Baseball, Training Camp and Mid-Ohio

It's a great week when the baseball trade deadline coincides with the start of NFL training camp.  IndyCar put the exclamation point on a good week.

The trade deadline for Major League Baseball, and a flurry of deals puncutated the week.  Always happens around the deadline, but this year, there were a couple of differences.  First, the Reds and the Tigers were big sellers, the former losing the best half of their rotation by moving Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake, while the latter dropped David Price and Yeonis Cespedes.  Those deals moved a boatloat of salary, the true bottom line in today's Major Leagues.  I was surprised to see the Padres  and the Indians were not selling. Some talent with salary could have helped another team win and score some prospects to help rebuild.

Second, Small Revenue teams were the big buyers.  The Toronto Blue Jays made added Price and Troy Tulowitzki which could shorten the gap between them and at least a Wild Card.  Cueto moved to the Royals, something that might have just made them the prohibitive favorites for the American League Pennant.   The Pirates, while they were mostly second line players, did pretty well.  Unusual to see the lack of a big move from the Big Revenue Clubs: The Angels, Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, White Sox and Cubs made, at most, role player moves.  The Cubs standing pat surprised me.  They could have used Cole Hamels or David Price (Cueto would be off their list because the Reds probably wouldn't deal within the division.)   Dan Haren is a good starter, but they needed a little more quality to strengthen their move for a Wild Card.

Third, the sheer volume of deals was based around the almight dollar.  Losing teams move salary that they can't sign again, and winning teams should have the revenue to make a winning move on the field.  I might have expected teams like the Diamondbacks or Indians to be a little louder, but they were pretty quiet.

We'll see how this plays out over the next two months.

-NFL Training Camp opened.  How is this any different from Mini Camp, Team Camp, Veteran Camp and Rookie Camp?  Only that there is a season attached to this one.  Expect a flurry of cuts and pick ups.  Note to the Seahawks: Get Kam Chancellor in camp.  Richard Sherman needs the running mate.

The NFL is pretty clinical anyway.  Ever watched a family doctor at work?  It's boring.

-IndyCar continues to produce the goods with the Honda Indy 200 today at Mid-Ohio.  Lots of close racing, exciting passing, and strategy galore resulted in a win for Graham Rahal.  The season championship is less than ten points between Juan Pablo Montoya and Rahal.

Opposed to NASCAR's yawn fest at Indianapolis last week, IndyCar has real tight racing, which the in car cameras capture in vivid detail.  Americans are starting to come to the fore in IndyCar, too.  Ryan Hunter-Reay has won the Indy 500, Rahal in the top five in points and won twice, Joszef Newgarden has won twice, Marco Andretti has the big name and everyone hates Sage Karam, which means he is young and talented.  Look for some American dominance, maybe in the final two races.

Unfortunately, Pocono is three weeks away and the season finale at Sonoma is the week after that.  John Oreovicz has the best job in the world!

So...am I off base?