Black Friday Shopping

With all the earlybirds cramming the stores chasing after the worms ($299 laptops, $499 LCD HDTVs, etc.), there's got to be some GMs chasing after bargains this morning as well, right? Heh. I'd say: wrong!

If the early contracts doled out are any indication of what the holiday season will deliver for MLB clubs trying to upgrade their teams, there aren't going to be any worms for the earlybirds. $45 million to Juan Pierre; $50 million to Garry Mathews Jr.; $136 million to Alfonso Soriano. In Houston, Tim Purpura's wife sent him to the store to wait in line at Wal Mart for the $79 portable DVD player, and he came home with a $100,000,000 Carlos Lee.

It's this last item that has me a bit excited. Two years and $28 million, opens the door to making Richie Sexson a bargain in this market. Since Lee ended up with Houston instead of Baltimore, it's like the M's have just opened up the last case on the left side of the board, and have two cases left on the bottom of the right side. The Mariners need starting pitching more than they need Richie Sexson, and they just might be able to get it now that the last real right-handed power-hitting free agent is off the market.

I'll admit to being crazy and getting out of bed early on a perfectly good day off. Even though I gave the shoppers a 2-hour head start, I still got most of everything on my list. There were tons and tons of people out shopping, looking for bargains. Plenty of bargains remained in the stores.

I'm not so sure there are any bargains left on the free agent market.