Don't feel sorry for players and agents, but hear their side

The whispers usually come with the attachment of requested anonymity or just enough doubt.

You didn't hear this from me...

Sure seems weird, doesn't it?

And it does.

Very weird.

You can find ways to explain Manny Ramirez still being on the market. Guy quit on the defending world champions because he wanted out of a $20 million salary for 2009, so how can you trust him with a four-year deal? It's also hard to feel for a guy who turned down offers of $45 million and $25 million.

OK, fine.

But what about Ben Sheets? He has a scary injury history, but he's still in his 20s, pitched 198 innings last year, and is a four-time All-Star. He can't help somebody?

What about Adam Dunn. He's a statue in the outfield, but he's good for 40 HRs, 100 RBIs and a boatload of walks every year. He can't help somebody?

Or what about "pieces" like Randy Wolf, Joe Beimel, Juan Cruz, Cliff Floyd?

Of course, we know the answer, at least the one that baseball officials give:

It's the economy.

And when people in industries across the board are losing jobs, it's impossible to feel sympathy for millionaire ballplayers having to "settle" for slightly smaller stacks of hundreds.

But those whispers you hear come from ballplayers and agents wondering if owners and the baseball "establishment" aren't just using the economy as an excuse, a line they know will play well with a nation of fans terrified about their own paychecks.

Baseball made $6.5 billion last year, another all-time record, and, yes, this was before the Big Three car execs took the private plane to D.C. to beg for a bailout, before our country started losing 500,000 jobs in a month -- but the sport isn't going broke.

It's not talked about much, but ballplayers' salary increases have not kept up with owners' revenue increases.

The past two seasons, salaries have held steady between 40 and 45 percent of the game's revenue. By comparison, the NFL -- often held as the shining example of how to keep salaries in check -- paid out around 62 percent in 2008.

As my friend Jeff Passan pointed out last offseason, when Bud Selig became commissioner in 1992 payrolls accounted for 52 percent of revenues. In 2001, they spiked to 56 percent.

So if anything, the players -- as a group -- have a case that they are now underpaid, when taken in the context of record revenue season after record revenue season.

Owners are probably prudent in expecting their 2009 revenues to fall short of the 2008 record, but by how much? We don't know because the books aren't open to us.

Total baseball payroll is likely to drop in 2009 from 2008, with 15 teams cutting, 11 adding and four staying about the same.

Lets say, for the sake of argument and to give the owners the benefit of the doubt, that that revenues drop back to $6 billion. That's an 8 percent fall, pretty significant.

At that number, keeping salary payments equal to 2008 would still mean paying only 48 percent of revenues to players.

A 50-50 split would give the players a 3 percent raise -- not cut -- to $3 billion, or an average of $100 million per team*.

*This number includes the Yankees' $200 million-plus, of course, but if you want to throw that out it's probably only fair to also throw out the Marlins' $22 million payroll, and then the average payroll becomes $99.3 million.

Putting salaries back to the 52 percent that Selig inherited would be a 7 percent increase from 2008, and matching the NFL's 62.24 percent would be 28 percent raise -- and an average payroll of $124 million.

Again, it's impossible to feel sorry for either side in this. Everybody's getting rich, while a big chunk of the group paying for it all -- fans -- are being crushed by the economy.

Owners are free to offer as little or as much as they want. Players are free to hold out for every cent they can get.

I have no research or polls to back this up, but it feels like public sympathy has shifted strongly to the side of the owners in the eternal battle with players over money.

This is just something to keep in mind as owners cry poor, and Manny Ramirez is blasted for turning down $25 million and the rest of it.