A glut of work in my other life as Earnest MFA Student means I don't have anything interesting to report today, but in my defense neither have the Cardinals, so far—Roy Oswalt remains steadfastly unsigned and apparently displeased with the Cardinals' offer, although the Rangers, who apparently didn't want to start Oswalt in the first place, are supposedly out of the running.
I know the Rangers are rich and successful for the first time ever, but were they really chasing down a Hall of Very Good starter a year removed from a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.51 for the purposes of giving the rest of their admittedly strong rotation an extra night off every so often? That's just greed, the kind of greed that could be mitigated by, say, trading for Jake Westbrook, taking on all his salary, and using him as your swingman instead.
As for Edwin Jackson's signing, $10 million is good money on a one-year deal—just ask bereft, rapidly aging swingman Roy Oswalt—but it's right of the edge of where turning down three years, $30 million, as he reportedly did, makes sense. The longer he pitches on one-year deals, the more he risks exposing himself as someone who is excruciatingly tedious to watch.
Mainly, of course, I'm just in it for the draft pick.