Is this going to happen all the time now?

Ok...so Mientasdfkaekrja took the ball and held it...now Molina is holding the last out from the Cards victory last year. My guess? Writers look to see who held the last out, seek them out a few months later and drum up a story.

Are the Sox ever going to finalize the Drew contract?

Wily Mo and the Sox can't reach an agreement...is that a bad thing? The guy had a good season, but to hold out for 500k is silly.

Mo Rivera is mad at the Yankees. He might want out next year. While he might not be emotionally committed to what he's doing on the mound this year, this spells trouble for all those who face him. Why? Because he is older and wants to continue his career. If he is expecting to land a large deal elsewhere, he'll need to have another stellar year.

Pitchers and catchers reporting this week. Just in time for it to snow in Boston.

This post is like a Shaugnessy article. A whole lot of short sentences and not much substance.

Thank the Lord that I was able to finally sign in and post...it has been driving me crazy!

Bronson

At some point the craziness will stop, right? FA are so expensive that teams are now taking drastic measures to tie guys up before they reach market. And who can blame them. But Cincy I think has lost their mind a little. Two guys have career seasons right around age 30. Both have been dumped by two prior teams. And in one week, Krivsky commits $60MM to them. Their records are nearly identical.

They both reached career highs in innings last year. And maybe, just maybe, one or both them will be a David Wells type of pitcher - having their best years in their 30s after struggling to establish themselves. But Wells was more of a conditioning/attitude thing that prevented him from blossoming - he always had great stuff. Neither Harang nor Bronson has "great." GR is still waiting for Bronson to develop another pitch. And Harang has slightly better peripherals, but he has some weight issues. And with both of these guys, the Reds did not have to do anything - they controlled Bronson for two (cheap) years and Harang for 3 (cheap years).

I think someone on this board asked if Pedro would be good for 52 wins for the $52MM he got. And that question has stuck with me. I would say $1MM per win for a SP is a pretty good deal. So will the Reds get 60 wins combined from Harang in 07-10 and Bronson 09-10. I would guess no. One of these guys is due for the "collapse."

And then the guys that you would think would get the extensions to be locked up (Santana, Zambrano, maybe Buehrle, we hear nothing on that.

Zito - any chance he wins 126 games in SF? Meche 55 games?

Oops - I'm rambling. Thats what happens when I can't post for a week.

Sometimes the guys at Deadspin are so right

I need to go wash now

What the Hell...ton?

Ok, so the Globe's Nick Cafardo is floating trade talks with the Rockies (initiated by the Rockies). The Rockies are seeking what looks like Hansen for Helton (and they will pay a big portion of Helton's contract). Why wouldn't you do this? Hansen more than likely won't make the big league roster (at least to start the year), and he isn't going to be the closer (even late in the year). The Sox lineup would be devastating.

Also, you could then try to move Lowell and move Youk back to third.

Think of the lineup:

Lugo
Youk
Ortiz
Manny
Drew
Helton
Varitek
Crisp
Pedroia

Of course, Helton's power numbers are way down, but he'd be your number 6 hitter and you'd be getting him for an unproven pitcher.

The down side is that your defense in the infield really isn't very good (minus Helton). Youk is a downgrade at third from Lowell, Lugo (anyone) is a downgrade from Gonzalez, and Pedroia (well, we haven't seen much of him)...

Anyway, I doubt (*seriously doubt) that this is much more than Cafardo trying to stir something up during a very quiet on the baseball front month. But it is cool to think about...sort of...

Virtual Waiting Room My ASS

It's 12 minutes into ticket sales and despite my best attempts to try multiple tabs and windows I can't seem to crack the systems. (More in the comments)

This is why I hate local radio...

Schilling for Senate 2008?! Why do we give air time to stupid morons? Oh, that's right every once in a blue moon they say something provocative.

More proof of crazy contracts

Willie Randolph was given a three year extension for $5.65 MM. That works out to an average annual value of $1.8. Or as the members of the media who love Willie and his always available sound bits, about what a middle reliever makes. Which is a really stupid comparison. Because then I could say "hey he is way overpaid - Ryan Howard won the MVP last year and Willie will get 3 times more than him.

But I digress. In keeping with managers (apples to apples), Randolph will be the 6th highest paid manager. He will trail only the following - with some numbers next to each.

Torre 25/4
Pinella 18/1
Cox 25/1
LaRussa 29/2
Scioscia 7/1
Leyland 14/1

The first number is the number of years as a manager and the second is WS trophies. And Willie would be a 2 and a ZERO. You could even add WS appearances and with the exception of Pinella and Scioscia they would all add at least one more. Now I know that Randolph "gets" NY. And he brought them from 71 wins to 97 and a trip to the LCS. But really that is the result of Mr. Wilpon opening his wallet Pedro and Beltran in 05, Delgado and Wagner in 06) the fortunate emergence of Reyes and Wright. It will be interesting to see if he makes it to the end of the contract. I would bet NO.

OMFG

Okay, so reading the headlines each day we now all know how insane this year's FA market is. But seeing all the new contracts in one place really made my head splode. Total value of all the contracts: over 1.6 billion dollars. Seriously, how high can payrolls get before baseball starts bleeding money? This can't last.

Utley

Normally, I'm not a big fan of "locking up" your young players (long) before their arbitration or FA. Like what the Mets did with Reyes and Wright. Those guys were so far away from FA and the Mets controlled their contracts for something like four more years. Why guarantee the money? And they really did not buy out any of the FA years. Sure they have cost certainty, but the downside risk seems to great. But that is just me.

At first I thought the Utley deal made some sense, well as much sense as any 7 year deal. It probably is very backloaded, which of course is always nice for the current GM (like Riccardi did with the Wells and Overbay deals). But at least they are buying out 4 years of FA. But then I looked at the math a bit more.

He was a 3 year player - with three years of arbitration before FA. So you figure 2MM this year, 4MM in 08 and 8MM in 09. So what they did was not arbitrate the next three years and sign a 4 year $70MM FA contract? $17MM/year for him? Maybe I don't like that one so much. Unless they think the market is continue to go up and up.

I thought Gillick was a smart man.

Two thoughts....

With Sammy Sosa signing with Rangers, we should all take a deep breath and be thankful (I suppose), for this brings thoughts of what might have been. Not a lot of people remember that Sammy had signed with the Red Sox before the 1995 season when the owners imposed their own "new" rules on free agency, reducing it from 6 years to 4 years and making Sosa a FA. However the union and MLB soon reached a new agreement and Sosa went back to CHI and immediately began a run of 8 years where he AVERAGED 50 HRs. Who knows how a few of those Sox playoff teams would have fared with Nomar, Mo, Pedro and Sammy. They probably never had enough pitching, but it would have been interesting. But even worse, we would have found ourselves more firmly entrenched in the Steroid saga.

Is Trot Nixon freaking out that he does not have a job next year? For a guy that seems to love competition, I would think the thought of playing in Pittsburgh, Washington or Baltimore would probably bum him out more than the fact that his salary is likely to go from $8MM to about $500,000 - $1MM.