Today is the last day of 2010, which means that tomorrow is the first day of 2011. And with a new year, will eventually come another baseball season (not to mention tomorrow’s Winter Classic between the Penguins and Capitals). It was unfortunate that last season was actually more fun to follow, when it was other teams besides my own Diamondbacks. I sit here, typing this post in a coffee house in Chandler, Arizona, wearing a Dbacks hat and a 2011 All Star Game T-shirt (which will be at Chase Field), but somehow, I wonder why. The Diamondbacks were terrible last year, finishing a disappointing 65-97, and yet I stay D-voted. Why? Well I guess it is for the same reason that anybody still shows up to A’s games, or the same reason that the Orioles are still allowed in the AL East (I’ll touch on that in a moment).

The new GM of the Diamondbacks has added nine players, and has also relinquished nine. Some of the subtractions include Adam LaRoche, Rodrigo Lopez, Aaron Hielman, and Mark Reynolds, while the additions include Xavier Nady, Henry Blanco, Geoff Blum, Zach Duke, David Hernandez, and Melvin Mora. Ouch, sounds like the replacements don’t quite add up to the guys that are leaving. I guess we will have to trust the GM that was with the Padres for nine years and built the bullpen that wasn’t backed up by their offense last year when the Padres fell just a few games shy of the playoffs. But the only relievers added have been David Hernandez and Kam McColio. Who? That’s right. PEOPLE WE’VE NEVER HEARD OF. I would love to see a Grant Balfour come in, but we settle for the crap that the Orioles gave us as compensation for stealing away Reynolds. I just hope everything works out for the best, but I guess that’s what an offseason is. Hope.

So, now what? The Orioles have Mark Reyolds. Is that really going to be enough to beat the greatest team of all time in the New York Yankees, or last year’s AL East Champion Tampa Bay Rays, or 2007 World Series Champion Red Sox (Who added Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford)? And that brings me to my newest complaint. I am so tired of the Yankees. The Yankees win, earn money, use the money to get the best players, the new players help them win, then they get more money. And even though in theory, any team could do that by having just one good year, the Yankees seem to have built such a dynasty and such a “biggest-kid-on-the-block” type of team, that they might not ever lose. It’s pretty hard not to win when your team’s lineup looks strangely similar to last years AL All Star Lineup, and your team is in a city where selling out games isn’t even news, its just something that happens… everyday.

I really don’t like the idea of a salary cap, I think it adds pressure and complications to GMs, and I think having a salary cap means teams who had a successful year aren’t rewarded as much, in other words, they can’t use their good year’s earnings to go get the Carl Crawford’s and the Cliff Lee’s, because other teams still have a chance at getting those players, even if that team didn’t have as good of a year. Maybe in some ways that is a good thing, but I don’t like that type of ceiling. However, with that being said, it is still very necessary to have a salary cap in order to take down a team like the Yankees. It is the only option, otherwise teams like the Orioles will be terrible forever. Quite honestly, a three-team AL East of just the Rays, BoSox and Yankees would be still plenty of exciting. Toronto and Baltimore should just be… the AL Sucky, or something like that. I don’t know. But the Yankees are way too much of a powerhouse, that will dominate for as long as time will allow. If Bud Selig doesn’t stop the Yankees domination and place a salary cap, then there may not ever be an end to the unfairness that has been in the AL East since… who knows? Maybe even since the days of Murderer’s Row.

And speaking of Bud Selig, I have another bone to pick with him. All star voting is out of control. It seems like every day, baseball fans are getting stupider. I talk to fans at the ballpark who haven’t heard yet that Luis Gonzalez is retired, or think that Curt Schilling is the best second baseman to ever play for the Diamondbacks. Yet these baseball “fans” who don’t know anything about the team they call theirs, these are the ones who decide who go to the ASG. But even more than that, I’m tired of the NL All Star Lineup looking like the Phillies lineup, and the AL All Star Lineup being the Yankees Lineup, except Ichiro instead of Nick Swisher. This is what bothers me. It was especially upsetting last year when I saw the 34 year old Placido Polanco go the game. Other than that, It’s pretty much just Utley, Victorino, Howard, Jeter, A-Rod, and Teixeira going to the game every year, even though Utley had a sub-par year last year, for example. Take Chris Young for example. He is, without a doubt, the best defensive Center-Fielder in the game right now, and one of the best offensively. And even though he did barely squeeze his way in to the game last year and go to the homerun derby, he wasn’t in the starting lineup. If he was on the Phillies- oh my god. He would be the damn king of the world. So Bud Selig, PLEASE take away the right for fans to vote on the All Star Game. It is extremely unfair to teams with legitimately good players who are very worthy of a spot on the roster. Let the BBWAA vote on it. That seems much more fair.