Attention All Parents: Teach Your Kids How to Pitch

As a parent to two future MLB All-Stars and hopefully two future members of the New York Yankees I consider myself to be one of the most blessed individuals on this planet Earth. Whether they grow up to be baseball players, doctors, lawyers or business executives (five bonus points to the first person to get the reference) I will be proud and honored to be their father as long as they are happy and as long as they do it the right way. That doesn't mean I won't slightly nudge them as early as I can and as often as I can towards the baseball goal, especially after this offseason. Growing up I was always a shortstop with little interest in playing any other position but I may start teaching my children how to pitch.

If this offseason has told us anything it's that if you can get guys out at a decent clip at the Major League level you are going to get PAID. Look at the numbers handed down this winter already. David Price set the tone with the largest contract ever handed down to a pitcher with $217 million while Zack Greinke got the highest average annual value out of his $206.5 million contract that allows him to pull in well over $30 million every calendar year. Jordan Zimmermann got $110 million after a down season in Washington while Johnny Cueto got $130 million with elbow concerns and seemingly an inability to recreate his dominance from the National League to the American League. Jeff Samardzija was possibly the worst pitcher in the American League in 2015 and will begin a contract in 2016 that will pay him $90 million over the next five years while Mike Leake will get $80 million for being a middle-of-the-rotation type starter. Wei-Yin Chen got $80 million also with a sixth year option deal with Miami while Ian Kennedy, who was home run prone in MLB's equivalent to Yellow Stone Park in Petco, got $70 million.

Owners are either crazy, desperate or out of control. Or maybe it's all three. There is an absolute ton of money coming into the game right now and these owners are not scared to spend it on starting pitching right now. If my son's want to play baseball, great. If they don't that's great too but if they do I am teaching them how to pitch, and pitch left-handed at that. I want an early retirement.