The Wealthiest Alfonso

Edgardo Alfonso had five or six excellent seasons, but didn't really stick around long enough to parlay them into huge dollars. Alfonso Ribiero has always been a supporting character- second fiddle to Ricky Schroeder and then Will Smith. He was last seen on Celebrity Duets, trying to survive in the shadow of the great Hal Sparks. Something tells me that soap-opera star Kristin Alfonso isn't pulling down eight figures a year.

No, my friends, it is Alfonso Soriano who is smiling today. In addition to winning the sweepstakes for wealthiest Alfonso, he will also get to patrol the friendly confines of Wrigley Field's outfield grass for the next eight years. For this service, he will be paid a reported $136 million. That, if my math serves me, is $17 million a year. I know- I thought that after the Derek Jeter $189 million deal, we were just about done with these. I suppose I figured that the Beltran contract was a bit of a hiccup, but that the overall market direction was down. No more six, seven, eight or more-year deals. I guess I was wrong. I also guess my vision of seeing Soriano in a Sox uniform is also probably incorrect. This means that the options such as J.D. Drew (yes) and Carlos Lee (no!) are more likely for the Sox. This also means that the market has been established a bit higher than we anticipated this off-season, and some players are going to get rich. Probably not Soriano rich- I think that most teams recognize that Carlos Lee is probably Mo Vaughan waiting to happen and that he isn't worth more than four years. I think that Barry Zito, as reliable a pitcher as he's been, isn't going to get more than five or six years, and fall short of $100 million. Even Matsuzaka isn't going to see much more than the $51 million the Sox paid for the right to talk with him. But there's a long way to fall from $136 million and still be plenty rich.

One potential benefit of this lucrative players' market is that Manny becomes not only more tradeable, but more tradeable at a higher leverage to the Sox. He's only got two years left, with a total value of just under $40 million. He still has two option years and is a 5/10 guy who can veto trades, but if he's amenable, I don't see the Sox having to pick up much if any of his salary this year. The likely target at this point seems to be the Angels, where owner Arte Moreno continues to crow loudly about making a big move to get a big bat in the middle of the order to pair up with Vlad Guerrero. Losing out on Soriano makes someone like Manny an even more attractive target. Manny may be big money, but he's short-term, and is a more proven quantity than someone like Carlos Lee or J.D. Drew. Could we shake loose Chone Figgins, Scot Shields, and a prospect for Manny? Could we get K-Rod and Chone Figgins? I'd do that deal in a heartbeat.