Though this be madness, yet there is method in
't.
Is Walt Jocketty a madman
or a genius? With the great AJ
Burnett sweepstakes I thought for sure Walt had lost his mind. $10 million a year for four years plus
an option? Unless Burnett was the
second coming of Bob Gibson or even Chris Carpenter it seemed like a poor
move. I know I (and a few others of
the Cardinal faithful) breathed a sigh of relief when the Blue Jays apparently
thought the sky was just the right price for Burnett and coughed even more (!?!)
than the Cards.
I kept asking myself,
what’s he thinking? It’s not that
the Cards haven’t chased down free agents before, but to do it so publicly and
for so much seemed, well, not very Cardinal-esque. I sat in awe as guys with underwhelming
credentials were getting superstar money: Kyle Farnsworth getting just a hair
under $6 million a year? Even the
$10 million a year for Brian Giles scared me. The hype just kept building and building
and frantic bidding wars ensued and I was left wondering if we’d end up paying
$7 million a year to get Estaban Yan back.
But Walt is a crafty
sort. With the Blue Jays,
Mets, Phillies and Cubs wheeling and
dealing and spending money right and left the big buyers have quite possibly
done their Christmas shopping already.
But what’s this, it’s also arbitration season. Already there are names floating around
that frankly sound more appealing than many of the early free agents. Brian Walton has done a nifty piece on
arbitration and
sets the stage for what could be Jocketty’s real
motivation.
Famous for his reclamation
and rehab projects, the arbitration deadline seems to be when the fun really
begins. So were the Cards really
interested in AJ Burnett? I think
they were, but what, if in a Machiavellian twist of fate, Jocketty was more
worried about certain teams outbidding them for players not offered
arbitration. How do you prevent
that? Well, you help them spend
their disposable income by countering their every offer until you get it up to,
I don’t know, $55 million over five years?
Of course if you ascribe to this theory you might be watching for black
helicopters and wearing foil on your head, but it kinda makes you think, doesn’t
it?
The other part of the
season that’s interesting is watching former Cardinal alumni being
shuffled. Two former favorites
appear to be on the move. Baltimore did the expected
and got rid of chronic malcontent Steve Kline. While I still get a kick out of Kline,
getting out of Baltimore was the best thing that could have
happened to him. And last year’s
biggest upset, Edgar Renteria who left the Cardinals for deeper pockets has
apparently already left his new employers feeling underwhelmed. The Red Sox have already been rumored to
be taking a mulligan on Renteria by shipping him off to Atlanta ultimately in
exchange for Devil Rays shortstop Julio Lugo. That Eckstein deal looks better and
better with each passing year.
And finally, speaking of
Eckstein, it should be mentioned that he was recently named to Maxim magazine’s
“25 Biggest Little Dudes of All Time”
He checked in at #16 beating out such luminaries as Andrew Carnegie, Kurt
Cobain and Bruce Lee, unfortunately still falling short of Yoda, Napoleon and
Angus Young of AC/DC. So I guess
that means there’s another trophy to put in the 2005 trophy case alongside
Pujols’ MVP and Carp’s Cy Young.
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