It seems all my blogging and suggesting and hoping and praying, to both forces of Heaven and Hell, for some younger guys to get a real shot at making the Yankee rotation out of Spring Training has already done no good as Joe has all but narrowed down the ST battle for the final 2 rotation spots to 4 guys. LoHud has all the details in this post, which made me want to throw up my dinner and then knock on the door across the hall in my apartment building so I could slap the 3-year-old girl that lives there.
The biggest thing I took from this post can be summed up in this sentence from the post itself:
"... but for the most part this appears to be an open competition between four guys."
Does that statement not make sense to anybody else but me? Is this a "jumbo shrimp" situation? "Open competition" between 4 guys? THAT'S NOT OPEN!!!!
Before I delve into the stupidity of Joe making that decision, let's first examine the phrase "open competition," key word being "open." Open implies that the competition in question will welcome all participants, in this case the participants being all of the pitchers in camp right now, be they current Major Leaguers, former Major Leaguers, Triple-A guys, Double-A guys, free agents, guys acquired through trade, and all pitchers invited to camp, roster or non-roster. To say that an "open competition" is limited to 4 select people is, in fact, a completely un-open competition. It is a competition by invite only, and if you aren't one of the lucky 4 to find the Willy Wonka golden ticket in your locker then you're SOL, friend-o. In short, a competition that limits the number of participants who can participate and then automatically selects the 4 participants before the competition actually begins is not open at all.
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