Free Agent Market Leaves Many Delusional

In baseball, the suicide squeeze used to be called with a runner on third base. Now, the suicide squeeze happens in winter as otherwise sane teams are squeezed into making lunatic bids to free agents.

All summer, teams spin a fantasy in their own minds. Their ballpark is the most beautiful. Their fans cheer the loudest. Their owner is the best to play for. Surely, the future belongs to them.

Any sensible free agent will understand their virtues, be delighted to sign with them and, maybe, even agree to a cheap deal just for the privilege of playing in such a paradise.

Simultaneously, these very same teams look at their own players who are in the final year of their contracts. Every week, those fellows seem to sprout small horns. Previously unnoticed flaws in their play and subtle blemishes in character appear.

The notion gradually dawns on the owner and general manager that the reason the Home Team is not the world champion has nothing to do with their own bonehead blunders. Rather, the disappointments of recent seasons have their root in these disloyal, too-familiar faces who are threatening to leave if they aren’t bribed to stay with enormous ransoms.

Finally, the season ends and reality begins to reintroduce itself. However, the unvarnished state of affairs only reveals itself slowly, very slowly, like discovering that, while you were cleaning the attic, the rest of your house has caught fire. Sniff, sniff. No, can’t be smoke. Not in my house.

At the moment, prosperous teams such as the Orioles, Red Sox, Dodgers, Astros and Rockies wake up every morning ready to scream, “We’re gonna get shut out!” Even teams that care little about competing have to save face with their fans or risk empty ballparks. The “major market” White Sox just lost Albert Belle and Robin Ventura. Don’t they have to sign somebody? And do it fast.

What we’re watching is musical chairs, played for multimillion dollar stakes. And the music is about to stop. Team after team, after repeating the same mistakes we’ve watched for the last 20 years, now asks itself, “How did this happen to us? I thought we had a plan.”

This annual suicide squeeze has become a more familiar recurring nightmare than any involving Freddy Kruger. Sometimes, one huge signing sets off a chain reaction.

First, perhaps, Mike Piazza signs with the New York Mets for $91 million for seven years. If you are the Dodgers you grasp that Piazza never really wanted to come back to Los Angeles, even if his godfather, Tommy Lasorda, is in management. You’re going to need a big bat at catcher, not Charles Johnson, who just hit .218.

If you’re the poor Phils, you realize Piazza couldn’t care less that he was raised in Philly. Pure fantasy. If you’re the Orioles, it hits you like a ton of bricks that you’ve completely misjudged the marketplace. Salaries, based on Piazza, are going to go through the roof. Your wait-’em-out strategy stunk.

Next, when Jose Offerman signed with Boston for $26 million, more jaws dropped. Piazza is a future Hall of Famer. But who is Offerman? “What is (Boston GM Dan) Duquette doing?” one GM asked me. “The Red Sox don’t even know what position Offerman’s going to play for them.”

In this autumn of delusion, the Red Sox assumed they were building a team worthy of Bernie Williams. Naturally, the Yankees’ center fielder would defect to play in Fenway Park. As New Englanders know, anybody sensitive enough to play jazz guitar like Williams would never voluntarily return to the Bronx when he could play near the Boston Common. Besides, Bernie had had tiffs with the Yanks.

Then, one horrid day, the Bosox discovered Williams had re-signed with New York. How could Bernie, classy Bernie, do that? The Yanks had blitzed him with an $87.5 million offer as soon as their contract talks with Albert Belle broke down. Faster than you could say, “Mo Vaughn is an Angel,” the Red Sox suddenly realized that they desperately needed Rafael Palmeiro.

But so did the Orioles. Because Brian Jordan had turned them down to go home to Atlanta. And because Todd Stottlemyre (what was the poor child thinking?) chose to play in the Arizona desert instead of by the Chesapeake Bay.

Big league organizations never learn, do they? Their uniforms aren’t prettier. Their money doesn’t send better. Write these invaluable cliches on the front-office wall.

The grass is not greener on the other side. (It just looks that way after you’ve had to negotiate with agent Scott Boras all summer.)

Do not let familiarity breed contempt. (Otherwise, you’ll end up nagging Roberto Alomar and Palmeiro about their attitudes, then get cornered into replacing them with Albert Belle!)

Love the one you’re with (‘til you get the one you want).

You can’t always get what you want, but you just might find that you get what you need. (So wrap up Eric Davis for two years first , then worry about the rest of the puzzle. If you get everybody, you can always trade him.)

At the moment, the baseball landscape is littered with scattered delusions.

The Houston Astros thought that, once he got to know them, Randy Johnson would re-sign with them. After all, the Big Unit went 11-1 in Texas. Instead, the Big Unit went to crazy-spending Diamondbacks boss Jerry Colangelo, who seems determined to bring obscene NBA salaries to the merely preposterous major leagues.

San Diego still thinks Kevin Brown has fuzzy feelings about that Padres pennant he helped win and the new stadium that the town has agreed to build. The Pads think that’s going to help ‘em at closing time when some panic-stricken GM, his job in jeopardy, cuts to the chase and says, “What will it take to sign you, Browny? Just name it.”

The Orioles think B.J. Surhoff loves the Camden Yards fans and would never sign with Pittsburgh for a few million more. After everything that’s happened, yes, they’re still counting on B.J.’s soft heart, not his hard head. They’re also convinced all they have to do to ink Delino DeShields, born in Delaware, is pick up the phone and whistle. What if somebody else phones first and says, “Delino, this is our top offer. We’re blowing our budget for you. But we can’t get in a bidding contest with Baltimore. No phone calls. Decide right now.”

That’s how it happens. Palmeiro said the final moments of his decision process were “like a poker game.” He was within “two or three minutes” of re-signing with Baltimore. What swayed him in those last gut-check moments? Desire to return to his offseason home in Texas? The delight at evicting his old nemesis, Will Clark, from his job as Rangers first baseman? Animosity toward the we-don’t-need-him treatment he got in Baltimore? All of the above?

Soon, the process of self-deception can start all over again. As next Thanksgiving rolls around, the squeeze will tighten again. Perhaps the only inflexible rule of the free agent era is this: Screw up early and avoid the rush.