Cliff Lee signs with Phillies for $30 million less

Normally I don't blog about baseball. Not my favorite sport to watch though I enjoy the stats and normally too much dominated by the Boston-New York rivalry to the detriment of every other team in the league. Tonight, Cliff Lee rekindled some of my interest by turning down $30 million dollars to sign where he was most comfortable: Philadelphia.

Of course, Lee is still going to be very well paid. In fact, he will make $120 million over the life of his five year contract. Still, he is the first player I can remember to turn down that kind of money. Also, it wasn't just the Yankees that he turned down. Last season, Lee pitched Texas to the World Series and the Rangers aggressively pursued him matching the Yankee offer. It didn't matter.

Lee always said he really enjoyed his time in Philadelphia, short though it was, during the second half of the 2009 season. It seems he was most certainly telling the truth.

As for the teams involved, now what?

For the Rangers, they need a front line starter. Trading for Zack Greinke of the Royals looks like a possibility as they have the ability to add his salary and the prospects in their farm system to make the trade.

For the Yankees, the offseason is now a failure. Greinke isn't an option there because of his anxiety disorder and the lack of prospects in the Yankee farm system. There is no backup plan. There is also no ability to really add offense to overcome probable pitching woes with Carl Crawford off the market and Adrian Beltre not an option because of Alex Rodriguez's presence at his position. The Yankees will still likely make the playoffs though as Tamp Bay rebuilds, the Blue Jays continue to spin their tires at the 85 win, good team, no playoff level they have been in for much of the last five years and the Angels having just as bad of an offseason meaning the Wild Card is still probable.

In Philadelphia, the Phillies now have the best starting staff we have seen since the Braves were in their hey day. Cole Hamels, the 2008 World Series MVP is now the 4^th starter. Lee, one of the three best pitchers in baseball is the number two starter behind Halladay, the best in the game. Roy Oswalt also remains on the staff and he is the 3^rd starter. This is just an embarrassment of riches. In fact, if the Phillies offense rebounds to anywhere near pre-2010 levels, we are likely looking at the best regular season team in years and the first 100 win team in the National League since the 2005 Cardinals.

Weekend Review: Non-College Football Edition

Things here at aubievegas tend to get skewed heavily towards college football, especially in season. That said, there are other things going on that are important. Here are some things that caught my eye outside of college football over the weekend.

The scoring of the Evan Dunham-Sean Sherk fight at UFC 119 was terrible, but its not entirely unexpected. Cecil Peoples was a judge and he has been involved in more high profile judiging screw up and controversies than any other judge in MMA. For the record, Peoples was one of the two judges that gave the fight to Sean Sherk over Dunham and he is also the only judge who I can identify by name because he has been involved in so many issues including the Bisping-Hamill and Machida-Rua fights that went to controversial decisions. It's too bad too because the judging ruined what might have been the only truly good fight of the night.

The baseball pennant races are missing something. We have an all-out sprint to the finish between three teams in the NL West and a close race in the AL East. The problem is there is no urgency yet. In the Al East, the outcome only matters for which team hosts game seven of a potential LCS between the Rays and Yankees. Nothing more. In the NL West, the wildcard fallback along with the Braves involvement in that race actually takes away something from the race. As long as there is a wildcard, we will never see another race like the San Francisco-Atlanta pennant race in 1993.

Why did the Chargers kick to Leon Washington again? He had already taken one back for a touchdown. Once a guy takes one back in a game, the rule should be to kick away from him for the remainder of the game. Instead the Chargers kicked to him again and paid for it with a 1-2 start that might actually hurt them since they have already lost a game to the 3-0 Chiefs.

The main event of UFC 119 between Frank Mir and Mirko CroCop was atrocious. Nothing happened at all during the fight except Mir's knee to finish the the fight and the boos were loud and warranted. It was so bad that Dana White didn't give Frank Mir a Knockout of the Night bonus despite being the only knockout of the night.

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Is replay really the answer?

For those who don't know, last night in baseball (yes I'm referring to baseball here for once), there was a terrible call last night that cost a pitcher a perfect game. The call can be viewed here.

With that missed call, the first thought many had was, "Why is there no instant replay to change the call?"

While instant replay will likely be expanded in baseball at some point, I come to argue that its not always the best thing. We can even screw up instant replay. Dr. Saturday over at Yahoo Sports has his opinion on it looking at the Oregon-Oklahoma onside kick controversy in 2006.