{"id":49506,"date":"2023-08-03T15:27:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T20:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=49506"},"modified":"2023-08-04T15:27:09","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T20:27:09","slug":"now-heres-a-guy-that-doesnt-play-by-the-hour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=49506","title":{"rendered":"Now here\u2019s a guy that doesn\u2019t play by the hour"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"That doesn\u2019t work for me, hermano<\/a>: Detroit Tigers pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez uses no-trade clause to block trade to the Los Angeles Dodgers; cites family and not wanting to uproot and move them in the middle of a season<\/span><\/p>\n

At first glance, I want to applaud E-Rod for doing what he did, because I always have a ton of respect for professional athletes who see the world beyond money and accolades, especially those with families who have to think of other people than themselves but usually don\u2019t, because they\u2019re chasing money and accolades.\u00a0 Rodriguez is entirely within his right to cite family reasons for blocking a trade, and fans of either team don\u2019t have to like it, but need to accept that he did it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The thing is though, in this particular situation, the Detroit Tigers are third in their division, comfortably out of contention at this point of the year, and were obviously trying to sell any useful assets like Rodriguez to start planning to re-tool for the future.\u00a0 The Dodgers however, are first in their division and based on recent history, are more or less a sure-fire lock to be playing in the playoffs for the chance to go to the World Series.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s not like E-Rod was being traded to a team on the cusp, and would need every bit of contribution from him to fight and claw their way in, the Dodgers wanted E-Rod to help them maintain their playoff position and improve upon their playoff performance from the year prior.\u00a0 For the professional athlete who wants to achieve championship glory in their careers, Rodriguez kind of let a gold-colored ship sail, even if I do have respect for the consideration he took for his family.<\/span><\/p>\n

The thing is, trades and moves happen in every single professional sport, and are very much an everyday part of life in the business.\u00a0 For every E-Rod that uses his family as a reason to not accept a trade from a basement dweller to a contender, there are 20 other trades that happen on the day of any sport\u2019s trade deadline of guys who pull the trigger and go, either because they don\u2019t have a no-trade clause and have no choice, or they want the opportunity to go to a contender and possibly win a championship.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those players\u2019 families often times just stay where they are, while the player that moves either picks up an apartment, stays with a teammate or family or friends that might be in their new teams\u2019 cities and agree to kind of live out of suitcases for the next 2-3 months until the season wraps up, and then figure out what to do with their lives which is usually easy, because professional athlete salaries make it really easy to move around.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what I\u2019m really getting at here is that although it sounds all altruistic and sacrificial that Eduardo Rodriguez cites family values as his basis for not accepting a trade to the Dodgers, I also think there\u2019s a part of his unspoken rationale that involves simply, not wanting to deal with the pressure, expectations and very likely additional workload of contender\u2019s baseball.\u00a0 Because I feel like nine times out of ten, other players in similar circumstances takes the trade, because they want the opportunity to play for a championship.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here we have an example of a man who doesn\u2019t work by the hour, and only wants to work the workload for the money that he is making, and nothing more than that.\u00a0 By no means is he poor, as he\u2019s making $14M this season, and has $49M more he\u2019s contractually obligated to.\u00a0 But it also sounds like he doesn\u2019t want the immense pressure of working in Los Angeles, where the fickle fanbase is expecting another championship, versus the low-key, non-contending Tigers, where he can take the hill every five days, put up the stellar numbers he\u2019s putting up this year, and coast his way to the end of September where his season is over, and he can begin a relaxing off-season with said family.<\/span><\/p>\n

Either way, good for E-Rod.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know too much about his financials prior to starting this post, but now that I\u2019ve gotten a look at his numbers, I can\u2019t hate on a well-paid guy that just wants to chill his way through a career, and is completely comfortable and at home pitching for a non-contender like the Tigers, and doesn\u2019t feel like dealing with the pressure and bullshit of playing for the Dodgers.\u00a0 He also probably has a reservation at Disney World for October, and he doesn’t want to give it up, because the Food & Wine Festival really is the best thing there.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That doesn\u2019t work for me, hermano: Detroit Tigers pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez uses no-trade clause to block trade to the Los Angeles Dodgers; cites family and not wanting to uproot and move them in the middle of a season At first glance, I want to applaud E-Rod for doing what he did, because I always have … Continue reading Now here\u2019s a guy that doesn\u2019t play by the hour<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[62,79,205,83,58],"class_list":["post-49506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-baseball","tag-cashmoney","tag-mlb","tag-observations","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49508,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49506\/revisions\/49508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}