FanHouse

Not news: Scott Boras wants a team to overpay his free agents this winter. News: He's actually admitting the part about "overpaying." From the Tampa Tribune:

"It's a hard dynamic when you're talking about 68-70 wins every year," Boras said. "They have a great nucleus of young players but they need to bring in, as with every team that has success, veteran pitching to complement what they have.

"I represent a lot of pitchers, and the hardest thing for them to go to Tampa (Bay) is that you're going to have to overpay them. It's not a winning situation, and it's a difficult place to pitch.

"On the other hand, I got a call from the Detroit owner four years ago after they had 119 losses and they signed three of my guys (Magglio Ordonez, Pudge Rodriguez and Kenny Rogers). By their standards, they probably felt they overpaid to do it. And now they're wearing rings. So it can be done."

First of all, I've never heard someone talk about winning league championship rings as a great accomplishment. Yes, Detroit's turnaround has been remarkable, but that sentiment can be expressed in a better way than pointing out their second-place jewelery.

In any case, Boras is being awfully generous by suggesting the Rays are just a pitcher or two away from success (and that's not even considering the dearth of talented starting pitchers hitting the market this winter). They're in the same division as the Red Sox and Yankees, teams more than willing to pour $150 million or more into their payroll. Do you know what Tampa Bay's payroll was this season? $24 million. Heck, the Yankees dropped nearly that much on a partial season from an over-the-hill starting pitcher. Doubling, tripling or even quadrupling the current payroll might get them past the Orioles and maybe the Blue Jays, but they'll always be behind the two behemoths from Boston and New York.

Besides, Tampa Bay's pitching problems run deep: their bullpen sports a major-league-worst 6.30 ERA, and their middle of the pack offense was buoyed by a completely out of nowhere (and quite possibly fluke) MVP-caliber season from Carlos Pena (another Boras client, by the way). They need more than an aging, overpriced veteran to sustain any progress toward AL East parity their young core has made. They need an organizational philosophy of developing and retaining(!) young talent before they can even think of emerging as a legitimate winning franchise.