Skip that trip to the hardware store for the shiny new snow blower. Judging from the parallel paths taken by J.D. Drew and Aramis Ramirez, the stuff falling from the sky this winter won't be snowflakes, it will be hundred-dollar bills.
The reaction around baseball when the Drew story hit the Instant Message Express late Thursday night was simple and succinct:
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| J.D. Drew has seemed more interested in life after baseball at times than his career. (Getty Images) |
If a chronic underachiever like Drew opting out of his remaining three years and $33 million doesn't foretell a players' market this winter, then Kevin Costner is in line to become the next commissioner of baseball.
"The market's just going to go through the roof," one major-league executive predicts, still digesting the Drew/Dodgers divorce.
Timing is still everything, and, ah, to be a free agent right now at a time when baseball again is flush not only with cash, but with a new collective bargaining agreement. The ink is barely dry on the new five-year deal between the players and owners, commissioner Bud Selig said last month that baseball's revenues for '06 were more than $5 billion and revenue-sharing is flowing to places like Kansas City and Pittsburgh.
If you're a player in this market and can't find a lucrative deal, then it's time to find another line of work. Like caddy, or fry cook.
There aren't many Clint Eastwood (Sudden Impact) free agents available. Second baseman/left fielder Alfonso Soriano. Outfielder Carlos Lee. Ramirez, perhaps. Pitchers Barry Zito and Daisuke Matsuzaka of Japan.
Then there are a whole flock of players who will be in line for a soft landing when the clubs who finish as runners-up in the marquee-player sweepstakes panic and begin writing checks to reel in something. The beneficiaries here will be players such as Luis Gonzalez, Moises Alou, Nomar Garciaparra, Mark Loretta and Ray Durham, and pitchers such as Jason Schmidt, Jeff Suppan and Adam Eaton.
"Certainly, that's been the talk," says Oakland general manager Billy Beane of the players' market theory. "But the simple answer is, that's yet to be determined. We'll have to wait and see, but it seems like a lot is being written that that's where the momentum is taking this.
"This is the one true sort of capitalistic market we have. You have supply and demand, and you wait to see."
The obvious read in the Drew and Ramirez camps is that demand will far outstrip supply. In Ramirez's case, he threw the Cubs for a Chicago loop last month when he exercised his right to void the final two years and $22.5 million remaining on his deal to search for grass greener than Wrigley Field's.
Apparently, he couldn't, agreeing Sunday to a five-year contract worth $73 million.
