Whatever, the organization that continually strives for mediocrity continues to fall woefully short. Which is why we've decided to distract ourselves from the putridity by creating a roster of non-football-playing professional athletes who would immediately make the Browns better. That's not hyperbole.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.
The Rays could not build upon their surprising 2008 AL East title and run to the World Series last year, falling from 97 wins to 84. The lineup was at least as good as the year before, but both the rotation and bullpen suffered a steep dropoff.
The offensive core is still young and in its prime and should continue to produce. And 2009 might have been the usual fall-back season that teams experience after a large jump forward.
Still, making the playoffs in the AL East means beating out the Yankees or Red Sox (or both). With Tampa Bay's payroll, that leaves little margin for error.
Carl Crawford will be in a Rays uniform next season, his last before he is eligible to be a free agent.
Tampa Bay made it official Monday by picking up its $10 million option on the speedy left fielder, who is the longest tenured player in franchise history and holds a number of all-time clubs records, including for hits, stolen bases, RBI and games played.
Crawford bounced back from an injury-marred 2008 to hit .305 with 15 home runs and 60 stolen bases this season. He also won MVP of the All-Star Game this year.
The Tampa Bay Rays are enduring a pretty disappointing season, and that's an understatement. After going to the World Series last year, they are hovering around .500 and have fallen too far back in any playoff race to have a realistic shot these last few weeks. So, obviously there has to be some frustration among players, and it appears to have boiled over in the clubhouse.
Carl Crawford, one of the team's most respected leaders reportedly "loudly confronted" free-agent bust Pat Burrell before batting practice Wednesday. There are no further details, because no one said anything other than manager Joe Maddon, who kept saying everything is fine.
Poppin' out of the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
By now we all know of the greatness of San Francisco pitcher Tim Lincecum. He's the best pitcher in baseball this season, with a 2.34 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and 233 strikeouts in 200 1/3 innings. But there's another hard-throwing young kid in the Giants organization that, like Lincecum, has a shot to be one of the league's best very quickly. He's a guy you want to burn that No. 1 waiver priority on, in case he sticks in the rotation for the rest of the season. He is Madison Bumgarner.
Poppin' out of the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
On Sunday, Ichiro Suzuki became the second fastest player to ever reach the 2,000 hit milestone as he doubled in the first inning and later scored.
It took Suzuki 1,402 games to reach 2,000 hits. The fastest was Al Simmons who did it in 1,390 games. Suzuki needs five more hits to reach 200 for the season, which would break the record he shares with Willie Keeler at nine consecutive seasons with 200.
As milestone talk goes, Ichiro is playing second fiddle to what's about to happen in New York.
Poppin' out of the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
John Lackey threw eight innings on Sunday, striking out six and not surrendering an earned run. It was his 100th career victory. He should have been the man of the hour, right?
That would have been the case had Kendry Morales not jacked his 30th home run of the season and stolen the show. At least among fantasy circles, anyway.
Morales had twelve career home runs entering the 2009 season and big shoes to fill as the Angels handed him the keys to the kingdom at first base as Mark Teixeira left for the Yankees. He's handled the task admirably batting .311 and is fast approaching the 100-RBI mark. He's also leading the league in RBI since the all-star break with 45.
As the No. 1 overall pick in 1990, Chipper Jones signed with the Braves for $275,000.
Even in today's dollars, that's about $450,000 -- or about 3 percent of Stephen Strasburg was guaranteed as this year's No. 1 pick.
And Jones agreed to his deal the night before the draft, while Strasburg came within two minutes of missing last Monday's deadline to sign.
"I think the only way that you're going to get kids signed and get them into the various camps is to put some kind of cap on it," Jones said. "I was always of the belief that you make your money at the big-league level."
That's how the teams want it too. When the current collective bargaining agreement is up in two years, Major League Baseball may pursue an NBA-style slotting system -- with signing bonuses locked in depending on how high a player is picked, as opposed to the current non-binding slot recommendations.
ST. LOUIS – With organizations re-realizing the value of defense, it was appropriate that the MVP of Tuesday's All-Star Game was picked because of his play in the field.
Carl Crawford was awarded the Arch Ward Trophy for his leaping grab in the seventh inning, robbing Brad Hawpe of what would have been a tie-breaking homer to left.
"I don't think I've ever robbed a home run before," Crawford said, "so I picked a good time to do it tonight. It's definitely probably my best catch I've ever made."
Footprints in the Snow
Carl Crawford
The 
Poppin' out of the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
Poppin' out of the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
Every Sunday, 
ST. LOUIS – With organizations re-realizing the value of defense, it was appropriate that the MVP of Tuesday's 
