Fouled-Off Bunts: Limbo Everybody! Edition

The Post and Times take their cracks at yesterday's developments. Of note, the Post describes the process they'd undertake if the agreement would go to arbitration.

MLB's thug-in-chief, Robert "Li'l Bobby" DuPuy showed all the finesse of a fat boy in a tutu, releasing a threatening letter, which does no one any good at all. Being the alpha male with the Council looking for reasons NOT to vote for you isn't a good strategy. It might play well when dealing with the Teamsters legitimate business people, but it's not what anyone needed. Business of Baseball has the full idiotic letter.

MLB's house organ also wrote about the issue, noting DuPuy's ugly rhetoric. (Of note, they repeat the $30 million profit figure in the last line. That's the same total AJ Burnett's agent said, and is $20 million higher than the figured leaked to the Post.)

T(h)om Loverro blames the mayor. He's probably right.

On-the-field, Tony Armas, as we assumed he would, rejected arbitration. When the Nationals strangely offered it to him, I was working under the assumption that they had a handshake deal to do this, giving the two parties additional time to negotiate a contract. They now have until Jan 8 to sign him, otherwise he can't re-sign with the club until May 1.

Of all the players in baseball, only Tony Graffanino of the Red Sox, and Travis Lee of the Devil Rays accepted arbitration.

Rocket Bill also reports that reliever TJ Tucker, who was arbitration eligible as a player with less than six years of service time, has agreed to a minor league deal. Tucker was quite valuable as the long reliever in 2004 had Tommy John surgery, and will be out until at least June. I'll have more on the rest of tender decisions later today.

Dave Sheinin and Barry Svrluga tag-team with an article that details how the turmoil at the Wilson Building is affecting the operations of the franchise. Of particular interest are the details on the season ticket figure -- usually a pretty firmly held state secret:

The Nationals had a season ticket base of roughly 22,500 last season, and their goal is to retain 85 percent of that for 2006, which would mean about 19,125 season tickets sold. Team officials said yesterday that, despite the fact the team raised most ticket prices by between $1 and $5 per seat per game, the Nationals have about 17,500 commitments for season tickets next year. Partial season ticket plans of either 41 or 20 games won't go on sale until after Jan. 1. Tavares said that the team has retained 77 percent of its season ticket revenue from 2005.

And now for something completely different....
Baseball Crank looks at how old recent Met signee Julio Franco is. My favorite? Franco in 2006 will be the same age Sandy Koufax was . . . in 1983

And the Humbug Journal answers the question we've all asked ourselves at one point or another... Which National, currently on the 40-man roster, would have the most points in Scrabble for their full name? Buck Sez you won't get the answer.