bellyitcher

But first, Looper. $13.5 million for three years, in this market, is not out of line. People bitched when Walt didn't spend, and now they're going to bitch he's spending too much. The front office made it very clear after being unable to land Burnett that the bullpen was the top priority. And if it meant paying a little more than what they felt was the "real" (as opposed to "market") value was, they'd do it. The thing I'm not as happy about is the length of the contract. Relievers can go from being lights out to utter crap quickly (see: King, Ray). The longer the contract, the greater the chance of paying a lot of money for batting practice. But after losing one first round draft pick earlier this week, the signing has a nice kind of symmetry.

So, the Scrabble was fun, but very bad for trying to work. Having now learned my lesson, we're going to play over the weekends, starting this week. I figure, with the two weeks for the holidays off, this will take us to right about the time pitchers and catchers report.