Gary Sheffield (pictured) would be a simply terrible fit with the Texas Rangers. - Bobby Alcott/Flickr.comDecember 23rd, 2008: The day I was officially ready for spring training to begin. And here was the catalyst.

I personally know many despondent Cowboys fans who more than likely will be ready to join me in this forward-thinking state of mind by this time next week, pending the outcome of a potentially ruinous weekend in Philadelphia. To those who comprise that group, there's yet plenty of room aboard the baseball bandwagon.

And to the ever-diligent Mavericks fan -- well, at least Devin Harris isn't averaging 25 points per game!

Yet.

● Yes, folks, it's time for Update No. 1,487 on the Ben Sheets Sweepstakes:

The Braves have expressed little interest in Sheets or fellow free-agent right-hander Derek Lowe, but if Atlanta still views the acquisition of a "true ace" as a major off-season priority, Lowe might well evoke more interest than Sheets (David O'Brien, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Braves general manager Frank Wren isn't motivated to pursue an injury-prone pitcher like Sheets (Mark Bowman, MLB.com)

The Angels are more likely to pursue offensive help than Sheets, who may be out of Anaheim's range financially (Lyle Spencer, MLB.com)

All encouraging news, and perhaps conveniently timed news at that. SI.com's Jon Heyman reported on Monday evening that there was a growing sense among baseball executives that Mark Teixeira would settle on a new home within the next 48 hours (read: before Santa Claus takes flight on Wednesday evening); less than two hours prior, Roch Kubatko of the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network wrote that the Nationals had significantly sweetened their standing offer, situating Washington near the forefront of the bidding war for his services with an eight-year deal estimated to be worth between $178 million and $184 million.

The prevailing thought around baseball right now is that the entire free-agent market is waiting on the Scott Boras-powered melodrama to end, hoping that Teixeira sets the bar high for his unemployed contemporaries across the league in terms of contractual length and compensation so that their bargaining power is enhanced.

Many of the second-tier options on the market could begin to vanish quickly once Teixeira decides where he is going to likely play out most of his remaining days in professional baseball, though there is an inherent catch; according to ESPN.com's Buster Olney, increasingly downsized team budgets are responsible for depreciating the prospective salaries of many of the market's best available players, to the point where the aforementioned Derek Lowe could be forced to undertake additional cutbacks in his contractual demands -- perhaps all the way down into the $50 million range, which would signify a major deviation from the five-year, $90 million pact Lowe's agent was originally seeking at the beginning of the winter.

That sound you hear is the sound of those plastic Wal-Mart placards hitting the floor, denoting the so-called "rolling back" of Sheets's price. We can only wonder if enough of them will fall to put the Rangers in a position to launch a preemptive strike to acquire Sheets, a truly special player who would instantly place Texas that much closer to the threshold of playoff contention.

● I fully comprehend that part of the allure of Ken Rosenthal's FOXSports.com musings is generated by the speculative nuggets of insight he so regularly fashions for his rumor-thirsty readership (myself included), but they're not always on target, and this one in particular couldn't be more frustrating to read:

Gary Sheffield to the Rangers makes baseball sense — the Rangers are too left-handed and the Tigers too right-handed. Problem is, the Rangers are short on money, making it particularly unwise for them to invest in a 40-year designated hitter who will earn $14 million next season. If the Tigers are motivated to move Sheffield — as it appears they are — they will need to include a significant amount of money ...

Acquiring a hitter for the sole purpose of addressing a perceived lineup imbalance -- without taking into consideration said hitter's productivity or health, mind you, which Rosenthal completely ignores in this instance -- is a simply terrible idea, predicated on the same sort of flawed logic that resulted in Phil Nevin becoming the physical embodiment of a black hole in the heart of the Rangers' lineup for 300-plus plate appearances over portions of two seasons (and yes, the 2005 trade deadline move that brought Nevin to Texas also rid the ballclub of the debilitating presence of Chan Ho Park and netted the Rangers minor overall savings after accounting for the cash subsidy that changed hands, but that's beside the point); then-general manager John Hart proudly boasted on the fateful afternoon of the trade's consummation that Nevin "g[ave Texas] an experienced right-handed bat and add[ed] a versatile piece to our lineup," which, in retrospect, was really blatant bastardization of the term "versatile" on Hart's part.

So, what's the point of this drawn-out monologue? Namely, that Sheffield would be just about the worst fit imaginable with the Rangers in light of the personnel they presently have on hand and the organization's restrictive payroll situation. The 40-year-old slugger was quite productive as recently as 2007 (.265/.378/.462 in 593 PA, effectively making him one of the 25 best hitters in the American League that year), but found that productivity sapped in 2008 by residual soreness stemming from an October 2007 arthroscopic surgical procedure and consequently bore witness to his first sub-100 OPS+ campaign since 1991. Feeling lucky?

Aside from his tremendously prohibitive 2009 salary of $14 million (which, as Rosenthal states, Detroit would have to eat the bulk of in order to financially enable such a deal for Texas), Sheffield's legitimately questionable character would ostensibly not coalesce well with the diverse collection of talent being aggressively accumulated in Arlington.

In the last 24 months, Sheffield has remarked that there are more Latin Americans than black players in Major League Baseball because the former are "easier to control," alleged that former Yankees manager Joe Torre engaged in disparate treatment of black and white players during his time in the Bronx, and commented that Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter wasn't "all the way black." Milton Bradley's pre-2008 reputation around the game as a volatile trouble-maker was largely the product of him being a misunderstood individual; there's no such ambiguity where Sheffield's rebellious nature is concerned. He's simply not a likable person, and certainly not the type of player you want wielding clubhouse influence in an environment flush with young and impressionable first- and second-year major league talent.

If those reasons aren't compelling enough to dissuade the idea of Sheffield ever donning a Rangers uniform, perhaps this one will be: both the Bill James and Marcels 2009 player projections forecast catcher Max Ramirez as a far better bet going forward with the bat than Sheffield, and in the case of Sean Smith's CHONE player projections, the advantage enjoyed by Sheffield is virtually negligible. Texas would be far better off throwing the playing time that Sheffield would command as a right-handed designated hitter at a potentially blocked Ramirez, and committing their scarce available cash elsewhere.

● Because life is too short to drive up your blood pressure by investing too much of your free time into thinking about the Texas Rangers, here's the comedic third strike of this morning's column (courtesy of Redleg Stats):

The most recent edition of the “Reds Hot Stove League” radio show featured a contentious but one-sided exchange between a caller ("Kenneth from Dayton") and the Reds’ long-time announcer Marty Brennaman.

Caller: People here don’t realize that Pat Burrell and Adam Dunn don’t get paid $12 million to hit .300. They get paid to hit home runs; that’s it.
Marty: No, they get paid to drive in runs, is what they get paid to do.
Caller: And hit home runs.
Marty: No, unh-uh. Home runs are incidental. It’s run production that they are going to get paid for. Adam Dunn hits 40 home runs and barely reaches a hundred RBI’s.
Caller: But, if you’re going to talk about potential run production, look at his on-base.
Marty: (angrily) I don’t care about—I don’t care about his on-base! I get so blasted tired hearing some people talk to me about Adam Dunn’s on-base percentage. Adam Dunn ain’t paid to walk. Adam Dunn’s paid to hit home runs and drive in runs for God’s sake, and they can take off, uh, they can take off the walks, and you’re out of here! (hangs up)
. . .
Marty: We are heading toward a break. Don’t call and talk to me about Adam Dunn’s on-base percentage--
Thom: You sure?
Marty: --because it pushes my hot button.
Thom: I would have never known.
Marty: I’m tired of hearing about how many times he walks. He was paid to hit home runs, paid to drive in runs. He homers; he doesn’t drive in runs.
Thom: You know, you’re too old to get worked up like this.

Ironically, no left-handed hitter in the National League has driven in more runs or scored more runs over the last six seasons than Dunn.