Short Bread

In their first foray into this year's gi-normous free agent market, the Giants signed longtime Cleveland shortstop Omar Vizquel to a three year, $12.25 million deal yesterday. It seems kind of bananas that they've committed that much loot to a guy who turns 38 in April, but they've got the deal structured so they pay him over five years -- $2.5 mil. in '05, $4 mil. in '06 and '07, and deferred payments of $1 mil. in '08 and $750k in '09 -- so that they don't take too big of a hit this year, leaving them with some flexibility to go after free agent outfielders and closers.

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