Burnitz

Looks like it's official, Jeromy Burnitz is going to be a Pirate. Instead of the initially reported 2 year, $12 million deal it looks like a one year deal in the neighborhood of $6 million. Last offseason he was coming off of a monster season (.283/37/110, .916 OPS, albeit in Coors field) and a free agent. He signed a $4.5 million deal with the Cubs (he was too expensive for us). He put up a .757 OPS (lowest full season OPS of his career except for 2002) and, as Rowdy notes, completely disentegrated in the second half. Of course that happened because he was 36 last year. Now that he's 37 and coming off of one of the worst seasons in his career, we can suddenly afford him at the bargain rate of A $1.5 MILLION RAISE to $6 million for one year (plus an unknown "mutual club option").

Stop me if I'm wrong, but this is insanity. The only potential advantages he gives us over our current roster is that he's probably better than Jody Gerut and he's a decent insurance policy for guys like Duffy and McLouth in center (though at his age he's almost certainly better off in right field). That certainly isn't worth $6 million next year, but that doesn't really matter becase he will almost undoubtedly become our starting right fielder (and in doing so, putting up the same numbers and providing the same wind-based power supply as the guy the front office was so desperate to replace because he struck out so much). Honestly, if I wasn't so unsurprised I'd be steaming mad at the moment. Littlefield is just spending money to spend money at this point. After all of this talk about a youth movement and building for the future of the team, he's spent his $15 million offseason windfall on a 31 year old first baseball (who's injury prone and almost certainly on the downslope of his career), a 41 year old reliever, a 36 year old third baseman, and a 37 year old right fielder. None are signed beyond this year (which is the only positive I can find), but none make us particularly better this year and all are instead taking the place of younger players who are of about equal skill level to them. I could be wrong, but Freddy Sanchez/Jose Bautista, Craig Wilson/Brad Eldred, Jody Gerut/Craig Wilson/Nate McLouth, and any combination of younger guys in the bullpen couldn't possibly be much worse than Randa, Casey, Burnitz, and Hernandez will be. And almost all of the guys from the first group will be around beyond this year and get better. None of the guys we just signed are at any point in their career in which they're getting better, nor will they be of any use to this team beyond 2006. Near as I can tell, Dave Littlefield just took $15 million and lit it on fire.