Adrian Beltre must have been very busy last week. After opting out of the final year of his contract with the Dodgers on the 5th, he was signed to a new deal by the 7th. Under the old contract he would have been paid $2.3 million. With the new contract, he will receive $2.8 million guaranteed with another $250,000 available in incentives.

In my opinion Beltre was somewhat lucky that LA both realized his worth and chose not to attempt to punish him for the his foolhardy decision to have his appendix removed in a foreign country. Maybe they considered the ordeal itself to be punishment enough. One could argue that the Dodgers would have made the playoffs if Beltre had not missed a quarter of the season recovering from what is a simple procedure in the U.S. However, that same argument can be used to show how valuable Adrian is to the team. It is uncertain who would have won in arbitration.

Meanwhile, up north the Giants were involved in re-signing their catcher Benito Santiago to a 2-year, $3.7 million deal. Although Santiago was their starting catcher last season, this may be a bit expensive for a catcher who will be 37 when the season starts. He still has most of his historically superb defensive skills, but showed signs of fatigue late in the year. If the money isn't a stretch, the second year in the deal certainly is someone's wishful thinking.

San Francisco has decent catching depth besides the sometimes-fragile Santiago. Edwards Guzman could be a capable back-up for both years of the deal. Some in the organization are still confident in Giuseppe Chiaramonte's ability to catch in the majors, a belief unsupported by his minor league history. Their best internal option to replace Santiago if he goes out for more than a week or two is Yorvit Torrealba, a solid catching prospect who could use one more year in the minors. He'd be an adequate partner for Guzman if needed. By the way, does anyone know if he's related to catcher Steve Torrealba on the Braves?

Chris Gomez will be the Devil Rays' shortstop again in 2002. He will earn $1.25 million this season, and the club has an option for 2003. Gomez was Tampa's only free agent this year. They decided to re-sign him as opposed to shaking up the roster by allowing Felix Martinez, Russ Johnson, and even Jorge Cantu to compete for the job during Spring Training.

Re-signing Gomez did mean that they had to designate Travis Harper for assignment. However, the pitcher did not do much for the club last year and would probably not be missed if the team loses him.

Luis Alicea will be returning to the Kansas City Royals for another year. The second baseman will be paid $800,000 to remain with the club. Evidently the young Carlos Beltran wanted him to stay so that Alicea could continue to give Beltran pointers. Insert your joke since Beltran earned over five times Alicea's 2001 roto value, along with playing better defense, etc.

Before I finish up today, I need to let the Mariners off the hook for not offering Aaron Sele arbitration. Tim included them in his list of clubs who were grossly incompetent when offering arbitration to their free agents. As it turns out, there was a clause in Sele's contract that prevented the club from offering him arbitration. Very few people were aware of this clause before a day or so ago.

I did mention a similar clause in Juan Gonzalez's contract during my AL review of which free agents should be offered arbitration. However, the Indians were able to offer Juan Gone arbitration, because he waved the clause. His agents have been unhappy with the amount of interest shown for their client and thought it would be the best idea to increase his market value. I'm not sure I agree with them, as it should be fairly obvious to all involved, even overly paranoid GM's, that Cleveland offered Gonzalez arbitration in order to claim compensation for him. The knowledge that signing the right fielder will now cost them a draft pick might actually serve as a deterrent to interested teams.

Even if this move by Gonzalez's agents does turn out to backfire, it won't even begin to compare with the negligence of Jeff Cirillo's agents. Cirillo had a partial no-trade clause in his contract. However, his agents missed the deadline to file the list of 11 teams to which he could refuse a trade, so the Rockies can now trade him to the club of their choice.

This to me seems to be a fireable, even actionable, offense. While Cirillo has been open to a trade that would take him out of Colorado, I'm sure that there are at least 11 teams to which he would not be overjoyed to go.

Last but not least, it has now been two days since I reported upon Jason Isringhausen landing with the St. Louis Cardinals. I knew at the time that the Cardinals themselves had yet to announce the news. However, I decided to follow ESPN's lead with the story, as it was likely to be officially announced later in the day. I suppose I should have known better considering their recent gun-jumping regarding Jason Giambi and the Yankees, but I didn't think they would screw up in the same manner twice in one week.

Evidently I was wrong, because as of this point, the Cards have still not announced any completed deal between themselves and Izzy. I still think it will happen. There are reports that it will be finalized after a physical in St. Louis today, but I felt the need to comment in view of the amount of time that has already elapsed.

A slow first day at the winter meetings has allowed me to polish off my list of skipped news items. Though day two had better show some increased activity, I'm beginning to catch Tim's cold, so I'm just not in the mood to rehash the anti-trust hearing quite yet.