The Buck Stops Here

Baltimore manager Buck Showalter surely isn't afraid of speaking his mind, but he might end up regretting his most recent comments about Theo Epstein and Derek Jeter.

Apparently, Buck Showalter is the new Rex Ryan of baseball.

Taking a page from the rotund, loud mouth coach of the New York Jets, Showalter made waves with his mouth last week when he made a series of disparaging comments about his two biggest rivals in the AL East, the Red Sox and Yankees. Entering his first full season as Manager of the Baltimore Orioles, the 54-year-old Showalter drew the ire of Sox and Yanks fans alike when he called out Theo Epstein and Derek Jeter in a recent interview with Men's Journal.

"I'd like to see how smart he is with the Tampa Bay payroll," Showalter said of Eptein. "You got Carl Crawford 'cause you paid more than anyone else, and that's what makes you smarter? That's why I like whipping their butt. It's great, knowing those guys with the $205 million payroll are saying, 'How the hell are they beating us?'"

And of Jeter: "He's always jumping back from balls just off the plate. I know how many calls that team gets- and yes, (he) ticks me off."

Coming from a guy who carries a pedestrian 916-856 career record behind the bench, you would think Showalter would wait until the Orioles actually leapfrogged Boston and New York in the standings before engaging in a war or words with his two biggest division rivals.

Not so. It appears that Buck is indeed both loud and stupid.

Not only do his remarks about Epstein completely demean the brilliance of an executive who made the most of what he was able to work with, but Showalter also fails to acknowledge the very reason why Boston must shell out big bucks for five-star free agents in the first place: The Yankees. The Red Sox don't choose to spend the equivalent of some third world country's GDP just to acquire a 28-year-old, power hitting first baseman, they simply have to in order to compete with the Yankees.

And furthermore, as much as the Evil Empire single-handedly destroys the balance between big and small market clubs, they do play within the rules. Baseball has no salary cap. To boot, the Yankees not only carry the highest payroll in the league by far, but they also pay tens of millions more in luxury taxes.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

I don't see Showalter complaining about revenue sharing after his team inks Vladimir Guerrero ($8 million) and Derrek Lee ($13.25 million) to lucrative one year deals. The Pittsburgh Pirates and San Diego Padres couldn't afford that. The Orioles can. It's all relative.

And of the Jeter comments, you'd be crazy not to side with the living legend on this one. Showalter was a career minor leaguer who got his nick-name because he apparently walked around the locker room "buck" naked after games. Derek Jeter is the modern-day Babe Ruth about to crack 3,000 hits. He's an 11-time All-Star, 5-time World Series Champion and 5-time Gold Glover. And he has a career average of .314.

Most of all, Jeter plays the game the right way. So stop complaining about how he takes pitches, Buck. I think he has a pretty good grasp of the strike zone after 16 spectacular seasons in the Bigs. And stop complaining about the state of baseball's unbalanced economics, you just seem jealous that the mid-market teams have to settle for the Guerrero's and Lee's of the world while the big boys ink the Teixeira's and Crawford's.

But go ahead, Buck. Keep Talking.

And just like Rex Ryan, see where it gets you.