时间: Sat Dec 11 00:03:12 2010 The Rangers boosted their offer to Cliff Lee and may well wind up getting him, as Jeff Wilson writes. But at some point, the Texas baseball operations executives involved in this must have asked themselves: Have we lost our minds? Even the Yankees, with their enormous revenues, are feeling uncomfortable with where these negotiations have gone. History tells us that seven-year deals for pitchers almost never work out, at any age, and yet now the Yankees have made a seven-year offer to Lee, who will throw his first pitch in the 2011 season at age 32. Lee is an incredible athlete and in great shape and highly regimented in his work ethic, and of course he's been one of the greatest postseason pitchers in the history of baseball. The guy walked 18 batters and struck out 185 last season. All of those factors make you feel good about his chances for pitching well in the immediate future. But three years ago, he struggled so badly for the Indians that he was sent to the minors. His fastball is typically 91-92 mph, so as he ages and loses velocity, he'll soon drop into the much more hittable 89-90 mph range. His best weapon is his incredible command, and if that suffers just a bit, he will be a very different pitcher. "He has very little margin for error," one talent evaluator said this week. "If he starts to decline, he could go from being great to being average quickly." If the Yankees sign Lee and he regresses in three years, it would be devastating -- but not debilitating. New York is already looking at the real possibility that Alex Rodriguez will be underperforming in the last years of his career, while making huge dollars -- and if the Yankees sign Lee, they would be committing almost $55 million to a 42-year-old A-Rod and 39-year-old Lee in 2017. But the Yankees are a money machine, thriving; they can afford that kind of commitment. Can the Rangers? Does it make sense for them to commit those kinds of dollars to one player? Well, the answer is complicated http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/blog?name=olney_buster&id=5905388&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fmlb%2fblog%3fname%3dolney_buster%26amp%3bid%3d5905388 --

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