Mondesi = Malcontent

It's bad enough the Pirates have to compete with teams that have payrolls that are three times (Philly's), four times (Red Sox) and six times (Yankees) larger than their own, but to have a player quit in the middle of the season because of purported threats to his family, only to have him re-sign with another team a few weeks later is nothing short of disgusting.

Raul Mondesi did just that last week when, after the Pirates cut him for breach of contract, he signed a $1.75 million deal with the injury-depleted Angels. Luckily, Mondesi had a lucid explanation for his little hiatus:

"Now everything is getting better, so I decided to sign like 10 days ago. I said I wanted to go back and finish strong...My mind is so much better. Two or three weeks ago I was thinking too much and sometimes got a headache a little bit. Now everything is fine..."

Yeah, everything's fine if you're an immature, selfish 34-year old baseball player. The Pirates got left standing at the alter and it doesn't look like there's anything they can do about it. You could falt the Angels for signing Mondesi, but if they didn't another team would have.

Either way, this is a classless move on Mondesi's part and his lack of commitment shouldn't be rewarded with a $1.75 million payday. But I guess anti-Mondesi fans can take solace in the fact that he'll underachieve in Anaheim, just as he's done everywhere else, and will probably be out of baseball (again) before the end of the season.