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In between golf, fishing, working out and whatever other activities kept them busy in the offseason, pitchers entering the last year of their contracts noticed a pleasant development — the price of starting pitching skyrocketed again over the winter.

•Kevin Millwood, who could only attract a one-year contract the previous winter, commanded a $60 million deal from the Texas Rangers.

•Esteban Loaiza, who had spent the previous four years in four organizations, became an Oakland Athletic in exchange for $21 million over three years.

"You're always aware of the contracts being given to players in your position and even more when free agency is approaching," Los Angeles Angels right-hander Kelvim Escobar says. "Looking at the contracts this past offseason, wow, the pitchers' market really took off, and what better time to be a free agent?"

And the prices climbed before a solid free agent pitching class enters the market after this season.

• St. Louis Cardinals free-agent-to-be Mark Mulder has won 88 games the past five seasons. Only the Angels' Bartolo Colon has won as many games in that span.

•Barry Zito, Mulder's former Oakland teammate and a fellow left-hander, won the American League Cy Young Award in 2002. He has 87 career wins and, at 27, will hit the market younger than most starters.

• San Francisco Giants right-hander Jason Schmidt is 47-20 since 2003, and the team boasts a .685 winning percentage (89-41) in his starts.

• Houston Astros left-hander Andy Pettitte turns 34 in June, but he went 23-13 with a 2.80 ERA in 2004-05 and is 173-92 lifetime.

Escobar, who held the New York Yankees to one run in his season debut Friday, has a dominant array of pitches if not the career achievements of the other pitchers. Angels teammate Jeff Weaver has 78 career wins and the sixth-most innings pitched (444) in 2004-05.

There's quality and limited quantity, which should mean big money flowing next winter and a mental challenge for the aforementioned pitchers to focus on balls and strikes, not dollars and cents.

"I think it's going to be similar to this year where the shortage of veteran pitchers — I don't know if it will approach the spending it did this year, but it seems to be that kind of trend," Giants general manager Brian Sabean says. "They're more valuable than ever, guys with experience."

Schmidt tested the market for the first time after the 2001 season and drew quite a bit of attention. Schmidt's final decision came down to returning to the Giants or signing with the Seattle Mariners, the team he rooted for while growing up in Kelso, Wash.

Schmidt says the Giants' close call in 2001 — they finished two games behind the eventual world champion Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West — convinced him to stay in the Bay Area, agreeing to a five-year deal worth $38 million.

In 2002, the Giants reached the World Series as Schmidt went 13-8 with a 3.45 ERA. "I thought it would be an easy choice," he says.

Schmidt's "walk year" comes on the heels of a season he'd just as soon forget. He said off-the-field distractions dogged him; the 6-foot-5 right-hander couldn't get his mind fully in the game — "I felt like I was on a different planet," he says — and tried to overcompensate for a loss of velocity. He was 12-7, but his 4.40 ERA was the worst of his Giants career.

Schmidt looked like his old self during a dominant spring, and he figures to have plenty of suitors if he can re-establish himself as one of the NL's top starters. At 33, he finds himself financially secure and less concerned with cashing in than the first time around.

"If the money's there, great," Schmidt says. "If it's not, you might be a little disappointed. But how much does a guy really need? It ends up becoming a point system for players. It's not about the money; it's about the points. You need to get past that."

Across San Francisco Bay, Zito is staring at a path traversed by several ex-teammates.

Since the end of the 2001 season, the A's have allowed former MVPs Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada in addition to Johnny Damon, Keith Foulke and Jermaine Dye walk away. Before last season they traded former 20-game winners Tim Hudson and Mulder, splitting the team's Big Three rather than risk them leaving as free agents.

Following this season, it will be Zito's turn to learn his market value, which will be considerable if he approaches his 2002 season, when he went 23-5 with a 2.75 ERA.

"Pitching's always been a commodity," Zito says. "I think in the last 100 years of baseball there's never been a time when pitching was too abundant."

Zito says it's not difficult to concentrate on his job and block out the potential for finding a pot of gold at the end of the season or the constant questions of whether he'll stay in Oakland.

"You finally get a choice of where you want to play," Zito says. "Hopefully something can work out with the A's, but if it doesn't, we'll just look then. I know it's only six months away, but it seems like it's six years away."

Weaver would have preferred the stability of a multiyear contract when he became a free agent this past offseason after proving his durability by pitching at least 199 innings in five of the last six seasons.

But negotiations with the Los Angeles Dodgers, his team for the last two years, dragged on until the Jan. 8 deadline. By the time they broke off, the clubs willing to spend big money had already made their moves. Weaver took a one-year, $8.325 million deal with the Angels, which allowed him to remain in his native Southern California.

"It's a lot of emotions," Weaver said of the negotiation process. "You hear one thing one day and maybe something different the next. You have to take a lot of things into account — where you're going to be comfortable, what league you're going to be comfortable in, does the team have a chance to win, are you close to home?"

Chances are Weaver will end up being a one-year rental, in part because the Angels have his younger brother, Jered, their No. 1 pick in 2004, waiting in the wings.

But Jeff Weaver, 29, could make their decision harder by exceeding his previous output.

Like Millwood, who signed a one-year contract with the Cleveland Indians and led the AL in ERA last year, Weaver hopes to re-establish his market value and parlay his one-year deal into a bigger offer.

"I'm trying to get over that hump of 13, 14 wins and get up there to 17, 18, 20 wins," he says, "and then there's no question."