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12.23.2008

Why Mark Teixeira is Like A Tall Glass of Prune Juice

If reports today are true, free agent Teixeira is on the verge of a massive contract with the Royals. Ha. Made you look. It's the Yankees, of course, in what will go down as the biggest shocker of 2008, save for the revelation of political corruption in the state of Illinois.

Hannah Arendt once wrote about the banality of evil. I don't subscribe to the Yankees being an evil empire, but the banality of their money is overwhelming. Ho-hum, another $180 M.

No doubt someone will read this and say I'm jealous, that if the Giants could spend more than $400 million on three of the top free agents, I'd be drawing a picture of the Dodgers' grave and dancing upon it. First: no, I'm not jealous. At least about the signing of A.J. Burnett. You can have him, Gotham. And not really about Sabathia and Teixeira, either. The Yankees have proven this decade that loading up on huge names for huge dollars doesn't guarantee a ring, much less happiness. It's generally easier to reach both if you don't load up on Dave Robertses and Barry Zitos (Zitoes?), but I'm not penciling the Yanks in for anything, not now, not in April.

My griping, which is no doubt being echoed in various ways today across this recessed land of ours, is more about the predictability of it all. The sun rises in the East, the Yankees go nuts on the free agent market. Baseball is a big business, but it's still a game. I'm no Mike or Mad Dog in the morning, ratcheting up the indignation. I don't want it to reflect upon the goodness of my life or the soundness of my commonwealth. I want it to be entertaining, to delight me in its unseen endings, to reveal expert secrets I will spend my own life never achieving. And of course, I want the Giants to win. So the amount of money the Yankees spend doesn't necessary gall me. But I'd prefer a different story line.

The best thing about the news is that hitters will now start to sign. Dominoes will fall. The system is unplugged (hence the prune juice metaphor). Will this affect the Giants? Perhaps directly, if they have their sights set on Pat Burrell as their guy who stands near first base with a glove on his left hand, or Adam Dunn. More likely it will help the Giants assess the corner-infield trade market faster. The teams who missed out on Big Tex -- the Red Sox, the Orioles, the Nationals, the Angels -- will make subsequent moves, and the corner-infield chess pieces will be in play.

[UPDATE: Chris Haft at MLB.com says two of those pieces could be the Yankees' Nick Swisher and Xavier Nady, both of whom will get less playing time with Teixeira aboard.]

Question for these slow, sour times: If Mark Teixeira is prune juice, what is Edgar Renteria?