Free Agent Madness A Sign of Game’s Health

Every winter, zany ballclubs occasion mass outrage by doling out freeagent contracts that bear seemingly tenuous relation to the contributions they can reasonably expect to receive from the players they sign. This winter, new-media cash and the general popularity of the game has left teams like the Mets and Toronto Blue Jays with more money than they can figure out how to spend. This year’s free agent class, meanwhile, is weaker than any in recent memory, heavy on aged relief pitchers and light on good position players and ace starters. Naturally enough, the results have been baffling.Esteban Loaiza, a reliably league-average starter who’s good for 200 innings a year and will turn 34 this New Year’s Eve, signed a three-year, $21 million deal with the Oakland A’s, of all teams. The Blue Jays signed closer B.J. Ryan, who has racked up more innings than games exactly twice in his career, to the richest ever deal for a reliever.Still better, the Yankees have reportedly signed Kyle Farnsworth, a Nuke LaLoosh clone who was run out of Chicago after the 2004 season amid rumors that his drunken fratboy antics and lack of IQ points were the real causes of his inability to do much with his 100-mph fastball other than give up game-losing home runs. The reported three-year, $17 million deal is just $3 million short of what Keith Foulke got from the Red Sox two years ago – and Foulke had a long track record that compared well to Mariano Rivera’s.(At least it can be said that Farnsworth is a good guy to have around if the Yankees get into a benchclearing brawl: His double-leg takedown of Reds pitcher Paul Wilson ranks up there with the Nolan Ryan-Robin Ventura incident in the annals of memorable baseball thrashings.)All this seems still odder given some of the other, more reasonable contracts that have been signed. Paul Konerko and Billy Wagner, neither of whom was a bargain but both of whom signed for market value, come to mind, but the Brian Giles deal much more so.Not that anyone has noticed, but Giles has been one of the five best players in the National League for years. His .954 career OPS is 22nd all time, and while he’ll turn 35 in January, he’s showed little sign of slowing down. His batting line in road games last year was .333 BA/.463 OBA/.545 SLG, and he’s a solid defensive outfielder and baserunner. In all, he’s a better player than, say, Manny Ramirez. Despite all that, he resigned with the San Diego Padres for three years and $30 million – two years and $17 million less than Ryan.Among the players likely to top Giles in both years and money are Florida’s A.J. Burnett (49-50 lifetime); Boston’s Johnny Damon, whose road numbers last year were .298/.342/.438 and whose his defense is rapidly coming to resemble that of Bernie Williams; Cleveland’s Kevin Millwood, whose ERA, adjusted for park and relative to league, has been dead average or below in five of his seven seasons; and the Dodgers’ Jeff Weaver, about whom nothing need be said.Still, rather than fulminate about the insanity of it all,doesn’t it make sense to ask whether ballclubs aren’t totally irrational? After all, if a team as tightfisted as the A’s is signing a starter like Loaiza to a $21 million deal, it might be a sign that the market has simply shifted.One thing is worth bearing in mind: Since the advent of free agency, free agent salaries have consistently inflated at a rate of 10% per year – well above the national rate of inflation. So it’s worth remembering, while judging these contracts against those given out in, say, the 2000 off-season, that the figures aren’t quite comparable. Loaiza’s deal is the equivalent of having signed a similar pitcher to a $16 million, threeyear deal five years ago, which sounds intuitively like the sort of deal you might think he would be worth.Even more notable is the odd fact, reported by USA Today this week, that salaries, as a percentage of MLB’s total revenue, have dropped from 67% in 2002 to 53% in 2005 – well below the roughly 60% of revenue they take up in football and basketball.Take those two facts together, and you might even come to the conclusion that there’s nothing really notable about this year’s free agency blunders save that they’re nowhere near as bad as they seem. A dollar of baseball salary is worth 76% of what it was five years ago, and players are getting a much,much smaller slice of the total pie.The real culprits aren’t stupid owners and GMs and greedy players – truth told, there may be no culprit at all, other than rapid inflation and the popularity and profitability of the game. It may not seem so, but these ridiculous deals are just another sign of baseball’s health – something to keep in mind when owners start crying poverty this summer in the run-up to a new round of collective bargaining.tmarchman@nysun.com

Free Agent Madness A Sign of Game’s Health

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