Chooch got rooked

Last night, during commercial breaks, I flipped from the NFC Championship Game to MLB Network, which was playing a real classic: Game 6 of the 2003 World Series. (The game in which Josh Beckett became a Yankee killer.)

One time, after I flipped back to football, Christine got upset because news was coming up on the ticker. Why bother, so you can read that Joel Piniero signed with the Angels - just as he did yesterday, the day before and the day before that? I thought sarcastically. But I flipped back and rewound to humor her. And there it was: Carlos Ruiz had signed a three-year deal for little more than $8 million.

Christine claims she had some of her psychic intuition in making me flip back.

We were both surprised to see a contract so small when the going rate for Joe Blanton and Shane Victorino has been more than $20 million. We think Chooch needs a better agent. A FanGraphs post - Carlos Ruiz gets bought out - seems to agree, but concludes that the deal isn't as lopsided toward the Phillies as first believed. (The analysis is a bit above my head.)

Futher complicating matters is that Chooch isn't just one of Christine's favorite Phillies, but he's the choice of team president David Montgomery:

A few days after the Phillies clinched their third straight NL East championship, team president David Montgomery sat in his office at Citizens Bank Park and admitted catcher Carlos Ruiz may be his favorite player.

"I think Carlos knows I'm kind of partial to him," Montgomery said with a smile.

So, the teacher's pet can't even crack eight digits? Chooch got rooked.

Plus, it is odd that a player who has been in the organization since he was a teenager won't be a free agent until he is in his mid-30s.