...and Wade Miller signs with the Red Sox for a guaranteed 1.5 million, plus up to 3 million more in incentives. This is scary for two reasons: it's a great deal for the Red Sox, and it's almost EXACTLY what Andy predicted we should do with Miller - sign him to a 1 year deal with plenty of incentives, kinda similar to what Nomar did with the Cubs. To be fair, the Astros couldn't offer Miller less in arbitration than what he made last year (3.4 million, I think), but we could have made him a similar offer after releasing him. Why didn't we? I don't know. This offseason has been pretty depressing - our two 'moves' have been to re-sign Viz and Orlando Palmeiro for a total of 1.5 million, and it seems like everything has been focused on signing Beltran. Berkman? Oswalt? Anyone else? Nope, take a back seat to Carlos Beltran, who (while being a great player), is likely to be overpaid by the Yankees, especially now that they didn't get Randy.

I say let Beltran sign with the Yankees for 8 years / 120 million, sign Berkman and Oswalt to 4 or 5 year deals for around 40 or 50 million each, get a cheap OF (Jose Cruz, Dustan Mohr) to fill in for Berkman, trade Lamb for either aforementioned OFer or relief help, and....well, that leaves our rotation. As of right now, it's Oswalt / Pettitte / Backe. Other options? I really don't know. Andy, what do you think?

Yeah. Good question. Here's the deal: if we don't sign Beltran, we gotta have a backup plan. Of course, if we do lose Beltran, we might not even compete in 2005. But if we do not sign Beltran, we will have plenty of money to spend. I hope that we put this money to good use. We don't need a huge signing like Magglio or Delgado or whatever. I hope we put that toward Berkman and Oswalt. They SOOO GOOD.

I agree with Jack that we need to sign an OF -- preferably a centerfielder -- if we don't sign the big fella. Someone like Cruz would be sweet. Burnitz would cost more and is older and slower.

Anyway, the point is, I hope the front office isn't relying on Beltran. I think the worst thing would be to wait until Jan. 7, then make a mistake by paying $17 a year to the guy. I mean as good as he appears to be, he ain't worth it all. He ain't worth signing away the future (i.e. Oswalt and Berkman)

Now as far as the rotation goes, I have no idea. Here are the ONLY free agents out there: Millwood, Nomo, Loaiza, Lima, Lowe, Odalis Perez, Steve Sparks, Shane Reynolds, Omar Daal, Pedro Astacio. That don;t look to good. So, uh.... we might see a little too much of Duckworth and Redding next year. Which is not a good thing.

Whatever. Let's go play poker.