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The Associated Press on Tuesday released the salaries of all ballplayers on major league rosters to start the season, which then set off the obvious but entertaining exercise of compiling 25 man rosters of the most over priced and the most under valued, or bargain basement players, in the game today.

Assistant sports editor Ross Priest and I were the only two knuckleheads available to take it on.

What made the task challenging was to come up realistic rosters comprised of  nine starters (including a DH - that was Priest's idea, he's got a loftier title than mine so I went with it)) and a starting pitcher, at least four other starters, a relief corp, including a closer; and bench players, one of which had to be a second catcher. At $4.5 mil., how Jason Kendall can be left off an all-overpaid roster the way Priest left him off his, I don't know.

  While on Gagne we agree, we disagreed strongly on A-Rod, but the rest of our starters were close to being the same. Nobody in the game is worth $28 million, which is why he made my list. Priest says he's far and away the best and worth the money.

The Dodgers, you might have noticed, show up in bulk on both lists, which leads me to think  they're going to have budget issues if they want to hang on to some of their kiddies that are making comparatively nothing next to Juan Pierre ($8 million). Andruw Jones ($14.7 million)  and Rafael Furcal ($15.7 million). Jeff Kent ($9 mil) made both all-over-priced teams, as well, but probably wouldn't have if there wasn't this requirement to pick a second baseman.

At first base we differ, too. I went with what I thought was a pretty obvious choice in Richie Sexson and Priest  went with Carlos Delgado - both beyond their prime but marginally dangerous. Priest left Sexson off his team entirely.

As far as the guys living in Major League poverty, I'll take my $12.1 million team over Priests valued at more than $4 million more. You'll notice a heavy National League  slant to my bargain boys. There's a good reason for that. I don't pay no mind to the junior circuit.

For no apparent reason, we'd like to know whose lists make more sense. Better yet, make one of your own and as they say,  - I don't but they do, - let the debating begin. Click on the underlined text at the top of this blog to access a Web site that lists all the salaries.