I'm guessing it'll be a quiet weekend as we sit in a holding pattern, waiting for CC to decide on which lucky team gets to pay him hundreds of millions of dollars.

Last week, I had suggested that our offer wasn't THAT far below what the Yankees were offering, and that, if he truly likes playing in Milwaukee and not in New York, it should be close enough to get a deal done, excepting the possibility of a sixth year.  Yet...here we sit.

This had me wondering: are the Brewers wise to play this waiting game?  Consider: we're not going to outbid the big-market teams. The much-rumored $100 million/5 year offer is (and should be) as high as we go, and you can make a sound argument that it's already too much for one person.  It sounds like the team knows this, as they've already said that CC is the only FA pitcher to get an offer like this, as a thank you for getting us to the playoffs last season.

So let's say this is our maximum offer, or close to it. It is substantially below the Yankees' current offer, or what the Dodgers, maybe the Giants, et al. will pay. If CC were really going to take "only" $20 million/season sign with us...well, you'd think he would by now.  Like I said, I don't think we can increase our offer very much, other than possibly adding a 6th year.  (Which I'd like to think Moustache and CC's agent had discussed.)

Short of piling on more cash, is there anything else we can add to our offer to make CC want to sign with us?  I don't think there is.

So now I'm wondering: should we continue to play the CC sweepstakes?  (Are we even in the sweepstakes, or only thinking that we are?)

Here's another idea.  Let's say we thought AJ Burnett was the second best FA pitcher out there.  (I don't know if he is, I'm just grabbing a Type A starting pitcher as an example.)  What if we offered a better-than-expected offer (perhaps overpaying) --- I don't know, maybe 5 years, $90 million, with a signing bonus, or some such thing.  The catch is, he'd have to take it before CC signed with his next team --- once CC signed, the deal went away.

In fact, we could make a similar offer to any #1 FA pitcher: the first one to accept the deal gets it.

I guess, most of us are in agreement that if we are to contend this season, we need a #1 pitcher, moving Gallardo to #2, etc.  While everyone waits for CC (and all but one team is going to get turned down), maybe we can take advantage and sneak off with the second-best FA starter out there.  What do you think?