Free agent wonderings

Five years, $50 million.

Ouch. It isn't the dollars that would scare me away from free agent pitcher A.J. Burnett. It's the five years.

The last free agent pitcher to sign a contract for that long was (drum roll, please) Chan Ho Park, who signed for five years, $65 million, in 2001. And we all know how that worked out.

A report by ESPN.com on Thursday said that the Toronto Blue Jays had made the five-year, $50-million offer to Burnett.

For the Rangers, that's encouraging. Burnett likely will set the ceiling for free agent pitchers this off-season (unless Kevin Millwood does), and $10 million per season should be affordable. If Tom Hicks doesn't stay in the hunt for Burnett at that price, that should be seen as a very, very bad sign.

The organization will need to overpay to attack a top-line free agent starter, and that's the way that it should view offering Burnett the five years.

Jeremy Affeldt? Not interested. But you have to admire GM Jon Daniels' spunk in asking the Royals for Zack Greinke.

The club's first priority is starting pitching, I know, but Brian Giles, who always seems to be on base, would fit very nicely in the Rangers' lineup. Giles at $10 million would be much more valuable to the Rangers than Alfonso Soriano at the same price. Soriano needs to go.

But consider this: Back at the July 31 trade deadline, The Sporting News reported that the Braves offered 2B Marcus Giles, pitcher Jorge Sosa and a pitching prospect for Soriano and Kevin Mench, and the Rangers turned them down!!

Brian Giles has said that he'd like to play alongside his brother Marcus before his career is done.

The new GM needs to see if the Braves are still interested.