Torres signing

Salomon Torres signed a two year, $6.5 million extension. I agree with Charlie, Pat, and Billy (who bring up Aramis, burning a big pile of money, and Brian Boehringer, respectively) : very bad idea. Way too much money to lock up a 35-36 year old reliever. Anyway, now that it's a done deal and baseball is set to begin tomorrow (!), all hail future Buc/trade bait Salomon Torres!

... Rowdy here. I don't know what was the big idea with signing Torres for '07 and '08. I won't jump to the conclusion that he will overpaid by MLB standards. I just don't know what's the going rate. I do know it has gone up every year, but beyond that, I can't say. And I don't believe the arguments about there being so much "freely available talent." It's nonsense to assert the team would have success if they took any scrub, paid him the minimum, and gave him the primary right-handed set-up job. We saw those guys in camp this spring. Would you really want one of the players we cut in Torres' job? There will be no better options in '07 and '08, I'm sure. Or would you promote Ryan Vogelsong to that job? Get real, I say. And it would be bad roster management to take some of our starting candidates (say, Ian Snell) and convert them to full-time relief work before we're certain they can not go as starters, which are much more needed on any club. Quality relievers are "fungible" and abundant only in fantasy baseball. But why go two more years? I still don't know. I suspect that the Pirates intend to work with Torres and his baseball academy after he retires, and that may be a factor. They may regard his salary as something like an investment in their international scouting department. If so, that might be smart. It also looks like they are rewarding him for past service, when he was, no doubt, paid less than average. If so, that's probably not smart, but perhaps unavoidable if they wish to prevent mutiny. All in all, I don't know enough about the team's financial state to have anything like an informed opinion of whether or not this signing could hurt the team, as I think the Boehringer contract did. But like the rest of you, I scratched my head when I read about it. Like the Wilson re-upping, it strikes me as out of character, and it's further evidence there has been some kind of shift in their financial planning. It could be about selling the team. It could be about the coming new labor agreement. It could be about the Ghost of Christmas Future visiting G. Ogden Nutting last Christmas eve.