THERE WILL BE fewer Mercedes, Escalades and Humvees under the tree this Christmas for many of baseball's free agents. Construction will have to stop on those 12,000-square-foot spring training homes.

Hopefully, the strain of this winter's serious "market correction" won't cause too much emotional distress.

We know how much fun it used to be in the good ol' days, like the winter of 2000. Back then, free agents would fly from city to city in private jets. Owners would personally pick them up at the airport, then slather all over themselves to pay 50 percent more than what anyone with half a brain would pay.

There was the story of that gifted, young shortstop whose wily agent cajoled a certain Texas team to guarantee a 10-year, $252 million contract.

Those were the days. Not anymore, and boy, does the wind blow cold on this year's crop of free agents.

In Baltimore this morning, special thoughts go out to former Rangers catcher Ivan Rodriguez and his family.

The Orioles will be Pudge-less at Camden Yards next summer, unless Pudge gets lucky or unless he gets real about this brave new world he's negotiating in: The owners rule.

The Orioles need a marquee player, even if they'll only admit that they need muscle in their lineup, hence the pursuit of Rodriguez and Japanese star Hideki Matsui. A franchise as crippled at the gate (compared to Camden Yards of 1996 and 1997) as the Orioles isn't going to lure back the suffering but faithful with the likes of Deivi Cruz.

A little mating dance between the offensively impaired Orioles and the (formerly) slugging catcher produced nothing more than ruffled feathers - for Pudge. The Orioles said yesterday that Pudge's people weren't happy with the numbers that the Orioles offered, so negotiations with the 10-time All-Star broke down.

We hope Rodriguez pardons the expression "broke down," since that baldly describes Rodriguez's physical condition the past three seasons. Injuries were bad, diminishing the productivity and impact of this 10-time All-Star and setting the stage for teams like the Orioles to characterize Pudge as one in the twilight of his career.

The new tag-team administration of Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan was smart enough to set a bottom line on Rodriguez's value. Hopefully, Beattie and Flanagan's offer was about $6 million a year. Better yet, make that $4.5 million per, plus a heavy backload of incentives. If Pudge got 550 at-bats in an Orioles uniform, then the reward should be rich. If he gets up that many times.

In the end, it didn't matter. Pudge, who was once easily valued at $12 million-$15 million under the old standards, seemed insulted.

"We've hit a pause in the road. They didn't like our numbers, and we didn't like their numbers. It was a significant gap," Beattie said.

The Orioles, Beattie said, are not interested in chasing the market and they are not interesting in setting the market.

"We do have a bottom line and a point at which we value a player," Beattie said. "If a player's [perceived sense of what he's worth] doesn't come down to where we value that player, we accept that. We have money to spend, but I don't like to make splashes in the winter that come back to haunt us in the summer. That's what [other general managers] are talking about. They have salaries they can't move. We're going to err on the side of caution."

Worse for Pudge was that he saw firsthand how Rangers owner Tom Hicks all but guaranteed this major market correction when Hicks gave shortstop Alex Rodriguez all that cabbage. Pudge lost twice in that deal. Once with the Rangers, who committed all that money to A-Rod, and now in a depressed market.

No matter how passionately one argues about A-Rod's right to take that deal (it was his obligation, according to the players' union), the deal was bad for baseball. The $25-million-a-year threshold escalated the market to a realm never before seen - in any sport. It set the stage for this last labor battle, the one that ended Aug. 30 without a players strike and with a new bargaining agreement that instituted what amounts to a soft cap on salaries.

Guess which side is finding out this winter it got a far tougher deal than initially imagined?

Pudge probably should have at least countered the Orioles' offer. When former National League Most Valuable Player Jeff Kent has few or no suitors, you know the market is in a serious slide. Kent signed a two-year deal with the Astros yesterday, and this was only after Houston realized the Giants were willing to let Kent go. This is weird, by the old standards, considering Kent's 100-RBIs-a-season average and his 30-plus homers.

The market is demonstrating such restraint that at least one high-powered agent believes a grievance will be filed by the players against the owners. Remember collusion?

The allegation that might emerge is that owners have collectively agreed to hold down salaries. Players have collected anecdotal evidence that suggests a strange trend of free agents being offered the exact numbers from different teams. How does that happen without an agreement?

It's not happening, say club officials.

"There's no collusion. Teams are broke! The bankers are calling owners and telling them to stop spending," an American League team executive said yesterday.

The net result of this market correction is already clear. Pudge isn't coming - unless he sticks a red tag on his back and calls back.

The Hot Stove League is far from hot.

Christmas won't be so bright - or green - for baseball's free agents.