SB Winter Meetinsg

Baseball's Winter Meetings are taking place this week. The way I see is if these multimillion dollar teams, players, and low life agents can have a convention to wheal and deal why can we?  I mean with have suits and sweaters

 

and can get together to make moves. So without much further ado let's use MLB as a template and set up a Softball Winter meeting Agenda

Agenda Item #1 Introduce media lightning rod and controversial manager 

•  Red Sox hire Bobby Valentine and Miami Marlins hire Ozzie Guillen

•  and after a 6 month hiatus softball manager Dio Jackson is now back
  

Dio

looking to take the championship reigns back

Agenda Item #2 - Big Money spent on Free Agents

• Papelbon, Bell, Reyes, Pujols, Fielder, Wilson all have or are going to get paid

• In Softball, the rich will always get richer
  

  

 Agenda Item #3 - New Stadium used to attract players

• The Marlins use their impressive new dome home
  as a selling point

• In softball 28th street will be back which will definitely bring in and back former players

Agenda Item #4 - Bidding Wars on Top Players

• Scott Boras types going to try and drive up player prices
• In softball top impact players are at a premium and the Recruiting Game is ruthless

 

Agenda Item #5 - Young Players

• The days of trading off your entire farm system are over. Young players are durable and affordable.

• In Softball Young players are not only the future

but can also courtesy run. The market for these players is important because it represents an out of the box recruiting strategy.

Big Apple Rookie of Year Christian Goris, 2nd from left

as you try and lock in players who are hitting their peak

Competition is especially complicated for these guys. A topic for another day.

Agenda Item #6 - Older player market

• Big Papi, Vlad, Thome find it harder to get big deals or promised playing time as Dh types get flexed on

• In softball, studs of yesterday like Tommy Helegson have been forced to take short term deals with winless teams like the Legends to prove their worth
  

Agenda Item #7 - Thin Pitching Market

• CJ Wilson offered a 6 year deal, Ridiculous. People Always overpay for pitching
• Softball is the same. Most pitchers (not all) look to stick up the market for the highest bidder. Someone always caves in

Agenda Item #8 - Rumors

• Players, fans, bloggers, agents, GM's, owners, reporters are all like high school girls passing notes. They love rumors, bitch style
• Everyone in softball loves juicy rumors, drama  and gossip (bochinche in Spanish). It's part of teh social element.

Let the Softball Hot Stove begin