[pgjocki]

Thanks everyone for the feedback, to recap I made the following moves and learned a couple of lessons:

Moves:

1) Benched Cabrera for two weeks to allow him some time to ponder why he suddenly forgot how to play baseball. (didn't work)

2) Designated him for assignment to AAA after 5 more games of horrific play. (still didn't work, he couldn't beat out the scrub there for everyday playing time)

3) Called up two young guys and gave them a chance. (they performed better but not at Cabrera's 2014 numbers)

4) Missed the playoffs and now with a mad owner just one year removed from the World Series will trade Cabrera and $10 million cash to take Beltre's contract. (will see how this pans out)

Lessons learned:

1) Never overpay for past performance. While I consider 27 years old to be a good age for a position player who might have between 7-10 years left it doesn't make much sense to be paying max dollars for the backend of that deal.

2) Never give into the players demands for a long term deal. I think my new house rule will be 5 years max on any deal.

3) I don't want to be the Marlins, which means if I make a poor decision then I have to live with it unless I am willing to trade for another teams bad deal.

4) Have patience through slumps...but this is extremely hard when dealing with a position player with a negative WAR. I called up two guys from AA who both played better defense and had a higher batting average to finish the season off.