Is there a difference between a player like T.O. and a player like Ron Artest?  I think there is.  Certainly T.O. was a complainer and malcontent in San Francisco, but his latest tirade against the Eagles and his idiotic stance on his contract are, in my opinion, the result of listening to some terrible advice from his agent.  Ron Artest on the other hand, well he's just not right in the head. 

If both my basketball and football teams were looking at these two players I would feel much more comfortable picking up Owens than I would Artest, provided Owens fired Rosenhaus.  With no one telling him (wrongly so) that he's being taken advantage of, Owens would go on doing his job, doing it well and smiling for the cameras.  With Artest, you never know when he's going to decide that his "music" is more important than basketball or to go running off into the stands after fans.  As I said, the man is just not right in the head, never was, never will be.  Unimaginable talent, pehaps one of the two or three best small forwards in the game, but about as predictable as a rabid pit bull.

Speaking of people who are not right in the head, in case you missed it, Saints coach Jim Haslett has asked the Saints for a contract extension.  He wants 5 years and GM control.  Now I'm all for gutsy moves and providing for your future and all that, but this is just a bit insane?  What Haslett did is akin to me getting a job at FoxSports, walking in my first day, setting fire to the offices and then turning to a boss who is looking on in disbelief and saying, "by the way, I'm going to need a raise."  The Saints have, for this entire year, blamed every loss on Katrina, but what excuses do they have for the past few years.  Haslett's teams have had one thing in common with the exception of his first year, each team quit on him.  That's not the fault of the league, it's not the fault of a storm, it is the fault of the head coach and the players. 

At 12:01 am on December 8, 2005, something very interesting happened.  A Major League Baseball free agent market that was shallower than Paris Hilton got some much needed oomph and all from a player who may not even play in 2006.  There are not many athletes who could affect such a turn-around, fewer still who could do it at the tender age of 43 but as we all know, Roger Clemens is not a typical athlete. 

In a winter when a pitcher with almost as many trips to the disabled list as career wins (paging AJ Burnett) can get 5 years and 55 million giving 20 million to Roger Clemens for a year could be seen as a bargain for some teams.  Certainly he is a more sound investment than the pitchers still available on the market (unless you have a fondness for Kevin Millwood and his propencity for pitching well in contract years or Jarrod Washburn and his 87 mph bp fastball and breakless curve).  Teams that don't even need starting pitching are getting into the act with the Yankees basically ready to throw airplanes full of cash at the Hall of Famer and the Red Sox taking up donations on Yawkey Way to tempt the Rocket to bring his red glare back to Fenway.  Never mind that at present both teams have seven starters for five spots (Johnson, Mussina, Pavano, Wang, Wright, Chacon and Small in NY and Schilling, Beckett, Wakefield, Arroyo, Wells, Wade Miller and Matt Clement in Boston).  After all, when someone tells you that you can have a classic '65 Mustang you don't say, "no thanks, I've got a Geo Metro in the garage already."

Mind you, this is pure speculation since the common wisdom is that the Rocket is going to pitch in the World Baseball Classic and then re-sign with the Astros in May if he decides to stick around for one more season.  But the hot stove is not about conventional wisdom, it is about dreaming up scenarios and for fans across baseball Roger Clemens in their team's colors is one heck of a dream.

For the Yankees, the signing of Clemens could help Pavano get his wish of a ticket out of the Bronx, possibly to Seattle for outfielder Jeremy Reed and an arm or two for the bullpen.  The Sox are already trying to deal David Wells and by adding Clemens they could also try to deal either Clement or Arroyo for a short stop to replace Edgar Renteria (would Wells, Arroyo and Andy Marte be enough to get the Padres to offer up Khalil Greene and Antonio Otsuka?). 

Other teams too are certainly salivating over the chance to add Clemens, the pitching poor Rangers for example, surely Tom Hicks who once invested 55 million in Chan Ho Park would consider 20 million and use of a private jet a bargain for Clemens, though the Rocket may be a little leary about doing his swan song in a ballpark known as the Launching Pad. 

The Cardinals can't afford him, but the idea of bringing him in to replace Matt Morris and usher in the first year at the new park in St. Louis (while also giving a swift kick to a division rival) is certainly something that the Cardinal execs are thinking about at night. 

The Mets have brought in just about everyone else who was available this winter, why not add Clemens to the staff, certainly a team that just signed Julio Franco, who is listed in the media guide as being "at least 47" to a two year deal cannot be concerned with the age of the Rocket, why at 43 he's a spring chicken next to Franco and with a new network and a new stadium on the horizon a rotation that boasts Pedro, Clemens and Glavine at the front end might just be enough to finally get them by the Braves. 

The list of teams that would love to have Clemens is long, but for now all we can be certain of is the only team we know the Rocket will be toeing the rubber for this year will be Team USA.  But there is nothing like some rocket fuel to make sure the hot stove keeps burning bright this holiday season.

The way people are talking you would think that the Yankees are going into the 2006 season with a team that is as flawed as the Yankee teams of the early 1990's.  Bubba Crosby has range and the ability to catch the ball in center.  If he is the team's opening day center fielder and number nine batter, so be it.  Lest we forget, the Yankees will still have A-Rod, Jeter, Sheffield, Matsui, Posada, Cano and Giambi.  If a team with that much firepower needs Bubba Crosby's offense then something in Yankeeville has gone terribly wrong. 

Brian Cashman has stuck to his guns when it comes to not dealing away his young talent, or offering big money contracts just for players who don't fit, and I don't blame him.  When you look at the players available through trades are there any who would be major upgrades over the players Cashman has penciled in?  Juan Pierre in center dropped off last year and is entering his final arbitration year prior to free agency; Jason Michaels is a right handed Bubba Crosby both are 29 and neither have been regulars yet in their career, why deal a Wang for that?  Why sign a flawed Johnny Damon to 15 million this year when much better centerfielders like Hunter and Andruw Jones will hit the market next winter?  And don't write off Yankee prospect Melky Cabrera after his poor showing in a cup of coffee with the team last season.  Remember Yankee fans, Bernie Williams wasn't an instant success either. 

The bullpen is still the weakest link of this Yankee team, but as with center field there just are not many other options that represent upgrades over what the Yankees have already.  Teams that have quality arms in the bullpen know the value of those arms and are not going to just give them away and the free agent market is so thin that marginal relief pitchers like Bob Howry are pulling down contracts that are obscene (really, BJ Ryan deserves to be the second highest paid closer in baseball behind Mariano Rivera?).  So instead of getting into bidding wars for marginal players the Yankees may go with Tanyon Sturtze, Aaron Small, Jaret Wright, Kyle Farnsworth and youngsters Scott Proctor and Matt Smith in front of Mariano Rivera.  The young pitchers are exciting, Proctor is a lot like Farnsworth with an electric fastball and like Farnsworth, early in his career he has had trouble controlling it, perhaps the addition of Farnsworth can help usher Proctor's career along.  Smith, a left hander, has impressed at every level and his success in this past year's instructional league has drawn the interest of those putting together teams for international competition.  Other youngsters such as J. Brent Cox, Colter Bean and Ferdin Tejada could also be in the mix.

Remember something else Yankee fans; the team the Yankees break camp with in March is hardly ever the team they close the season with in September.  Trades can and will happen.  By not locking himself into bad deals Cashman is keeping the door open for trades during the season, when prices on pending free agents tend to drop.  Last season the Yankees were  just as flawed as they are now, the difference was they lacked any flexibility with the high priced contracts of players like Tony Womack, Steve Karsay, Paul Quantrill, Mike Stanton and Kevin Brown.  Filling spots with young players gives the team the ability to create roster spots by optioning players to Triple A instead of buying out big money players and releasing them.

With that in mind I will close this first posting with the following trade proposal:  Mike Mussina to Atlanta for Andruw Jones.  The money is a wash with both players being free agents at the end of the season.  Mussina, at this point in his career, would be well served by a move to the National League.  Last year he struggled to get through five innings for the Yankees, but with the shorter lineups in the National League he could once again be a seven or eight inning pitcher.  He would slot into the Atlanta rotation nicely behind Smoltz and Hudson and infront of lefties Mike Hampton and Horacio Ramirez.  With the size of the stadiums in the NL East (with the exception of in Philly) his propencity for giving up fly balls also would not hurt him as much as it did this past season in New York.

Just something to think about.