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.

Still pitching around the problem

Baseball made a step in the right direction Tuesday.

But it was more like Barry Bonds, one step out of the batter's box, admiring one of his own home runs.

Players and owners have agreed to a new tougher, broader steroids policy. The new policy calls for a 50-game ban for first-time offenders, 100 games for failing a test a second time, and a lifetime ban for anyone who fails a third test.

Congress, I suspect, is going to like certain aspects of the announced agreement -- namely, the increased penalties and, for the first time, the testing for amphetamines. But the suspensions still aren't enough.

A second-time steroids cheat can fail a test in spring training, and still be back in the lineup for his team's August-September playoff run.

Also, there isn't enough in-season testing in the new policy. Players should be tested randomly at least once every 60 games. One player from each team, chosen at random, should be called to submit to urine tests after each game. The idea isn't necessarily to catch people, but to deter them from using steriods. One test per season isn't going to scare anybody.

What Congress seems to want -- and what baseball seemingly is too stupid (or arrogant) to understand -- is for all professional sports to turn over administration of their drug programs to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, the same group that the U.S. Olympic Committee uses.

Raffy walks again

Much to his relief, former Ranger and Oriole Rafael Palmeiro's next uniform won't be the pen-stripes of the Fort Leavenworth team. Raffy was cleared after an investigation concluded that it couldn't be proven that he had lied to a federal grand jury.

Rafael's long-awaited "explanation" of why he tested positive for anabolic steroids turned out to be a half-baked one. A faulty B-12 shot?

It could happen. But the committee's report noted that Orioles teammates who took the same B-12 shots did not test positive for stanozolol, as Raffy did.

Questions linger. Stanozolol is hard to mask and tends to remain in an athlete's system for weeks.

Yet, six weeks after Palmeiro appeared before Congress and made his dramatic, finger-pointing, "I did not take steroids" claim, he failed a drug test. Was Raffy arrogant, stupid or careless?

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that he mostly was careless, that he took something without totally checking its contents, or that he took something and failed to follow its illegally-prescribed regimen. In either case, he was responsible and he stands guilty.

Raffy probably has played his final baseball game, and that's unfortunate. But he can salvage some of his reputation, I believe, by taking an active role in baseball's fight against steroids. There's still time for him to tell his whole story. The truth can be a powerful message.

Cy Old story

Obviously, this is why the Baseball Writers Assn. of America doesn't want me voting for them anymore.

Nothing against Chris Carpenter or the St. Louis Cardinals, but I strongly disagree with the way my baseball colleagues select the Cy Young Award winners.

As the wire service story reported Thursday afternoon, Carpenter likely won on the basis of his 21-5 record. Second in the balloting was Florida's Dontrelle Willis, who was 22-10. And as the story said, Houston's Roger Clemens was "a distant third."

Stop the insanity. A pitcher's won-loss record may be the least accurate gauge of his overall pitching effectiveness. Exhibit A: Clemens, whose dominance was masterfully reflected by his 1.83 earned run average and the .198 batting average that he allowed opposing hitters.

Carpenter's ERA was 2.83 and his average allowed was .231. Willis' numbers were 2.63 and .243.

Artistically speaking, they weren't even in the Rocket's league.

A pitcher's won-loss record depends on a variety of factors, several of which are beyond his control. Yet, the writers annually will judge the Cy Young winner only on wins and losses.

By the way, though I am a long-time member of the BBWAA, I haven't been asked to vote for anything since 1994, when I followed my conscience and cast my ballot for the best-looking rookie that I had seen that year in the American League. Only two other writers voted with me for Rusty Greer. The rest voted for Kansas City flash-in-the-pan Bob Hamelin. Ridiculous.

Unlike Astros, Sox weren't tight

The Astros' first trip to the World Series ended up looking a lot like the neighboring Rangers' previous trips to the post-season.

Houston was outpitched and outplayed. The Astros had far too many over-anxious, thrown-away at-bats. And going home to Minute Maid Park with an 0-2 deficit in the Series only seemed to add another weighty burden on the Astros' shoulders.

And so, the Chicago White Sox are World Series champions. Hopefully, all those medium- and small-market franchises out there were paying attention.

Not one of the White Sox' top four starting pitchers was signed as a free agent. Mark Buehrle was drafted by the Sox in the 38th round in 1998. Jon Garland came to the ChiSox in a trade during his second year of pro ball.

Freddy Garcia was obtained from Seattle in a five-player trade. The Yankees traded Cuba-born Jose Contreras to Chicago for Esteban Loaiza.

Next time you hear a radio talk-show caller whine, "When are the Rangers gonna spend some money and get some pitching?" show him the White Sox staff.

One last White Sox note. Jermaine Dye, who had the Series-winning hit Wednesday night, was signed as a free agent in the off-season.

The White Sox outbid two teams, the Giants and Rangers. Dye was signed for two years and earned $4 million this season. The Rangers opted for (cringe) Richard Hidalgo.