Wow...

...Jim Hendry done lost his goddamn mind.

Further proof that your average message board poster, given the proper contacts and relevant apprenticeships, could probably do as well or better than most of the General Managers in the Major Leagues.

Rumor has it that the deal is only six years guaranteed, with the seventh and eighth being options. And that would make the reported deal far less insane. But the following applies even if the deal is for six years - and far more vehemently if it's for eight.

I've already ranted plenty on why Soriano would have been a terrible Oriole free agent signing for the kind of money he would have (and seemingly, has) received. All I'm going to say is: His on-base percentage in 2006 was .026 better than his current career average. If you believe the sabermetrics crowd (and I generally do), then you think that OBP is the single most important offensive statistic in baseball. And patience is not something that most hitters learn at age 30.

In other words: He's highly unlikely to consistently replicate the career year he just had.

He's also 30, which means he'll be 36 (or 38, if all eight years are guaranteed) at the end of his deal. The idiocy of this deal isn't so much in the first two or three years - it's in the probability that Soriano will be one of the most expensive mediocre-to-decent players in the game by the end of his contract.

In other words: Most baseball players reach their peak around age 27, then start to decline - some slowly, some rapidly. And Soriano isn't that good to begin with. You do the math.

So, Cubbies, I hope you win a title in the next couple of years, because - much like the Tigers will soon find out with Magglio Ordonez - paying aging, marginal players shit-tons of money might work out well in the short-term, but it's hardly a sustainable path to success.