Oh yes. Weeks before the Dodgers and Cubs exchanged $30 million worth of bench players, the Florida Marlins, who you might remember were bought in a series of bizarre transactions (and you thought Iran-Contra was complicated?) that involved Boston, Florida and the ward of Montreal, agreed to pay $10 million of Mike Hampton's salary to pitch for Atlanta, which prevents the Marlins from improving themselves and being able to make a run at their divisional rival … the Braves.

Lawyers, guns and money
There are those, particularly agents and union lawyers, who believe that the timing of the Montreal fire-sale announcement was all about the market (and not about the team playing 22 games in San Juan, which was finalized at the same time). They point to the curious juxtaposition of the Phillies and Mets each saying they knew the other team wasn't going to guarantee four years to Glavine. The look at last June's attempt by the Commissioner's Office to rig an artificial bonus slotting of the June amateur draft.

Whatever the genesis, with the majority of clubs claiming payroll freezes, the effect is so widespread that there are agents digging out their Florida Turnpike maps looking for Homestead. If the Expos' scavenger hunt takes as much time as many think it will (because Minaya will have so many offers and scenarios to sift through), then it could slow down both the trade and free-agent markets for a week past the winter meetings.

Then, guess what the week after Nashville shows on your Advent calender? Yup, non-tender day, Dec. 20. In all likelihood, there will be well over 100 free agents unsigned, then there will be another 25-40 players thrown into the market with the non-tenders (names like Marlon Anderson, Travis Lee, Carlos Febles, Jeff Suppan, Rolando Arrojo, Brian Daubach, Shane Spencer, Brad Fullmer, Quinton McCracken, Jimmy Anderson, Antonio Alfonseca, John Halama, Todd Ritchie -- and others). That weekend, the club offices close for the holidays, and when they re-open there are 150-something players in flux.

Oh yes. Then GMs are fixated on Jan. 18, the date teams and players exchange salary arbitration numbers. That, not coincidentally, will be impacted by the bearish free-agent market.

And before you know it, it's Groundhog Day and players either take what they are given, or they do what they did after the strike in 1995 and assembl in Homestead, Fla., for fun, games and auditions since none of them will be under contract to any team. Looking ahead to far better free-agent classes in 2003 and 2004, there are a lot of players who will think twice before sloughing off management's proposals.

It may be that this is all the residue of an industry whose spending eclipsed its revenues after the last agreement until the Alex Rodriguez, Hampton and Manny Ramirez signings froze the ATM system. Everyone knew that revenues would be flat in 2002; after all, the contraction winter and months of labor Armageddon talk leading up to the Aug. 31 agreement had to turn off fans and impact postseason television ratings.

"It's confusing," says one NL GM. "We know that any team with cash is king, and the Phillies and Cubs have cash. Fine. Then we hear that the Rangers, Red Sox, Mets and Dodgers desperately want to avoid paying any luxury tax and that all of them want to get down to or below the $100 million waterline … then the Mets sign a 37-year old (Glavine) for $35 million over three years. I just don't know."

We apparently do know the following:

They signed Steve Trachsel to give them, with John Thomson, a veteran -- and expensive -- five-man rotation that will cost them nearly $35 million. No wonder they talked Armando Benitez for Shea Hillenbrand while letting Edgardo Alfonzo go and trying to find creative waste stations for Rey Ordonez, Roger Cedeno and Jeromy Burnitz.