If I Wrote This, You Would Laugh Me Off This Blog

Attacking the local media is usually Big Al 's territory, but I just read something that is so brain-dead that I can't keep quiet about it.  (And since Big Al is filling in here for the next two weeks, maybe this will serve as something of a warm-up for you.)

Eric Pate (formerly of Booth Newspapers, and perhaps still of WDFN - I'm not sure)  "guest blogs" at the Freep, where he posted one of the most nonsensical suggestions I've read this season:

For the record, I’m sure happy that I’m not Dave Dombrowski.  But if I were, the first move would involve moving Gary Sheffield and a combination of a utility player or farmhand for a quality major league starter.  I’ll let the pundits define who that might be, but the starter is essential.

I'm sure Double-D will get right on that, E.

I don't know if I qualify as a "pundit," but please allow me to try and play one right now.  No one is going to be able to define what kind of "quality major league starter" the Tigers would receive in return for Sheffield, because such a player doesn't exist.  There's not a team in Major League Baseball that would make that trade today. 

Sheffield can't throw a baseball right now, and can barely swing a bat every other day.  Who's going to take on a player like that, let alone give up a starter (position player or starting pitcher, Pate doesn't say) for him?  This isn't the NBA, where you can trade for an expiring contract, then use it to clear room on your salary cap.  Oh, by the way, Sheffield's contract runs through next season.

This is exactly the sort of thoughtless hackery that traditional media so often accuses bloggers of spewing.  (I suppose Pate can always say, "Well, it's supposed to be a blog!  I can write whatever comes to mind!"  Yes, but what if it's mindless?)  This is the kind of "idea" that makes sports talk radio hosts hang up the phone.  Yet there it is, right on the Detroit Free Press website.