If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it fall, does it make a sound?

If the Cubs make an offer to Carlos Beltran and it isn't competitive, is it really an offer?

Mister Will is back at Carroll Place, and he has the scoop on some rumored offers to Beltran. The numbers being thrown around are surprisingly high, and based on the competition it doesn't look good for the Cubbies.

The number associated with the Cubs is already more than I would feel comfortable paying Beltran: $16M a year for seven years? $112M? I think it's highly unlikely he'd be worth that much moulah over that time span, and yet there are several teams seemingly willing to go beyond that figure.

Will's made a good point on how Beltran is a slightly different commodity than some recent free agents. Young and healthy, Beltran is insurable. But potential injuries or no, it's awful hard to project that someone is going to be a productive player seven years down the line.

How many baseball contracts can you name that are reasonable dollars-wise and over four years in length? Contracts that looked good one year ago (Javy Vazquez, for example, I thought was a decent investment) can look dreadful a few short months later.

I'd love to have Beltran roaming center at Wrigley in blue pinstripes, but I also don't want to see the team I root for make bad decisions.