MITCH BLATT

So Cliff Lee just chose the Philadelphia Phillies over the New York Yankees, who were offering him more, and returned to his former team from 2009.

Naturally, a player not signing with the team with the largest payroll in baseball and the largest expectations in any given year, after playing for the Texas Rangers for half a year, is the same as LeBron, having played for Cleveland for his entire career, leaving Cleveland in a nationally televised “Decision” to play with two friends who decided to play together for an easy championship. The only comparison is that Lee changed teams in free agency. And that he used to play for Cleveland.

The ironic thing is that if he went to the “Evil Empire” Yankees with the highest payroll in baseball, Lee wouldn’t be being criticized by the baseball media. (I don’t imagine many fans are angry at him for not signing with the Yankees.)

A run down of some of the conspiracy nuts trying to link him with LeBron:

A Henry Abbot reader mail:

The longtime Clevelander became a very hot commodity, and had a lot of options this summer, and he chose the power team.

So … did we learn that there’s something wrong with Cliff Lee’s character? Is he not a true competitor? Is he some kind of fraud?

Um… The Indians traded Lee in 2009. They didn’t even try to sign him this offseason. Then he pitched in the championship in 2009 and played for two teams in 2010. Now he’s returning to his former team to win the championship he didn’t win in 2009, something LeBron didn’t do.

Also, it might help some of my Lee/Bron readers if I explain a few differences between baseball and basketball. Baseball has 9 players on the field at one time, basketball has 5. In baseball, a pitcher pitches in a rotation once every 4 or 5 games. In basketball, a player plays every game he’s healthy. In baseball, the offense goes in order, with each batter batting 3-5 times a game. In basketball, the offense is all on the court at the same time. A basketball player can take over a game and carry a team. LeBron James had a crappy Cavaliers team playing .500+ his whole time in Cleveland. The best a pitcher can do in Washington is win them 10-15 games if that teams offense can score 2 or 3 runs each game.

Oh, and did I mention again that Lee never played for the Rangers for his entire career, wasn’t as big of a star as LeBron, and didn’t make his decision on national TV? No one is criticizing LeBron for leaving Cleveland, but people are criticizing LeBron for leaving Cleveland while announcing his decision on national TV while joining a ready-made group of friends who are presumed to be champions.

And that’s something even Michael Jordan can attest to.

“I would never have called up Larry [Bird], called up Magic [Johnson] and said, ‘Hey, look, let’s get together and play on one team,’” “I was trying to beat them.”

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

SCOTT JACOBS

Yesterday it was Tim Lincecum.  Today it was Cliff Lee.

And you know what the two had in common?

Few even noticed.  Look, winning the CY Young is a great accomplishment, but two things take the luster off of their achievement.  First off, their teams stinked.  The Indians and Giants were blips on the relevence radar after about a month and a half into the season.  More importantly though, the award is given so late in the year, that it’s practically forgotten.

I will never understand why baseball hands out its post-season awards two weeks after the World Series.  As you saw this year the Fall Classic had minimal buzz, so why in the world would you hand out your most prestigious award (arguably) after most of the world has already tuned out?  So what to do?  Here’s my suggestions:

1. Hand out the freaking award during the playoffs.  The NBA may have an incredibly long playoff system in place, but they do have one thing right: they hand out their awards during the heat of the moment.  They crown their best during the best time of their season.  And that’s what baseball needs to do!  Announce the CY Young winners during the ALCS and NLCS.  Give away the MVP award before game one of the World Series or game two.  DO something, anything, but giving it away two weeks plys after the season has reached it’s conclusion.

2. If you’re going to hand out the awards after the season, do it one week after.  Allow it to be fresh in people’s minds.  Most sports fans have moved on to the NFL, College Football, and the NBA (Sorry hockey), and baseball for now is at the bottom of the totem-pole.  Why?  Because this is when the sports season heats up like no other time of the year.  So don’t wait for your sport to be forgotten.  Do it when it’s fresh!

I don’t think I’m asking that much here.  I really don’t.

But baseball has a funny way of doing things differently, so maybe it is fitting that they’d give out their awards long after everyone has moved on.