"Congrats on getting the cream of the free agent crop! While you sound a little less than excited, I have been eager to hear your thoughts. One has to wonder if Zito will be the next A-Rod, meaning when will the madness stop? We still haven’t approached those numbers yet."

The above comment from another Diamondbacks blogger prompts this entry. Well, I’m not really a Giants fan, although my posts arguing that Eric Byrnes should become a Giant may give that impression. I argue for that because I think Eric would enjoy it and have the kind of opportunity he wants, i.e. a multi-year deal as an everyday player. I basically root for two teams: whoever has Eric Byrnes and the Mets. I was hoping Zito would sign with the Mets.  I was looking forward to Billy Wagner closing for Zito.

Which brings me to the point of who will close for Zito? He goes from having Huston Street (2005 AL Rookie of the Year) to Armando "Arthritis" Benitez.

Around the newsroom at KPFA, I often said "run support for Barry Zito is a beautiful thing."  Will he get that with the Giants compared to what he would have gotten with some of the other teams mentioned in the Zito sweepstakes such as the Mets, the Angels, the Yankees?

If Zito doesn’t come up with 18-20 wins because of a poor bullpen or poor run support, he’s not to blame, but with the price tag attached to his contract, he’ll be in the fans’ and media’s crosshairs. So basically, the Giants still have work to do to make this signing a sound investment toward a winning future and not just something tomake Bay Area fans forget about the players who didn’t want to sign with them and the fact that the feds are still after Barry Bonds.

I think it will take another year to see whether Zito, in terms of winning, landed in quicksand or in clover.

Good Luck, Z.

Word out this morning is that Barry Zito is signing with the San Francisco Giants for 7 years and $126 million w/ an option for an 8th year at $18 million. (Eric Byrnes, doing sports radio in San Francisco last week, had said that the Giants made the biggest offer).

That’s Vernon Wells money for a player who appears in 33-35 games a year and is not expect to play all 9 innings. Nice work if you can get it.

But this news on top of Dice-K signing for 6 years, and Kei Igawa and Gil Meche signing for 5, makes us wonder what happened to the resolve of owners to forego lengthy contracts to pitchers. Can you say Russ Ortiz? I know you can!

Of course, when several teams are after one player, it becomes a game of "Can you top this?" And some owner will forget his resolution to not give a pitcher a long contract faster than a guy who resolves on Dec. 31 to lose weight in the New Year, and then finds a piece of chocolate cake in the refrigerator on Jan. 2.

Zito was the cream of this year’s free agent pitching crop, so you know he would get the best contract. Given his preparation and durability, and his youth, he’s the guy to take the chance on with a long term deal. (Knock on wood. We’ve seen too many pitchers over the last couple of seasons catching line drives with something other than their gloves). But the base on which his contract stands–the lengths of the other contracts–makes us wonder if baseball is headed back to the future. Years ago, there was the reserve clause, which bound players to a team for their whole career. Now something like that is starting to emerge again, this time at the instigation of players and their agents, who are now seeking longer and longer deals. The owners may like it also because as years go on contracts get even more inflated so, the number looks mire reasonable as time goes by $18 million for a pitcher now, which seems like a king’s ransom, might be a bargain in five years. Certainly we heard that argument in relation to Manny Ramirez in the annual "Manny wants out of Boston" rumors.

It will take a while for the Giants to build a new team around Zito. They’ve got the young pitching staff; they need to get a closer. They have a left fielder who cannot run like he used to. This same left fielder is the team slugger, and he lost his protection in the lineup. (That is, when his protection was in the lineup). Z might have to wait two or three years to lead the Giants to multiple world championships, his stated goal in picking a team. (We hope he will lobby Mr. Sabean to BRING ERIC HOME).

Meanwhile, we sort of feel bad for Dice-K, about as bad as we can feel for anyone making $ 8 + Million a year, that is. If he does pan out as Boston’s ace, he’ll be making relative peanuts for his best years.

There is a huge caveat to all of this flow of money. These contracts are possible due to the growth and health of baseball. Growth and health that may in 4 or 5 years, show itself unsustainable in the long run. The world energy crisis that goes by the name Peak Oil, together with climate change, the fresh water crisis, the decline in world food reserves, and the increasing toxicity of our environment, may make large institutions extinct. Not that baseball itself, or even professional baseball will disappear. But Barry Zito’s grandchildren may find it hard to believe that Grandpa ever made so much money.

K.R.

Steve Gilbert’s article today confirms the report that the Yankees are talking to the D’Backs about Randy Johnson. However, it also states that the two teams are having trouble deciding on whom Arizona will send to the Bronx. It seems the Yanks want some of the Baby Back pitchers.

No. Not for a 44-year-old pitcher returning from back surgery. If they have to be traded, the D’Backs should get someone less expensive and more useful over a longer period in return.

Wanna hear something even more outrageous? This morning, ESPN was speculating on the possibilty of the Yankees getting Conor Jackson. In your dreams, Cashman!

The Arizona F.O. sure has been squirrelly with pitchers this off season. They did not even try to hold on to Miguel Batista, who has since signed a three-year deal with Seattle. Bad.

They made the trade with the Brewers that brought them Doug Davis and Dana Eveland, while letting go of Greg Aquino and Claudio Vargas. Promising, though we don’t like the fact that they also traded Johnny Estrada. In fact, the centerpiece of this deal is Davis for Estrada, who was the best hitter for average on the team. (The team web site accords that honor to Conor Jackson. They must have a standard of 450 ABs. We figure 400 is enough). We really hope Davis delivers this year and Eveland comes around in time. He’s still young.

Arizona made an offer to Mark Mulder, 29, who is  recovering from shoulder surgery and won’t be back till about June. Very Bad.

The D’Backs did not pursue Jon Garland during that small window of opportunity between the time the attempt to trade Garland to the Astros fell through and the time the ChiSox traded Brandon McCarthy, at which time Garland came off the market. Awful. Garland was 18-7 and pitched 211 innings last season. And he’s 11 years younger than RJ!

White Sox GM Ken Williams expressed some seller’s remorse over trading Chris Young. DTLFL would have given him Young back in return for Garland and back up first baseman Ross Gload (since traded). Or if necessary, we’d have traded Young straight up for Garland. Then Byrnesie could have stayed in center, Hairston could be given a clear shot at the LF job, and the D’Backs would have had as a No. 2 pitcher the guy who had the most wins in the AL over the last two seasons, and who has pitched 200+ innings 3 straight years.

Now Arizona is talking to the Yankees about RJ! ATROCIOUS!

K.R.

The Yankees are looking to deal Randy Johnson and are talking to the D’Backs. That would be revenge for 2001, wouldn’t it?

First, the Snakes talk to Mulder, now they are thinking about Johnson. Hey, D’Backs! Taking a chance on an injured pitcher is a luxury for a team with a strong staff…

or a sign of desperation.

And who would you send to New York?

K.R.

With the deadline for the Boston Red Sox to sign Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka to a contract nearly here, the Blogosphere has been heating up with discussions as to why the deal has not yet been consummated. Although the deadline is officially Thursday at midnight ET, some people are saying that the terms really have to be agreed to by today (Tuesday) so that D-Mat can take a physical tomorrow and the Red Sox can check over the medicals with time for D-Mat to sign on the dotted line before the clock strikes 12 on Thursday night. (Couldn’t all that medical stuff have been done sooner?)

Sox GM Theo Epstein and Club President Larry Lucchino have flown to Southern California to meet with the pitcher and his agent Scott Boras.

It is quite understandable that Japanese teams do not want to lose their stars without compensation. But the situation surrounding D-Mat points out the flaws in the current Japanese posting system, flaws that need to be corrected if more Japanese players are going to try to play in MLB.

DTLFL suggests the following:

1) Japanese players who are interested in being posted should have until the day before the Japanese regular season starts to declare their interest for the following year. For example, Japanese players interested in coming into MLB via the posting system for the 2008 season would have until the day before the 2007 Japanese season starts to declare their interest. Such a declaration would not require them to ask to be posted, or require their teams to post them. It would merely give MLB a heads up as to who is interested, just like MLB knows now who is playing their "contract year" in the bigs.

2) Elias Sports Bureau can then look at the interested players’ stats and determine whether the Japanese players are the equivalent of MLB Type A or Type B free agents. Nippon Professional Baseball and MLB would negotiate compensation fees for Type A equivalents and Type B equivalents. Once a player is rated by Elias, the Japanese team would have a good idea of how much it would get if it posted that player and he signed with MLB.

3) Since it is MLB that is interested in greater internationalization of the game, MLB would pay the Japanese team losing the player, upon the signing of that player to an MLB contract. The money would be drawn from luxury taxes, fines and other revenues MLB could come up with to form a basic pool. This would be supplemented by some sort of yearly assessment from each team that would not count against payroll. The assessments would be progressive rather than flat fee, i.e. big revenue teams would pay more. In the case of an assessment, teams that did not wish to pay the assessment would be barred from negotiating with Japanese players that year.  So, for example, if small-market Arizona were not interested in the pool of Japanese players likely to be available for 2008–and they would know who is interested in being posted a year in advance–they could forego paying their assessment and thus stay out of the market and not contribute indirectly to their big-market division rivals, the Dodgers, landing a Japanese player in 2008 (if the Dodgers so desired). The assessments would add a bit of variability to the money pool from year to year, which would reflect variability in MLB teams’ interest in Japanese players from year to year.

4) Posted Japanese players would be treated the same as MLB free agents. They could negotiate with any team(s), for however long.

But back to the current situation. There are some people who would like to cast D-Mat’s agent Scott Boras as some sort of devil for the possibility that the neogtiations might fall through. But we don’t think this is fair. It looks to us, sitting here in rainy Oakland, that the Red Sox want it both ways. They made an outrageously high bid of $51.1 million, a product of the currently flawed posting system, in order to make sure that they won over the Yankees, the Mets and any one else who might have the money to spend on a bid. (The Mets came in second with a bid of $40 million). The BoSox want D-Mat as the guy to succeed Curt Schilling as their ace. They had dealt with Scott Boras before. Theo and Scott have a good working relationship and have even been able to get a deal done to bring JD Drew to Boston, while all this D-Mat stuff has been going on.

But even though the bid does not count against payroll, it is still a significant amount of money, even for a big-revenue team. So we are hearing that Boras wants too much for a player who has never pitched in MLB. Maybe that’s true. But Boston has offered less money to D-Mat than the Royals have given to Gil Meche, who has emerged as this year’s Poster Boy for what free agent contracts look like when teams spend like drunken sailors. In fact, the offer is so low for so long (4-6 years at 7-8 million was the last we heard) for a guy Boston wants, not as a No. 5 pitcher, but as an ace, that we think Boras is correct in not counteroffering. Some comments aren’t worth dignifying with an answer.

K.R.