Source: St.迷你倉 Louis Post-DispatchJan. 16--Los Angles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw earned a seven-year, $215 million contract extension at the age of 25.That is the biggest contract, by far, ever given a pitcher. That is also the highest average annual salary ($30.7 million) given to any pitcher.This deal gives the outstanding young Cardinals some food for thought.If Michael Wacha can stay healthy, how much might he earn some day? What sort of contracts are Shelby Miller and Carlos Martinez headed toward?Kershaw is an exceptional case, of course, since he has the nastiest stuff we've seen from a lefty since Randy Johnson's heyday. He became the National League's shutdown pitcher as he edged closer to free agency.He became the top asset for a powerful franchise that is building an amazing revenue base. Given these factors, that contract is fair.But Kershaw couldn't measure up to Wacha in postseason play last autumn, so it's not like he is operating on a competitive plane beyond the reach of the young Cardinals.And that staggering salary average raises the bar for every top-of-the-rotation starting pitcher coming down the line. Many, many owners winced then they saw the number.The deal raises many points for the Cardinals:-- Management will need to dig deep in a few years and lock in as many of their top young pitchers as possible, offering them long-term deals that extend into their early years of free agency.-- The team must keep stacking up pitching prospects behind the current group, because it won't be able to keep all of these guys forever.-- Given the runaway price inflation, it's safe to saw the Cardinals will never bid on a high-end free agent starting pitcher while this ownership group is in place. This risk/dynamic dynamic is unfavorable, to say the least. The Cardinals are well-versed on pitching injuries.MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSEQuestions to ponder while wondering if the Illinois basketball team can regain its traction in the Big Ten:Why is Ryan Tannehill's wife armed for warfare? [.sportsgrid.com/nfl/ryan-tannehills-wife-leaves-ar-15-assault-rifle-behind-in-rental-car/]Is time for our court system to make youth baseball players pay a heavy price for their careless celebrations? [network.yardbarker.com/all_sports/article_external/worlds_worst_coach_sues_little_leaguer_for_celebrating_walk_off_victory/15549854?linksrc=story_home_module_head_15549854]So how do Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll really stack up? [espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/2013/story/_/id/10293011/rick-reilly-comparing-jim-harbaugh-pete-carroll]At some point, will Harbaugh's wife force him into a wardrobe makeover? [thebiglead.com/2014/01/15/jim-harbaughs-wife-hates-his-pleated-8-khakis-from-walmart/]QUIPS 'R USHere is what some of America's leading sports pundits have been writing:Don Banks, SI.com: "If the NFL playoffs were like one big family reunion every January, the New England Patriots would be those somewhat tiresome relatives who show up too often and tend to stay too long. Another deep postseason run by the Men of Belichick and Brady? Really? Already? Didn't we just see them here, not too long ago? How can we ever start to miss them if these people won't leave? Ah, but here's a novel idea: Let's take a deep breath and try appreciating their very familiar presence for a change. The unsinkable Patriots. They're always here. They're always a threat to win it all. If there's one thing about this weekend's glamor-filled final four that I think we can all agree upon it's that New England has absolutely no business being back in the AFC Championship Game for the eighth time in the past 13 seasons. Not this year. Not again. Not with everything it has endured in the way of injuries, defections and unimagined complications."John Feinstein. CBSSports.com: "Sunday afternoon in the AFC championship game. The Broncos are playing at home, they NEED to win -- or, more accurately Peyton Manning NEEDS to win -- and they are probably the better team. If that happens much of the football world will point out that the Patriots have not won a Super Bowl in nine ye儲存倉rs and that they are one year closer to the end of The Tom Brady era, which might also mark the end of the Bill Belichick era. The losses will be analyzed and a conclusion, that may very well be accurate, will be reached: the best days of Brady and Belichick are behind them. All of which will entirely miss the point. Belichick has many detractors because of his public persona: dour, humorless, unwilling to share very many real insights, paranoid. To be fair, there isn't a NFL coach who isn't the latter two. Most -- if not all -- act as if they are protecting national security secrets when they talk about their team. If there is one circle the NSA probably can't crack it is the secret society that is the NFL. Belichick takes it to another level. He is so famous for his lack of humor that The Wall Street Journal actually counted the number of times he smiled during press conferences this season: seven. And that's with a team that is 13-4."Jeffri Chadihi, ESPN.com: "San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh has been so successful so quickly that it's time to start putting his brief career into perspective. He's the first coach in NFL history to take his team to three straight conference championship games in his first three seasons. He put Stanford on a path to dominance that hasn't been seen at the school since Pop Warner was running the program. Throw in Harbaugh's three-year run at the University of San Diego -- where he won 22 of his last 24 games -- and you should get the picture. We're looking at a man well on his way to being the greatest coach of the next generation. Harbaugh's hot head-coaching career is all the more amazing because nobody saw him being this good this fast. If he can lead his 49ers past the Seattle Seahawks in this Sunday's NFC Championship Game, the buzz around him will only intensify."Eric Adelson, Yahoo! Sports: "Welcome to the golden age of quarterback debates. The nation's obsession with unending arguments and its obsession with those who throw a football for a living have merged, creating a perfect storm of intrigue and bickering. This weekend, both conference championship games in the NFL offer quarterback matchups in which it's easy to like both passers but impossible to like them both equally. You're either a Peyton Manning backer or a Tom Brady fan; not both. The next Manning-Brady divide has spawned in the NFC, where Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson are already deep into their rivalry despite having only three full regular-seasons between them. Their styles and personalities are as different as the cities they represent. Here too, it's hard to shrug and say you like them both the same."Mike Tanier, Sports on Earth: "The only criticisms we can lob at the Brady-Manning rivalry are the ones we toss at our mp3 players and fuel-efficient cars. It's sterile, professionalized and lacks romance. It is overhyped and over-engineered and tries a little too hard to get us to love it. It is so user-friendly you don't need people like me to gild it with context and mythmaking. You just turn it on and watch it. It's a steak so delicious the chef barely has to cook it and we have gorged on it for so long it is only natural to crave something else. But we're the spoiled ones, not the steak. You will be reading about this rivalry for the rest of your life, but there is nothing really left to write. Brady-Manning now speaks for itself."MEGAPHONE"There's no love lost and there's no love found. I don't know if there's going to be handshakes after this one. It's going to be intense and it's going to be physical . . . I don't hate anyone. But passion, definitely. There'll be dislike, strong dislike. It's playoff football, so there'll be a lot of intensity, anyway, even if we weren't two teams very familiar with each other. But there's going to be a lot of chippiness in a hard-fought game."Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, on the rivalry with the 49ers.Copyright: ___ (c)2014 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at .stltoday.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉最平
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