Cliff Lee will decide to pitch next year

Cliff Lee will decide to pitch next year

Baseball world awaits word on where Cliff Lee will decide to pitch next year; the man conducting negotiations on Lee’s behalf is approaching the biggest moment of his professional career. The agent Darek Braunecker, a former minor league pitcher from Effingham, Ill., once came close to becoming an executive with the Cleveland Indians. He does not have the list of clients that Scott Boras has, with Lee and A. J. Burnett as the biggest names, and because of that he has been largely unknown to the sporting public.  

Lee just concluded a four-year deal that he signed with the Cleveland Indians before the 2006 season that was worth $15 million when he signed it. 

Braunecker pitched in college for Arkansas-Little Rock, where both he and Lee reside, and later pitched for the Class A Jamestown Expos, a minor league affiliate of the Montreal Expos. He made 20 appearances in 1991 before a shoulder injury ended his hopes of becoming a major league pitcher. He was released in 1993. 

In 1996, he attempted a comeback in the Indians organization, but the Indians offered him a job on the player development side. He turned it down to become an agent with Stevens Sports Management in Little Rock in 1997. At the time, the firm had only 10 baseball players. Braunecker added 35 in four years before starting his own agency in 2001.

Washington Nationals fans, at least your team was going for it. Word came Sunday night from Sports web MLB.com that the Nationals are now out of the Cliff Lee (notes) derby. Conventional wisdom has had the Nationals as a serious underdog, anyway, but it's got to be nice for Nationals fans to know the last-place team in the NL East is doing all it can to improve this offseason.

Sports web MLB.com also reports that the team is now trying to sign free-agent first baseman Derrek Lee(notes), who batted .260 with 19 homers and 80 RBIs last season for the Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves. Also, the site reports that the Nats are meeting with free-agent pitcher Carl Pavano(notes) later this week. The free agent has been with five teams since entering the majors in 1998 with the Nationals' forerunner, the Montreal Expos. Pavano won 17 games and struck out 117 for the Minnesota Twins last season.