Jermaine Dye Is Sulking About His Contract

When the White Sox broke policy by negotiating an extension for Mark Buehrle mid-season, they had to have known they were running the risk of ruffling ruffling the feathers of Jermaine Dye, another free-agent-to-be. Not surprisingly, Dye's feathers are officially ruffled. From the Chicago Tribune:

For the last few days Jermaine Dye has kept to himself in the White Sox clubhouse, off in a corner with headphones on. It has not gone unnoticed among his teammates and the apparent reason is management's refusal to talk about extending his contract as it did Mark Buehrle's.

General manager Ken Williams took a jab at what appears to be Dye's sulking. ...

"I know because of where we are [in the standings] there are some guys focusing on themselves rather than the team and that's kind of a byproduct of being in the position we're in. That's not totally unexpected and I've seen it before. Nothing he can say, nothing [the media] can write, nothing that can happen ... is going to surprise me.

I can understand why Dye feels the way he does, but I have to imagine things would be different if he was still putting up the type of numbers he managed last year, when he hit .315 with 44 home runs and 120 RBI. Instead, he's on pace to hit just .229-31-86. He's a better hitter than he's showing this year, but his career numbers suggest last year was a bit of a fluke, too. He'll be 34 years old come Opening Day 2008, so it's really in the Sox's best interest to wait and let the market set his salary for next year before deciding it they want to hold onto him.