I know I am getting older but I miss the old days of baseball especially when I hear things like todays announcement by ESPN that the Twins have avoided arbitration with starting pitcher Francisco Liriano by signing him to a $5.5 million deal for 2012. Liriano was terrible in 2011 pitching a total of 134.1 innings and putting up a 9-10 won/lost record with a 5.09 ERA and a 1.49 WHIP. Now days that earns him a $1.2 million raise, in the good old days this would have earned him a 25% cut. That is the way things are today I guess, not only do we accept mediocrity, we actually reward people for it. Sad, just plain sad…..