Recriminate THIS! 

Posted 12:52 PM by Sean
As a coda to the discussion of Garret Anderson's new contract, comes now Magglio Ordonez, seeking a five-year contract from the Chicago White Sox at $14 million per season. I don't intend to compare Anderson and Ordonez, because Ordonez is clearly the more valuable - he's younger, and just plain better, than Anderson. Is he $2 million a year better? Eh, maybe (and of course we have no idea what Ordonez will actually end up getting). But I still believe that part of the value of Anderson's contract is that it takes the issue off the table - who knows if Ordonez, or anyone else, for that matter - will be available during free agency?

That said, it's a good bet that there's at least one guy who will be available, and would you rather see that $2 million spent upgrading from Anderson to Ordonez, or as part of a package that upgrades from Eckstein to Garciaparra? You know, a couple million here, a couple million there, and pretty soon you're talking real money...

Update: Mike's Baseball Rants has an excellent discussion of why he thinks GA's not worth the money. As far as I can see, the divergence between his opinion and mine is that I weigh Anderson's more recent seasons more heavily than I weigh, say, 1995 and 1996.

Update! Part Deux!: Rob emails to rightly take me to task for beliving the Garciaparra hype. In fact, his home/road splits tell the story of a guy who's making a career out of banging doubles off the Green Monster. I stand by the larger point - the Angels are still going to have to make decisions at short and third, as well as finding a couple of pitchers, and dealing with Anderson now is one less ball in the air then - but Nomar? No thanks.