Hope Springs Eternal, Unless You're the Mets, Sox or Cubs

When they've been after you for the millions you allegedly got your hands on through your connections with a Ponzi schemer, you're probably going to have a tough time scraping together enough cash to pay for the upper echelon of baseball talent.

The same goes if recent "spending sprees have ravaged the front office's financial flexibility" or if you're just cursed for eternity.

But as bad as things look, anything's possible. At least until the losses start piling up. It's a glass-half-full way of seeing things, for as long as the glass has anything in it.

But not everybody's walking on the sunny side of the street. Like, for example, Chicago Magazine, via Deadspin:

"Chicago Magazine makes the case that, new managers Dale Sveum and Robin Ventura notwithstanding, 2012 could be the worst year since 1980, when the Cubs and White Sox finished a combined 53 games out of first place."

The headline for that piece, incidentally, was "Folks In Chicago Preparing For The Worst Baseball Season Since The Carter Administration."

The Carter administration!?! Well, at least back then the uniforms were cool. For some people.

So play ball. The Mets are supposed to have Santana throwing this afternoon. And I like his chances better than anybody from Chicago. So let's see how this works out for us. It seems sort of promising, unless they try to deal him at the deadline.