Bizarre story of the day: One of Australia’s top cricket batsmen, flush with success in the ongoing Ashes Test series, is considering taking up baseball.

David Warner has pummeled the English in the five-Test series, which Australia already has clinched by winning the first three Tests.

It must have been one of those “new worlds to conquer”  moments when Warner’s manager/agent suggested Warner is mulling a switch to baseball.

Well, and he has another good reason, and this says something important about cricket: Warner knows baseball stars make way more money than do cricket’s best players.

The agent, Tony Connelly, figures Warner could make $5 million this year. And remember, this is one of the sport’s elite players.

And $5 million is what Major League Baseball teams pay their least imposing regulars. (The Dodgers just signed Juan Uribe, 34, an indifferent third baseman with occasional power and a horrible on-base percentage, to a two-year $15 million deal.)

No question, Warner is in the wrong sport, if he wanted to make lots of money. But it’s a bit late to have come to that realization. The man is 27.

But, in Australia, they seem to just now be realizing how much money a guy who can hit a ball hard and far can make in baseball. The best at it are getting $25 million and more on long-term deals. Per season, Guaranteed.

The Daily Telegraph story first raises the notion of  Warner playing baseball, then tries to allay the fears of Australia cricket fans by noting he could make as much as $50 million over the next 10 years while playing cricket. As long as he doesn’t suffer a loss of form, that is … and suggesting that a lot of that money would come from endorsements, not from actually playing the game.

Any competent free agent in baseball would mock “10 years, $50 million”, particularly the “not guaranteed” part of it.

So, baseball teams supposedly sniffing around, which I highly doubt, given Warner’s age and limited (nonexistent?) background in ball.

Baseball officials might let this story run because the Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks are scheduled to open the 2014 season in Sydney in late March. To foment the notion of a cricketer making a switch to baseball … sure, let them talk.

It’s not as if Australians can’t play the baseball, but few of them grow up doing so, which has limited their impact on the game.

The only serious Major League hitter to come from Australia was Dave Nilsson, who played mostly with the Milwaukee Brewers, but that was two decades ago, now.

And Nilsson got to the bigs in the regular way, by working his way up through the minor leagues. (Even while returning to Australia to play, in the MLB offseason.)

The notion that a guy already 27 could jump to another sport is silly, even if he actually swings at balls, rather than just deflect them, which is the way many cricketers approach batting.

It is as silly as the notion that Albert Pujols could take up cricket and be any good at it. Not unless he began playing in his early teens, at the very latest.

The real nugget in this story is how little cricket players get paid. The people who run the sport clearly have not figured out a way to monetize it. Doesn’t help that even the most significant matches have very low gate receipts because crowds are small and the games are just too long.

But they ought to get paid more, and a guy like Warner looking at what baseball stars earning, well, it has to make him a little wistful.