Dave Paisley

Well, here we are in the most important month of the off-season, the time when the big-time free agents make their moves and sweep up scads of cash.

Before we get to that, though, the baseball club owners unanimously agree to extend Commissioner for Life Bud Selig's contract for three more years. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean just three more years of Selig, it means five more years, as his current contract runs until 2003. We can only hope that the contraction fiasco unravels badly enough for the owners to come to their senses and realize they hired a guy that Allie McBeal could whip with one hand tied behind her back. Come to think of it, isn't that the plot of next week's episode?

The owners are certainly a deluded bunch, as evidenced by this quote from Yankees owner George Steinbrenner:

There are just so many things wrong with that quote. Using the words leadership, stability and fiscal integrity in any context with Bud Selig is just ridiculous. Like many business leaders, these guys and Selig himself are oblivious to their own starring role in creating the problems they perceive.

And I can hardly wait for the evidence that Selig is planning to lay out before the house judiciary committee next week to show that 25 of the 30 major league clubs lost money. Just be sure to watch for the lax application of standard accounting practices.

Given this grand ostrich-like display by the owners, I'm not optimistic about the prospects for any baseball before July next year, which makes the evaluation of the free agent market and off-season moves quite a bit less interesting than it otherwise might be. Still, I'll see if I can shake off my pessimism for a while to take a look at the first domino to fall -Todd Van Poppel. Uh-oh, there goes that pessimism again.

The Texas Rangers signing Van Poppel is somewhat akin to Dick Cheney reaching for two aspirin in the middle of one of his massive heart attacks. Here's a team that could use at least three starting pitchers and almost a whole new bullpen, and they get a slightly shop-soiled middle reliever rescued from the scrap heap of underachieving phenom-hood.

Sure, Van Poppel's numbers last year looked nice, and built on a decent year in 2000, but even a cursory examination of the evidence suggests that he's no bargain, even at a mere $2.5M a year. First, his ERA of 2.54 last year was split between 1.60 at home and 3.53 on the road. When you factor in the national league factor, and that Arlington is hardly a pitcher's haven, the odds are pretty stacked that Van Poppel's ERA will shoot up significantly, even if he continues to throw the same. Add in the contagiousness of bad pitching in Texas (and there's plenty of empirical evidence to suggest that lousy pitching is viral in nature) and the acquisition of Van Poppel is merely new GM John Hart and owner Tom Hicks fiddling while the Rangers burn. "Well, heck, Todd was the only pitcher who would return our calls, so naturally we were interested!"

When you see that the Rangers acquired Herbert Perry from the White Sox, you really have to wonder. Here's a gimpy 30 year old 3B/1B who fills no real need the Rangers have. Oh, except for that whole "he used to belong to the Indians" when Hart was the GM, so he scratched what seems to be an itch every GM has -- acquiring every utility player that ever played for him somewhere else.

Oh well, we'll just have to satisfy ourselves watching the Yankees chase down Jason Giambi. Once he settles on his destination, there's a whole raft of signings that will follow, no doubt, as the owners try to get themselves ready for the winter meetings in a couple of weeks. Let's just hope they don't extend Selig's contract yet another three years.

Missing the usual tables and charts? Why not complain loudly and bitterly to Dave Paisley at drdjp@strikethree.com and he may do something about it for next week. Or maybe not, depending on whether Bud Selig declares war on Turkmenistan.

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