Baseballhead:
Must Be The Money

Michael Cox

Join me for this midweek edition of Baseballhead, wherein we ask important psycho-social questions such as, did featuring Shania Twain in a Super Bowl halftime show cause millions of guys to unwittingly lose half their testosterone?

With pigskin season mercifully over until, well, May or so, maybe the sports world can start turning its attention to baseball just a little bit. Is it just me, or has this been one of the bleakest winters ever for the greatest sport ever invented? Funny how a season of labor battles, steroid hype and an all-wild-card World Series can have that effect.

Mind you, it hasn't exactly been an eventful winter in MLB Land: No free agents were given ridiculously high contracts, unless you count Greg Colbrunn; The Yankees signed exactly who everyone thought they'd sign; and Greg Maddux agreed to arbitration, with only a few million separating his desired salary and the Braves' offer. Even the Colon trade was a yawner for everyone who doesn't believe in Project Blue Book and the Trilateral Commission.

I haven't been this bored since I misplaced my remote and was forced to watch five minutes of "Dawson's Creek."

But praise mighty Jah, things have begun to change this week. To wit:

Pudge The Fish: After finding his value maxed out at around $6 million per year and threatening to spend 2003 in Japan out of pure spite, Ivan Rodriguez was offered his magic $10 million number by -- if you haven't already heard, you might want to sit down -- the Florida Marlins. I-Rod immediately accepted, no doubt because of the team's championship aspirations and zealous fans.

In reality, Rodriguez's goal is to try and put up some gaudy numbers and stay healthy so he'll be more likely to be offered a big multiyear deal next season, er, and cash the paychecks. Good luck with the gaudy numbers, considering the team recently traded the guys likely to represent any RBIs or "protection."

"If everything down the road goes well, I would like to stay with the Marlins," Rodriguez told reporters at the press conference. Of course, "everything down the road" clearly includes Hell freezing over.

Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria was the prime mover in this deal, for reasons which have eluded most mortals. Loria, who has alienated South Florida fans even faster than he alienated Quebecers, seems to be grasping at straws in his attempt to coax a new ballpark out of the local populace. Perhaps he thinks taking an extra $10 million loss will do the trick. Maybe he sees Miami's entire Hispanic community coming out to see I-Rod and a cast of dozens.

Either way, I can't put it any better than Loria himself: "It was close to being a no-brainer."

It worked -- when I think of "no-brainer," I think of Loria.

I can't really fault Rodriguez himself for taking the contract. It would have been a deal that made Pudge look as stupid as the Marlins, if not for the fact that the second-highest bid came from the Orioles. Also, if he'd have turned it down, union head Don Fehr was probably prepared to re-create the torture scene from "Reservoir Dogs."

The "C" Word: Which brings us to our next big recent issue -- it was revealed this week that the players' union is asking for team and MLB management to produce all documents pertaining to free agent negotiations. Clearly, someone at the MLBPA suspects there be collusion afoot.

While I'd be the last person to put anything past owners (up to and including roaring-'20s gangland-style restaurant ambushes), I'm not seeing too much evidence, salary-depression-wise, to indicate a case for collusion. Even player agents, the first ones to sound the alarm, say their suspicion is based not on lowball offers but on similar offers. To that I say, you guys ain't seen nothin' yet.

More and more clubs are hiring stat-savvy folks for their front offices, and that means offers based on...a formula! No more fumbling around to concoct a "competitive bid." Offers are likely to take into account not gaudy RBI figures, or plucky clubhouse chemistry, cash on hand, or the owner's sentimentality towards a player's Irish heritage, but the actual projected ability of the player to help the team. Figure in whatever leeway is acceptable at the high end, and Bob's yer uncle.

Thus, you have similar offers from multiple teams who may not even know who, if anyone, they're competing with. Sure, this scientific approach is going to bemuse and confound agents and union reps for a while, but they'll get used to it. The only players really losing any money will be the low-level, easily replaceable veterans, but the union has never really shown they care about those guys anyway.

What I'd like to see after the collusion investigation is a little look-see into just how Scott Boras got the Rangers to bid against themselves for Alex Rodriguez. With triple damages as a penalty.

Gee, time to go already? We haven't even discussed umps or the Expos' potential new homes. In the spirit of TV sweeps month, I'll leave you with a teaser for Monday's column: "Portland? Hee, hee hee hee hoo..."

about the author

Michael Cox had been planning an expose on government waste like all the local TV news shows run every sweeps month, but Geraldo beat him to it. Explain that Geraldo's only pretending to be on the Capitol steps at mc@strikethree.com.