Re-sign, don't resign

Many pitchers and catchers reported for MLB Spring Training yesterday, which means that Matthew will start demanding the fantasy baseball draft soon. But it also means Albert Pujols’ self-imposed get-an-extension-signed-or-else-I’ll-become-a-free-agent deadline is about a day away.

While it seems almost impossible that a deal will be finalized before that deadline, the sentiment seems to be that Pujols will eventually re-sign (and resign) with the Cardinals, so they don’t necessarily need to hurry.

There’s a similar situation in the NBA with Carmelo Anthony right now, except the house money – so to speak – has him eventually leaving his Nuggets to join the Knicks, which leads to the suggestion that the Knicks don’t necessarily need to offer the Nuggets an adequately appealing trade.

In both situations, there is just a lot of hope, good feelings, half-guarantees, and – frankly – sound reasoning supporting the evident foregone conclusions.

With Pujols, the rhetoric goes: “He’s too good of a guy to leave St. Louis,” “He’s not in it for the money,” “Nobody else could pay him anyway,” etc.

With Melo, the reasoning is: “He wants to play on a big stage,” “He’ll sign with the Knicks in free agency if a deal isn’t done by the deadline,” “He won't sign an extension with any other team,” etc.

But, considering I want to see Melo in NY (for some reason) and I really want to see Pujols stay in St. Louis, this apparent laidback, let’s-go-ahead-and-count-our-chickens attitude of the two clubs concerns me.

And, like everything in sports this year, that concern stems from The Decision.

While the sports culture at large learned a lot of (often disappointing) things about LeBron during the 2010 free agent period, it also (should have) learned a very important lesson about free agency decisions: there are a lot of moving parts involved in those decisions.

Here is a by no means exhaustive list: money, winning, location, family, friends, ownership, players unions, other players, werewolf attacks, nightlife, coaches. All of these different factors complicate things like presumed hometown discounts, honor-before-money decisions, or personal guarantees.

So, in light of that, here is what I would tell my favorite team if they had any sliver of an opportunity to lock up an elite player like Pujols or Melo: do it. Now. Don’t wait.

Cleveland’s record: 9-46 (16.4%).

Quote of the Day:

While typing this blog, I’ve intermittently been listening to the “B.S. Report” from yesterday, in which Bill Simmons talked with David Stern. Of course, Carmelo came up, and Stern said:

“You think you know what he’s thinking, but there’s this thing called the media that will help you and tell you what he’s thinking even though they don’t know what he’s thinking.”

So, does Carmelo really want to go to New York? Yes. I think the answer would still be yes, but a good warning nonetheless.