Fred's Ramblings

The end of Shohei Ohtani’s six-year run with the Los Angeles Angeles has come to pass and he now begins a new chapter in his career as a Los Angeles Dodger. He has signed a 10 year deal worth $700 dollars that is supposedly heavily deferred allowing the Dodgers to remain competitive in the free agent market going forward. That at least indicates that Ohtani’s desire to be on a winning team was real. He will likely become the next Bobby Bonilla, collecting a yearly salary long after he has retired.

Now come the questions…Is he actually worth that kind of money considering the injuries he has had lately. It is common knowledge that he will not be pitching in 2024, already placing him in the “normal” category of many other free agents. Assuming he will be able to pitch in 2025 and beyond, you have to assume that the $700 is money well spent. Time will tell however and history has shown that these long term contracts turn out to be albatrosses in the latter part of the deal.

Spring training is not that far away and as a Dodgers fan, I for one am looking forward to the coming year. Now to get some pitching to go along with the offense. Let’s Play Ball…

Another College Football Playoff, another chance for Alabama to win the National Championship.

After this year’s selection committee decided to give the 4th seed to Alabama instead of Florida State, you have to seriously wonder if College Football is run by the SEC in general and Alabama in particular. There is absolutely no reason (other than money) that Florida State should have been left out of the Championship tournament. They went undefeated, beat number 16 Louisville for the ACC championship and were rated highly for strength of schedule. Alabama , meanwhile lost to Texas. Yes, they beat Georgia but they still had the one loss. This is all about the money because Alabama has the “bigger” name and are expected to draw a better TV audience than Florida State would have been.

The selection committee however, decided in their own mind that Alabama is the better team but in this case they weren’t better than Florida State. At this point, what is the purpose of the regular season if after you accomplish everything you are supposed to accomplish, you still don’t get a chance to play for the national championship. I will own up to the fact that my interest in college football is pretty low and I only pay attention to the final weeks of the season, but this decision has really soured me on college football and I don’t believe I am the only one that feels this way.