The Lukewarm Stove

    Manny Ramirez?  Still in Boston.

    Johnny Damon?  Still a free agent, waiting for the right offer.

    Nomar Garciaparra?  Agreed to a one-year deal in L.A., while Rafael Furcal signed the contract Nomar once appeared destined to receive.
    Yes, this has been a fairly disappointing offseason so far for Red Sox both past and present, who were expected to fire up the hot stove and get us through yet another cold winter without baseball.  Instead, the stove has fizzled into a dutch oven, a letdown considering all the rumors that were being tossed around just a month ago.  

    A few players did make headlines, however, so all is not lost.  Pitching has been the story so far, notably the lack of pitchers being traded and the lack of sense on the part of teams trying to sign them.

    Here are the biggest stories as we head into year two of the post-steroid era:

    A.J. Burnett – Picture this: you’re a general manager, and an agent walks into your office.  His client is a starting pitcher with electric stuff.  The client is turning 29 years old, and he’s entering his 8th season as a pro.  This particular client has a lifetime .500 record, a career ERA near 4 in a pitcher’s stadium (in a pitcher’s league), and has averaged fewer than 20 starts per season over his career.  He’s topped 200 innings twice (barely), and quit on his team in the final month of his contract last season.

    Do you: a) tell the agent to make like a tree and get out of your office; b) sign his client to a 2-year, incentive-laden contract based on potential alone; or c) offer him a 5 year, $55 million contract and light up a cigar with a $100 bill.  If you’re J.P. Ricciardi, general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, you choose option C and risk your career on the right arm of A.J. Burnett.  

    The Blue Jays had money to burn this winter, and they felt they would have to overpay in order to attract free agents to baseball’s lone Canadian outpost.  And overpay they did.  Earlier in the offseason, Ricciardi inked Orioles reliever B.J. Ryan to the richest deal for a closer in baseball history.  But regardless of where you stand on the signing of The Beej, Toronto definitely needed someone to pitch the late innings.  Starting pitching, however, was not at the top of their wish list.  

    With a deep rotation headlined by ace Roy Halladay, the Blue Jays were (are) a good offense away from contending with the Yankees and Red Sox.  But rather than making a push for a slugger like ex-Jay Carlos Delgado, Toronto instead spent their money on a pitcher with a medical chart that reads like a novel, and a stat sheet that reads like a number 3 starter’s.  But hey, I’m just a guy with a computer.  What do I know?

    Roger Clemens – Get your Nobel Prize nominations ready.  No matter where Clemens ends up, you’re sure to hear a million stories about why the Rocket ended up where he did, and they’ll all sound great.  

    He could wait until May to re-sign with Houston, in order to remain close to his family and Andy Pettitte (which may or may not be the same thing).  

    He can move down the road to sign with the Rangers, to finish his career as fellow Texan Nolan Ryan did.  

    He’s reportedly “pleased” that his old team, the Red Sox, are now pursuing him.  

    And the Yankees just “make sense”, according to everyone with a microphone.  I may have been hallucinating, but I think I heard one reporter mention that Clemens may sign with Kansas City, because he’s a big history buff and he’d get to play near the Negro League Museum.  I’ve also heard he saw a fish once, so  let’s not rule out Tampa Bay just yet.  

    But no matter what, don’t dare suggest that Clemens’ reasons for signing with a team coincide with those of mere mortals.

    Huh?  What happened to good ol’ money?  Why can’t it just be that Roger Clemens will go to the highest bidder? You know, the way he has throughout his career?  When Clemens left Boston for freaking Toronto, was it because he was trying to improve diplomatic relations with our neighbor to the north?  No!  It was because Toronto cut the biggest check (see: Burnett, A.J.).  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  99 times out of 100, professional athletes follow the money.  And 98 times out of 100, it is reported that way.  But every once in a while, a Roger Clemens comes along, and the media makes him out to be Yoda with a mitt.

    Clemens is likely the greatest pitcher of his era, but let’s not get carried away.  The man has choked in nearly every big game of his career, and the hero worship needs to stop, before someone sacrifices their first-born in the hopes that the great Rocket will provide a bountiful harvest in the coming spring.  Clemens will play in 2006, and he’ll play for an obscene amount of money.  Either that, or he’ll solve world hunger.

    Alfonso Soriano – Soriano is, in a word, electric.  With a bat in his hands, he is a home run waiting to happen.  He is a rattlesnake, lying in wait, ready to attack whatever hanging curve or flat fastball a pitcher might send his way.  He is a walking highlight reel, and he’s a fixture on nightly sports shows.  But when it comes to Alfonso Soriano, where does perception meet reality?

    Is he a 40-40 player just waiting to happen, the future star he appeared to be with the Yankees?  Or is he the player who hit just .224 last season away from the shoebox diorama that is Arlington?  Is he the best offensive second baseman in the game?  Or is he simply the second baseman most offensive with the glove?  

    In reality, Soriano is all of these things.  Because of his home run totals and Yankee pedigree, he is a prized commodity.  Because of his shoddy road numbers and poor defense, he is likely also an overpriced commodity.  The Texas Rangers saw Soriano as the latter, and the Washington Nationals saw him as the former.  And they’re both right.

    Young Texas GM John Daniels decided that he had to move Soriano this winter, knowing full well that he’d still have one of the best-hitting infields in baseball even without his second baseman.  But rather than trade Soriano for much-needed pitching help, Daniels sent Soriano to Washington for Brad Wilkerson, one of the best players people don’t know about.  Texas’ offense is still as potent as it was last season, and they still have the option of moving Wilkerson for pitching some time in the future.

    From the Nationals’ perspective, they were a franchise without a face.  They’re a decent enough team, no doubt, but there was a definite lack of star power.  And if you don’t have a star in D.C., it’s pretty easy to get overshadowed.  So while Soriano arrives with plenty of questions (position, potential, plate discipline), he provides a spark the Nats were lacking.  

    This deal benefits the Rangers on the field, but it should help Washington sell enough tickets to afford another new player next winter.

    Barry Zito – It was at this time last year that A’s GM Billy Beane stunned Oakland fans by trading ace pitchers Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder for young prospects.  In a single week, Beane managed to carve up the face of the A’s franchise, a face he put together himself.  But rather than spend the season drowning themselves in their small market sorrows, the A’s managed to win 88 games in 2005 and provide hope for the future, thanks in large part to the players acquired in the Mulder trade.

    And so it was that Oakland entered this offseason with Zito, the team’s lone remaining “Big Three” ace, entering the final season of his contract and fully expecting to be traded.  Beane even signed journeyman starter Esteban Loaiza to a 3-year, $21 million deal, which appeared to be Zito’s eviction notice.  A’s fans began licking their chops imagining what kind of haul Zito might reap, watching patiently as Beane stood ready to pounce on some unsuspecting GM.

    But then a funny thing happened: Zito wasn’t traded.  

    As his ever-decreasing stature as a pitcher finally began to overtake his name-brand reputation, the A’s found that there weren’t any trade offers to their liking.  So Beane did what no one saw coming, and he held onto Barry Zito.  For A’s fans, this actually qualified as a disappointment of sorts.  

    Oaklanders have developed an almost unhealthy support for Beane, helping the GM emerge as the rock star of the franchise.  Watching him dangle a Cy Young winner in front of other general managers without closing a deal is akin to visiting the zoo at feeding time, only to watch the lion turn down his meal.  How many other teams’ fans curse their fortunes when their general manager is unable to deal his best starting pitcher?

    New York Mets – OK, here goes….in the past month and a half, the Mets have added Carlos Delgado, Billy Wagner, Paul LoDuca, Xavier Nady, Julio Franco, Julio Franco’s great-great-grandson, Anna Benson’s fifth publicist, and all 500 of Pedro’s creepy Lollipop Kid clubhouse sidekicks.  They’ve also been in the hunt to acquire Manny Ramirez, Barry Zito, Miguel Tejada, Alfonso Soriano, Josh Beckett, the Maltese Falcon, and the Dalai Lama.  GM Omar Minaya has apparently decided to build a team the way Diddy makes a band: throw a bunch of money around, make sure people see you do it, and hope that’s enough to keep you relevant.  

    Problem is, he’s not the first GM to try this.  If he wants to skip to the ending of this story and learn his own fate, he only needs to look to the 842 GM’s who preceded him at Shea.  Apparently Minaya is one of the few baseball men remaining who hasn’t read the manual for “How to Build the Mets”.  Want to know how it goes?  Of course you do.

    Step 1: Overpay for veterans.  The Old Mets did this by throwing gobs of money at Roberto Alomar and Bobby Bonilla, whose name you can no longer say without a giggle (or at the very least, a snicker).  The New Mets backed up the money trucks for Pedro Martinez and Delgado.  

    Step 2: Overpay for veterans.  The Old Mets went after Mo Vaughn and Mike Piazza; the New Mets scooped up Wagner and Carlos Beltran.  

    Step 3: Don’t forget to overpay for veterans.  While the Old Mets ran out and picked up the likes of Cliff Floyd, Al Leiter, Derek Bell, Kenny Rogers, and Jeromy Burnitz, the New Mets have followed suit and brought LoDuca, Franco, Kris Benson, Victor Zambrano, and Tom Glavine into the fold.  If Steve Ontiveros and Vince Coleman decided to come back tomorrow, Minaya and the New Mets would have them under contract the same evening.

    For whatever reason, the New York Mets are simply incapable of fiscal responsibility.  They wouldn’t hold onto prospects if you paid them to.  They would fold a pair of aces in a game of poker.  If you think they won’t trade David Wright, you haven’t been paying attention.  For whatever reason, they seem obsessed with matching the Yankees, aging vet for aging vet.  Because of their continued need to pay top dollar for free agents, the Mets will peak in 2006 and begin the slow, painful slide back to mediocrity in 2007.  Each and every year, the Mets face the very real possibility of having to wear their jerseys backwards, Kris Kross-style, just so the players know their teammates’ names.

    That the Mets burned through their available cash like a 9-year-old with fresh allowance in his pocket is nothing new.  It happens throughout baseball every winter, and it happens nearly as often in Flushing.  But what is new is the Mets’ ability to steal each and every Big Apple headline from Steinbrenner’s crew, which should be the scariest part for Mets fans.  When the Yankees are able to criticize your spending habits, you know you’ve dug your own grave.  It’s like Terrell Owens telling you that you talk too much.

    Speaking of the Yankees….

    New York Yankees – Steinbrenner & Co. have been notably inactive this offseason, and it’s actually a little scary.  When the first 2 months of winter pass by and the Yankees haven’t overpaid for a single starting pitcher, you start checking George for a pulse.  To date, the Yanks’ biggest signing has been Kyle “Bentley” Farnsworth, a set-up man known more for choke jobs and brawls than for his ability to get outs.

    But to be honest, I miss the Yankees.  I miss their old approach.  I enjoyed watching them spend way too much money for the Steve Karsays and Jaret Wrights of the world.  No subplot in baseball was more entertaining than guessing which geriatric Yankee would break down next.

    It’s almost as though Brian Cashman has finally managed to ignore The Boss’ demand for star power, opting for actual team-building instead.  You have to think that the Yankee offices are getting a bit lonely nowadays, having gone this long without holding a press conference.

    I can just picture Steinbrenner walking into Cashman’s office as Jim’s dad did in “American Pie”:

    George: “You know, Brian, putting together a team with no new stars can be fun.  Oh, it can be fun.  But it’s not a game.  It’s not a game.  You do want a game, don’t you?”

    Cashman: “Oh, yeah, I want a game.  Definitely.  I want a game.”

    At which point Steinbrenner starts sending Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon into an awkward Cashman’s office, dressed in full Yankee uniforms, ready to sign new contracts.  At least I’m pretty sure that’s how things operate over there.  Either that, or my sources over at the New York Post aren’t nearly as accurate as I assumed them to be.

    Florida Marlins – While the Marlins continue to receive negative publicity for their massive salary bloodlettings, the most staggering fact about this franchise seems to be continually overlooked: Florida has won 2 of the last 9 World Series.  Think about that.  That’s more titles than the Red Sox, Cubs, A’s, Giants, Indians, Braves, Mets, Phillies, and Dodgers have won, combined, over the same time period.  The Marlins have developed a system which has enabled them win multiple championships inside a decade, all while spending far less money than their competitors.

    In 1997, Florida broke the piggy bank and hauled in as many star veterans as they could afford.  The team won the World Series, and all was right in South Florida.  But rather than continue to pay for their aging stars (listen up, Mets), the Fish dealt nearly every name player they had in exchange for cheap prospects.  Those prospects eventually developed into quality big leaguers, and the team once again won the World Series in 2003.  Once those prospects grew up and became high-priced stars themselves, the Marlins went about the task of dealing them for new, cheap prospects.  

    Say what you will about the tenets of a fire sale, but at least it’s an ethos.

    Florida is now faced with some losing seasons in their immediate future, but they have every reason to expect that their strategy will work for a third time.  Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera are still around, and the team acquired several top-flight minor leaguers in trades over the winter.  And they will undoubtedly have the ability to increase payroll once they get a new stadium, either in Miami or in Las Vegas.

    You might be asking yourself, is it worth it to exchange several consecutive losing seasons for one shot at a World Series?  Well, if you were a Cubs fan, wouldn’t you make that deal?  After all, they’re the ones who traded Willis to Florida during the Marlins’ first round of rebuilding.  And once Florida is done making their next run, maybe the Cubbies can have him back.  At the right price, of course.

    Starting pitchers – It is my honest belief that major league starting pitchers are the luckiest people on earth.  And not in the way that someone like Kevin Federline is lucky, where you can sense that they’ve used up their last magic wish, and their days at the top (such as it is) are numbered.  No, I mean lucky in the way that Christian Laettner is lucky that college games are taped.  Lucky in the way that Lil’ Kim is lucky that she was friends with Biggie.  The kind of luck that doesn’t run out, the kind that carries you your entire life.

    Because we have now arrived at the point where starting pitchers are now the single most overvalued group of athletes in sports, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change any time soon.  And when you’re more overvalued than first-round wide receivers, that’s saying a lot.

    When the Kansas City Royals can’t even afford a guy like Loaiza, you know things have taken a turn for the worse.  I can’t wait until Peter Gammons comes on during Spring Training in the not-so-distant future, to break down the chances of a team like Pittsburgh: “Look……the Pirates really believe…….that if they can get Josh Fogg healthy……and put him in the rotation……with Sele, (dramatic pause) Dreifort, (dramatic pause) and Dravecky, that they have a legitimate chance……of winning 30 to 40 games this season”.

    Of course, this scenario is a bit of a stretch; something like this would never actually happen.  

    The Pirates could never afford Dreifort.