While Ken Davidoff described for us the language of baseball winter, I’m not so sure he meant it would go this far. Sure, we’ve heard “parameters” and “ideas” plenty so far, but we’ve also seen the word “signed” used a bit loosely.
It started with Trever Miller. Last Wednesday Bernie Biklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said that Miller would be in town for a physical on Thursday, and that “If that goes as expected, he’s the LH specialist.” We found out on Friday that a deal had not been finalized. This remains the case as of this writing.
Then we had the bit about Rafael Furcal this morning. This developed rather quickly. In the a.m., the L.A. Times picked up a story about a Dominican paper which claimed to have talked to Furcal. The shortstop claimed he had a four-year $48 million offer on the table from the A’s, as well as an offer to play second base for the Mets. Not long after noon, the A’s rumor was debunked. The Mets debunking came shortly afterwards. Furcal’s agent maintains that neither offer was made.
In what might be the worst of these, Sweeny Murti of WFAN reported that the Giants signed Edgar Renteria for two years and $18 million. The shortstop’s agent chimed in a few hours later, saying his client was home in Colombia and no deal was imminent. That remains the case. Looks like Sweeny jumped the gun by a lot.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, there was even a report on Odalis Perez, from ESPN Deportes, which quoted the pitcher saying: “My agent is working with National. We have an offer for two or three years and is subject to fine-tune details.” That, as you can guess, has been debunked. This saves us from a mini heart attack.
Everyone’s a fan of a good rumor. It makes the hot stove interesting. However, I’d rather not hear anything than hear something not true. Unfortunately, with everyone gunning for the big scoop, we’re probably going to see a few more false starts this off-season. Which is a shame. When we read a player is signed, he better damn well be signed. Can you imagine if this happened with CC Sabathia and the Yanks?
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