A couple of developments last week only further confirmed that, in Giancarlo Stanton and Robinson Cano respectively, the Yankees and Mets, by their own doing, are stuck with two of the worst contracts in baseball; contracts that will impact their payrolls for years to me. Stanton, who has played all of nine games this year, went back on the injured list after incurring a badly sprained knee on a head-first slide last Tuesday against the Blue Jays. This is, by our count, the fourth injury Stanton, 29, has incurred this season, following biceps, calf and shoulder woes and it’s obvious he has been afflicted with Jacoby Ellsbury disease. But this should not come as a surprise. In five of his first eight seasons with the Marlins, Stanton missed considerable playing time and you would have thought that would have been a red flag for the Yankees when they so eagerly took his 13-year contract off Derek Jeter’s hands two years ago. It never ceases to amaze me how stupid these teams are by acquiring other team’s onerous longterm contracts which they know will never work out. The Yankees didn’t even need Stanton and now they’re on the hook for about $220 million through the year 2027. If he’s been hurt this much in his 20’s, god knows how many games he’ll be on the injured list in his 30′s. Their only hope is that, like with Ellsbury, they’ll at least be able to collect some insurance money on him. As for Cano, like Jeter, Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto celebrates every day being out from under the $100 million the Mets will be paying the 36-year old second baseman through 2023. Why Mickey Callaway has continued to allow Cano to be the worst, least productive No. 3 hitter in baseball (and we’re not even talking about his chronic lack of hustle) is just further proof that Brodie Van Wagenen, desperately trying to justify the more and more disastrous Edwin Diaz trade, is managing this Mets team. ... Can anyone explain how Fernando Rodney continues to get jobs, other than the fact the Levinson brothers, Seth and Sam of ACES Management, should be agents of the decade for getting him yet another contract, this time with the Nationals, at age 42, and a good five years since he ceased being an effective closer? The Nationals, whose bullpen is among the worst in the majors, signed Rodney last Tuesday a month after he’d been released by the A’s with a 9.42 ERA in 14 1/3 innings of non-relief. Previously, Rodney, who’s been with eight different teams since 2015, had 5.68 ERA in 2015, a 5.89 ERA in 2016 with the Marlins, six blown saves in 2017 and seven blown saves last year. In the immortal words of ex-Pirate Jose Lind upon winning a $1 million arbitration settlement in 1992: “America. What a country!”… Interesting day-after development last week when, following Tampa Bay owner Stu Sternberg’s press conference detailing his plan to turn the Rays into a two-city franchise, sharing home games with Montreal after both cities build him new stadiums, Steven Bronfman, who’s heading up the effort to bring major league baseball back to Montreal, said he’s good with that, even though he would be a very limited partner with the team. Fact remains, Rick Kriseman the mayor of St. Petersburg who holds all the cards with the stadium lease that holds the Rays captive until 2027 and prohibits them from talking to any other communities, reiterated St. Petersburg has no interest in funding a stadium for a part-time team. Even with Montreal on board (albeit with no stadium funding plan either) this project still looms as the heaviest of lifts for Sternberg.