Now The Shields Trade Makes Sense

Context. All we needed was a little context. The Royals needed to appear more competitive in order to attract top FA talent.

Or mortgage a big, bright chunk of their future for a chance at 81 wins in 2013.

Or something.

Non-Sense

Once a year ... once every two weeks. 差不多, right folks?

Disclosure: I am a frequent patron of MLB Trade Rumors and Fangraphs. How frequent, you ask? I'll put it this way, I was living in Taiwan in 2008. So prepare for my articles to reference those sites now and again.

Now that that's out of the way, here's a musing of little consequence:

A recent headline from an MLB Trade Rumors' article set me off a bit. Here it is, along with the first paragraph. Read carefully:

The Key "Non-Moves" Of 2012

As the cliche goes, sometimes the best moves are the ones you don't make. Some teams greatly benefited by standing pat on certain trades or signings during the past year while others may have hurt their prospects for the 2012 season and beyond by not striking when the iron was hot. Here is a list of some of the most intriguing non-moves (the good and the bad) of 2012...

Pretty innocuous, right? But the quotation marks stand out a bit, no? They always catch my eye.

So my initial thought was: Incorrect use of quotations. Plain and simple.

The article is a list of literal "non-moves." Granted the term isn't real, but the implied meaning behind the term is literal, and no one is being quoted ... so no quotation marks necessary, right?

And then a thought occurred. A "non-move" can't really exist. It's like choosing not to make a choice. Choosing "not" to do something is still doing something. So maybe the quotes were meant to imply sarcasm after all. This line of thought is seemingly reinforced by the first line of the article, invoking the adage "the best moves are the ones you don't make."

Great. Sarcasm and correct quotation usage after all! Wit on the Internet!

Unfortunately, I continued reading.

The last line of the first paragraphs once again employs the (non)-term "non-move" -- but this time without the quotes -- suggesting the author simply added them the first time around because he was trying to be clever. Or simply didn't know any better.

Thanks for nothing, Internet.