Jacoby Ellsbury: Mercenary

The Boston Globe has it right:

“Jacoby Ellsbury was never soft, but deal with Yankees proves he was a mercenary.”

It’s pretty crazy that Ellsbury has now become the first free agent to ever sign with a team that offered him a lot of money. A shock to the system given that Prince Fielder signed with the Tigers in 2012 for a bag of baseballs and a daily smile. Or knowing that Manny Ramirez signed with the Red Sox in 2001 for three hot dogs and a pair of shoes.

I am not a fan of Jacoby Ellsbury, for entirely I-made-a-fantasy-baseball-mistake-with-him reasons (I dropped him in a 13-keeper Scoresheet league, in favor of Austin Jackson, right before his 2011 breakout season, because I am bad at fantasy baseball), but that doesn’t mean I think it makes him a bad person to take the $153 million being offered to him and run, run, run into Adrian Beltre and Reid Brignac. The owners are certainly “mercenaries.” It’s a business. This is capitalism. He has every right to be celebrated for being a mercenary, not criticized for it.

Unless, of course, the Boston Globe means the other definition of mercenary, and Ellsbury has been hired for service in a foreign army… in which case, good luck to him! Though I expect, given his history, he may get injured in combat.