Review: New Sweet Barbecue Rice Thins & Miguel Cabrera…Worth Nearly $300 Million Dollars?
Junk Food Nation, I’m heading to New York City this afternoon for a wedding, so please comment below / tweet me things to do in NYC all weekend long @junkfoodguy. It’s been almost a year since I’ve been there…time to fill up on pizza EVERY SINGLE MEAL. Ok, new plan – comment below / tweet me all the best pizzas places in NYC @junkfoodguy.
Quick sports note – yesterday, Miguel Cabrera, reigning back-to-back AL MVP and 2012 Triple Crown winner, agreed to an extension with his team, the Detroit Tigers. For a lot of money. A LOT OF MONEY. My friend Tim over at MLB Trade Rumors put it best:
The Tigers have agreed to terms on an extension with star slugger Miguel Cabrera. On top of the two years and $44MM he is already owed under a prior extension, Cabrera will be under team control for an additional eight years and approximately $248MM. All said, the Tigers will control the two-time American League MVP through at least the 2023 season, his age-40 campaign.
With those numbers, the deal would set several high-water marks. Most notably, an average annual value of $31MM would top the newly-minted record of $30.7MM set in the Clayton Kershaw extension. The figure of $248MM in new money would represent the the third-largest single contract in MLB history (and the biggest contract given to anyone other than Alex Rodriguez). With ten years and $292MM in overall future commitments to Cabrera, the Tigers stand to owe him more than any team has ever owed a single player at any point in time, besting the ten-year, $275MM Rodriguez contract in that respect.
WOW. $31 million a year??? That would make him the highest paid player, based on yearly salary, OF ALL TIME. Put another way:
Miguel Cabrera will earn $49,423 PER AT BAT over the next decade. Median annual income of a household in Michigan: $48,471.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) March 27, 2014
$49,000 per at bat???? Great googly moogly. Can…can I have that, please?
Not surprisingly, some baseball execs are appalled at this deal:
Haven't heard as much disgust over a contract from rival execs since the Jayson Werth contract. Industry is in shock over the Cabrera deal.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) March 27, 2014
(HEY YOU LEAVE JAYSON WERTH ALONE!)
I don’t really care because it’s someone else’s money, but anytime you pay someone this much money, whether it be Miguel Cabrera, or Arod, or Clayton Kershaw – it BETTER pay off. Detroit Tigers’ fans will start coming to the ballpark not only to see the team win, but they’ll also think “Hey, let’s see this player that is apparently worth $31 million a year….let’s see what makes him so special. By the way this city is in shambles.”
Granted, Cabrera is a STUD – arguably the best player in the game, and he IS one of the main reasons that the Tigers are a winning team year after year…but in six, seven, eight years? We’ll see. He’s had on and off alcohol issues, and I hope those are behind him.
The lesson for the day? Put away the basketball, football, lacrosse sticks, and tennis rackets – teach your kids to swing a bat.
What do you think of Cabrera’s deal? Tell me in the comments below.
Today’s junk food: New Sweet Barbecue Rice Thins!
New Sweet Barbecue Rice Thins: The Money Shot
I’ve reviewed Nabisco Rice Thins before, and I generally liked them! I like the gluten-free trend, because why shouldn’t people with certain food limitations not get to eat a wide variety of junk food? JUNK FOOD IS WHAT UNITES THIS WORLD.
Anyways, Nabisco has released a fourth flavor – New Sweet Barbecue Rice Thins. Let’s do a few pics and get right to the review:
New Sweet Barbecue Rice Thins: 120 cal per serving
New Sweet Barbecue Rice Thins: CHICORY ROOT
New Sweet Barbecue Rice Thins: Big and flat
New Sweet Barbecue Rice Thins were large than regular Wheat Thins by, say, a few millimeters on each side. I was surprised how big these crackers were. They smelled faintly of barbecue…but mainly I smelled the tomato powder.
New Sweet Barbecue Rice Thins: Plenty of powder
I put one of these New Sweet Barbecue Rice Thins in my mouth and crunched. Like the other Rice Thins I’d reviewed, the flavor of the underlying cracker was of a crisp rice cracker. It reminded me still of the Asian rice crackers I grew up eating. Light, and VERY crispy.
The sweet barbecue flavor was REALLY sweet and tangy. The spices reminded me a lot of barbecue Corn Nuts, but much sweeter. The tomato powder provided an excellent tangy and sticky taste, almost like a ketchup-y barbecue sauce. Meanwhile, there was good smoke in the powder, that left a nice smoky taste in my mouth even after I swallowed. The powder was sort of a mess, coming off all over the place and sticking to my fingers, but I didn’t think that was a bad thing, per se.
All in all, for barbecue flavor lovers, I think these were pretty successful. These were definitely as advertised, tasting like that sweet barbecue glaze you get on ribs. Pretty tasty, I have to say.
PURCHASED AT: Walmart
COST: $2.50 on sale
Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. I also have Google+!! Let’s hang out.
Sincerely,
Junk Food Guy
Discuss - 9 Comments
Cabrera’s deal is just absurd & another example on why I can’t afford to go to the ballpark anymore. Cabrera is the best hitter in the game no doubt but he is getting long in the tooth, is a large man & had a nagging injury last year. Tigers better hope he doesn’t relapse, either. But, the new norm in MLB now is like, “Give a 10-year contract but we’re really paying for the first 6 & everything after that is gravy”. Ilitch is an old man & he doesn’t care so much; he wants to win now. But what bothers me the most is the precedence it sets. All contracts, minimum salary & arbitration cases are affected by this. Personally I’d rather spend the money on pitching. The Tigers are a rival team so I like how this could greatly backfire.
@MP: So what’s your thought on the Trout Extension then?
@JFG Too soon. Tho granted, it’s a much better signing than Pujols or Hamilton. I know many fans were hoping he’d hit the free agent market in a few years.
Happy pizza eatin’ while you’re there! 😀
@Elisa- THANKS!
I remember Jim Rice at the end…do they really want to pay this guy $50,000 for every pop out to the 3rd baseman? Then again, the guy that agreed to pay him for them will likely be long gone by then.
The guy at SI that wrote that it was the worst deal ever made it very clear both why it happened and what the most likely outcome would be.
Say what you will about other aspects of the Patriots, you have to admire Kraft and Belichick for refusing to saddle themselves with giant contracts for guys on or just approaching the wrong side of their peak. It’s not like there isn’t a reason they’ve been so good for so long – you never hear about how they’re in salary cap hell or have to settle for a down year while they clear out old contracts and pay for guys that aren’t on the team anymore. Then if they do want to splurge, they can. Revis is available? Why yes, we’ll take one of those, thank you. Good thing we’re not still paying for Ty Law, isn’t it? (example – Lawyer Milloy had 19 picks in 6 seasons in NE – He had 6 in the 8 years he played for other teams after that.)
@Dana: I feel like the Cardinals are the same way regarding contracts
A few things I don’t like about the comments.
1) Leave the city of Detroit out of it. Plenty of cities are in as bad a shape as Detroit, doesn’t have anything to do with the city’s sports teams.
2) Cabrera was getting paid, and considering this is baseball, this is a reasonable deal that leaves no doubt about his future. If Cabrera and Verlander combine for a title or three than nobody’s going to care about that 2022 season where the team sucks and has to unload payroll.
3) Cabrera did have a nagging injury last year, yes, but it was a groin injury, not a knee or a shoulder or something else that tends to remain pesky as you get older, He’s had no injury history.
4) Cabrera is the most pure hitter in baseball disguised as a slugger. No matter what happens to his home run totals in his late 30’s, his swing is always going to create contact, he should always hit .320 or better, and he can move to 2nd or 5th in the lineup and still have plenty of impact, even at 38 or so.
@Sascha: Your analysis is correct; we’ll just have to see how it plays out. I’d be more worried about Verlander’s effectiveness for the future than Cabrera’s.