We’re all weirdoes. Truly, we are. If the collective intents of our nature were described to any of us without reference points we’d eagerly dismiss ourselves as being ridiculous nitwits. This is perhaps best seen in our eagerness to categorically judge the actions of others into being either positive or negative, with little regard given to the complications and unconsidered dynamics that destroy the unsophisticated dichotomies that we build for ourselves for the sake of simplification.
In sports, this occurs most often in “analyzing” trades and transactions. Trading Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery and Patrick Leonard for James Shields and Wade Davis is good for the Tampa Bay Rays and bad for the Kansas City Royals. I don’t disagree with such a notion, but mine is an opinion that comes with a caveat: It’s based in a vacuum context on my own limitations of understanding.
I’m not familiar with the job security of Royals General Manager Dayton Moore, other than knowing that his current contract runs through 2014. I don’t know about the pressure that ownership has placed on him to succeed right now, and I’m unaware of what other alternatives he had. It could very well be that the factors that I can’t consider were the most informing for the decision. Perhaps, all things considered, it’s a win-win situation.
Unfortunately, our minds aren’t considerate, they judge. One party is good, and so the other must be bad. As soon as we find the benefits, we lazily dismiss the other option as being a consequence. Staying within the world of baseball, we find this phenomenon occurring once again with the terms of Zack Greinke’s recently signed free agent contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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