by the Curse of William Penn now has the best rotation money can buy. And it’s NOT the Yankees. Nope, the Bronx Bombers were spurned by Cliff Lee in favor of baseball’s newest, scariest machine, the Fightin’ Phils. And while you’re at it, can you get me some Peptol, cause I think I’m going to be sick.

While you were sleeping or maybe while you were awake, the Phillies locked up another ace to another huge contract confirming that not only are they willing to spend, they’re willing to buy anything in sight.

The scary part?  Their offer wasn’t the richest.  It wasn’t the flashiest. But in one sudden, out of nowhere swoop, the Phillies locked up former ace Cliff Lee to a five year deal (with a vesting option for a sixth) faster than the Rangers could drop their glass and scream “what the f&%$ just happened?”

And just like that the winner of the Cliff Lee derby is baseball’s newest enemy. Baseball’s biggest bully is no longer the Yankees. In fact, in a matter of a few stunning weeks they may not even be in the top two anymore. With Boston putting together a sensationally scary offseason of their own by landing Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford within days of each other, the Yankees are having well, an invisible offseason.

Texas’ offseason just went to, well insert the word here.  New York, I hope you had a Plan B.

And with their latest offseason coup the Phillies have decided that they’re no longer playing with the Big Boys, they’re right in line with the Big Boys. Sitting at the grandest table with all the highest rollers, they’re no longer the tier 2, step below the other guys franchise. They are at the top. Where the air is crisp, and money is no object.

We expected the Lee bidding to end with him going to the Yankees. But with news of him spurning the Big Apple for the cracked Liberty Bell, this is scarier than we could have imagined.

Lee. Roy Halladay. Roy Oswalt. Cole Hamels.

O. My. A. God.

In the matter of barely over a year, the Phillies have put together a rotation that only money could buy. And buy they did. They whipped out their fancy credit card and they haven’t looked back ever since. Like a gold-digger trying to take advantage of the trusting, lonely old man, the Phillies have taken the massive loophole that is baseball’s lack of a salary cap, and they’ve spent more than the monopoly man.

Forget houses. Forget hotels. We’re talking dynasty. A pitching staff from 1-4 unlike anything baseball’s modern era has seen. Pockets that go six feet deep. The Phillies are no longer hunting. They’re killing.

With the addition of Lee they have a mortifying four aces on one roster. What is this Fantasy Baseball done with one guy who doesn’t turn his computer off?  This is ridiculous. Insane. Horrific. The worst thing to happen to the competitive balance of the National League since… The Big Red Machine!

But that team was groomed. Players came through their system. They worked their way to the top.

This team is nothing but an unlimited checkbook and a thirst for blood.Philly red is now blood red.

How can baseball continue to let this go on? How can a sport so proud of its tradition and old-school ways continue to let this separation between the have-everythings and the have-nots spiral out of control?  How can baseball watch as teams like the Padres with loyal devoted fan-bases trade away their best player after falling short of the post-season by one game? How!

Damn it! I want answers.

Hate the Miami Heat all you want, but they did it within a salary cap. They choose to play together. The consequences? They had to fill out the rest of their roster with a mostly less than enviable cast. They can’t make trades because they have no one that anyone wants besides their core five.

The Yankees? The Phillies? The Red Sox? They have the other 27 or so teams to pick away at, like vultures at a rotting carcus.

Is this what baseball wants?

The Rays had to let their franchise cornerstones go because they couldn’t come anywhere near close to affording them. In fact, after winning the previously unwinnable AL East in two of the last three years (which one day we may look back on as the least heralded accomplishment of the decade) the Rays got to watch as home grown talent Carl Crawford flocked to the green (monster) and the free spending Boston Red Sox.

How can Pittsburgh compete? What has it been, like 20 losing season in a row or something like that?  How can the Diamondbacks, who once were part of this group of free-spending, free wielding teams and now find themselves constricted to making every long contract a smart one, compete?  How can the Marlins (even when they get a new stadium in 2012) compete?

What about the A’s? The Royals? The Brewers? Dare I go on?

I know the high spenders don’t always win it all. That’s why watching a team of relative unknowns from San Fran win the World Series was the coolest thing (even though it got the most putrid of ratings), but the law of averages is eating away at this whole semi-parity thing. Does baseball want six superteams and a bunch of backdrop teams fighting and clawing, but to no avail? Or does baseball want a sport where players flock to cities because they like how  a team plays, or the city that they play in?

How did we reach a point where so many MLB franchises ended up at the kids table? Grilled cheese for you. Lobster tails and kobe beef for the adults.

Sure, teams like the Nationals and White Sox try to compete, but they’re a handful of bad deals from crippling their franchises for the next ten years. The Phillies, Yankees, and Red Sox? Eh, what’s another $20 million?

It’s like in law. When you commit a crime and then buy the best defense to disprove it? Well, in baseball now you can buy a defense, offense, and hey, even a pitching staff.

And hey, Philadelphia, while you’re at it, I hear Albert Pujols is set to hit the open market soon.  You’ve got $200 million to spare. Right?

Photo: Getty

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