Before James Shields can eat his first plate of Kansas City barbeque, David Price has assumed the role of : If a big market team needs a pitcher is David Price available???? Every trade rumor this season will involve David Price. The Rays can stop the rumors by stating David Price will not be traded this season. But you know what? He is available... So Ken Rosenthal, Buster Olney, Peter Gammons, Chris Rose, Kevin Millar, John Kruk will have David being traded to team A for Player B all 2013..... Get ready July 31 David will be linked to the Rangers, Reds, Dodgers. Angels, Tigers, Cardinals, Nats, Braves, and Brewers...

Not.

Hope Not. Don't want it. Don't like it. But Rosenthal's already asking David how long he will be with the Rays. Rose and Millar saying Rangers missed out on Greinke and Hamilton they need a big splash : How about getting David Price?? Olney tweeting if Greinke is worth $ 24.5 million a season how much is David Price going to get??? This is who the Rays are. A revolving door....

Well ... if the arbitrator gives him over $10 million this season .. and he has as good a 2013 as his 2012 ... then only the select fatcat, big-market teams will have the moola to afford him from that point on. But ... that's how the Rays are constituted to operate: find, draft and develop top-shelf pitching and defensive talent ... use them until they get too expensive ... and then trade them to get the offensive players they need. That's how the small market, low-budget MLB world goes around!

But always looming is the title "also ran".

In any sport ... college and pro ... the way it's constituted among the reporters, commentators and talking heads today ... and given the way the "playoffs" at every level have been expanded, puffed-up and promoted ... no team "making the playoffs" is considered an "also-ran"! They're referred to as "playoff-caliber teams" ... and considered to be at the same level of that one team that happens to almost coincidentally win those playoffs.

Are ALL NINE of this season's MLB playoff teams who didn't win the World Series simply "also rans"? And do you really think that the Giants were clearly 'the best" team in all of baseball this past season? Really ... it's all just rhetorical ... or academic.

For me ... if the Rays continue with winning regular season records ... contend for the AL East Championship almost every season and actually win it once-in-a-while ... and actually make the ten-team playoffs with some notable frequency ... that's all I'm looking for. most of the time today winning a World Series, a Super Bowl or March Madness is more luck than anything else ... like winning the lottery.

Any team to me in any sport that does not win the top prize is an "Also ran"..Any horse that does not win the race so to speak..

A very different approach than the Toronto Blue Jays with the same attendance and the same deep pockets from ownership...

They will be improved but not enough to win it all..

Blue Jays not done yet. They are on the inside track to pick-up R A Dickey

He had an amazing year but at 39 I'm not too sure he will repeat in 2013..I admit I'd like him to stay in the NL..

Well, then, most sports teams, amateur and pro, are "also rans" ... and since only one of us can become presdent once every four years ... we're also a country FULL of "also-rans".

BUT ... for example ... there are 34 college football bowl games full of "also-rans" ... but many will end up being ranked ... second-, third-, fourth-best, etc. ... and each will take home varying amounts of millions of dollars ... and will consider themselves "winners" ... and that's pretty true in pro sports, too, where the teams in the playoffs, even by losing, garner recognition as second, third, fourth-best teams ... and also take home extra piles of cash ... and ... of course ... any horse is capable of NEVER coming in first in a race ... but ... nevertheless ... with all second and third-place finishes over the year ... still being the year's TOP money winner. And that can happen in other sports, too, e.g., golf, tennis, etc.

In a situation such as Division I college basektball ... with some 325 teams annually vying to become "National Champion" ... it's silly to really believe that the team that wins that tournament each year is NECESSARILY the "best" team.

In all of these situations ... too much "luck" and a combination of random operative circumstances involved combining to determine who "the winner" is.

Well, it boils down to one perceiving whether the game is either played with a ball, glove and bat ... or whether it's a game ... like Monopoly ... played with money. Personally, I hate the version that's played with money.

I agree ,Unless you own Boardwalk or Park place..

Well, I dunno! Donald Trump once owned much of Boardwalk and Park Place up in Atlantic City ... but was still forced to declared bankruptcy there two or three times since the early '80s! (???)

However, MLB does have a Monopoly ... iron-fisted control over its thirty franchises with no competition or outside influence allowed. So ... maybe monopoly-money is really where it's at, today! (???)