Shawn Estes signed a one-year, $6.2 million contract with the New York Mets on Sunday. Estes, picked up from San Francisco for Tsuyoshi Shinjo and Desi Relaford, will likely be the #3 in the rotation to start the season. When they picked him up in December, the Mets' rotation was looking very lefty-heavy. Following the rest of their off-season moves, it looks to be back down to two lefties and three righties with Al Leiter, Pedro Astacio, Estes, Steve Trachsel, and Jeff D'Amico.

New York has several injury concerns in that rotation, but their bullpen is overflowing with possible replacements, likely including Bruce Chen, who won't fit in the rotation. The Mets are also considering a trade of Trachsel for Rick Reed, but at this point the Twins appear to have significantly more interest in the deal than New York.

The contract includes IP performances bonuses of $25K for reaching 205 and 210 IP, as well as $100K if he attains 220 IP. As Estes is among the potential injury candidates, I doubt he will reach any of his incentives and would not be surprised if he drops down in the rotation. MLB.com supports this supposition by reporting that Estes has never pitched more than 203 IP and that no pitcher has accumulated 220 IP since the Mets hired Bobby Valentine.

He has never been particularly dominant, so I am even less enthusiastic about the original acquisition now that his salary has been established. There were many better ways the Mets could have spent $6.2M.

Jose Mercedes signed a minor league contract with Cleveland on Saturday. The top four spots of the Indians rotation look set with Bartolo Colon, C.C. Sabathia, Chuck Finley, and Danys Baez. Charles Nagy is still on the roster and has a very good shot of making the team if he's healthy, but he's had severe elbow problems the last few seasons, so his health is extremely uncertain. Prospect Ryan Drese is the favorite for the fifth spot going into Spring Training. He pitched very well last season but also advanced very quickly as he spent all of 2000 at A+, started 2001 at AA and then jumped mid-season to AAA and the majors.

Jake Westbrook and Tim Drew will also receive an opportunity to compete for the 5th slot in Spring Training, but both are relatively long shots. Drew does appear to have learned almost all he can in the minors; however his handful of major league numbers and a major league roster crunch may allow Cleveland to let him spend another couple months in AAA. Westbrook spent some time in the Indians bullpen last season but has been a starter for the majority of his career. There's absolutely no need for him in the bullpen in 2002, so he should return to AAA and continue work on his starting skills. Jaret Wright will also be in the mix if he has recovered from the shoulder surgery he had in September. It was his second shoulder surgery in a little over a year, after the first in August of 2000.

I don't expect Mercedes to beat out this competition in Spring Training. However, Sabathia has been somewhat overworked, Finley is getting old, and Baez has become accustomed to the workload of a reliever the last few seasons, so it is highly probable that the Indians will experience some injury problems this season. When that happens, Mercedes will be a top candidate for replacement innings.

The Tribe have also redone their uniforms for 2002, and I have to say that I much prefer the renovation of the roster to these new outfits. The script I for Indians looks more like a J. While trading Roberto Alomar and allowing players like Juan Gonzalez, Kenny Lofton, and Marty Cordova to leave town might have been a little drastic, it was time for this team to undergo an overhaul. John Hart did a good job with the club for the last decade, but in the last few years, it seems that even as the moves they made kept them in the playoffs, they also kept them out of the Series.

There were a couple of interesting miscellaneous items that I passed over last week and want to cover now. The first is that the Astros are now going all-out to negotiate the removal of the Enron name from the stadium. Numerous people in the Houston area have lost their jobs over the debacle and the team wants to free itself from the negative association.

However, the company is current with the scheduled payments, recently paying the annual fee for the 14-person suite ($108K) and 35 box seats ($90K) that are required expenditures as a part of the naming rights contract. This transaction seemed to spur the Astros' legal team into action as shortly thereafter they sought relief from the bankruptcy court. Houston's argument is that as Enron cannot sell the naming rights to someone else but only terminate their existing contract, the naming rights have no tertiary value to the now bankrupt company, so Enron should therefore discontinue payment.

While Enron has expressed interest in a buyout, the Astros maintain that there is nothing to buy and that technically the company owes them for the next 27 years of naming rights, although they are willing to dissolve the contract. The next payment is not due until August 31st; however the team is eager to resolve the issue in advance of that date. The bankruptcy court has reportedly been asked to either accept or reject the contract.

Changing the stadium's name will be a colossal and likely expensive project, considering it is plastered everywhere including on a good number of seats, but Houston is anxious to separate themselves from the ill-famed institution.

The next rather interesting news item is that the players' associating will be seeking damages in their grievance against the owners for their attempt at contraction this off-season. Their argument is that the threat of contraction artificially held down interest in free agents and therefore depressed player salaries, costing players (and their agents) millions. Considering the prolific commentary on this trend by scores of analysts this winter and the experience of their lawyers in these matters, they shouldn't have a tough time proving their case.

The owners meet on Tuesday; then on Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold their hearing regarding MLB's anti-trust exemption. In addition to all of these off-field matters, Pitchers and Catchers begin to report this week, so things should be interesting.