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Marlins outfielder Cody Ross has won his salary arbitration, receiving $4.45 million. The team offered $4.2 million. Ross hit .290 with 24 homers and 90 RBIs last season and made $2.3 million. As Sports Law Blog mentioned yesterday, Ross and Corey Hart have the same amount of service time, so the fact that Hart won…

Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has an in depth article on Mark McGwire today. And — surprise! — it’s about Mark McGwire the hitting coach, not Mark McGwire the sideshow freak: “I used to have a different swing for every type of pitch, like it was this advanced game of pepper up there,”…

At the outset of his righteous defense of Frank Thomas’ Hall of Fame credentials, Joe Posnanski launches into discussion of steroids. The interesting part: after dealing with the usual steroid suspects, he wonders whether it’s possible to create a list of clean players, which he refers to as his “Fair Play” list: Then there is…

The Arizona Winter League is not exactly the highest level of baseball imaginable — if the guys playing there were such great shakes they’d be on their way to an actual spring training camp right now — but they’re better than you and I are.  That’s where the famous Japanese female knuckleballer Eri Yoshida is…

Headline in today’s Star Tribune: “Is Mauer worth the long-term risk.” I play around with headlines sometimes too, but in this case I’m not sure what the answer could be besides yes.  And Joe Christensen agrees in the body of the article: My view is simple: Get it done. Give him a blank check. If…

When you think 1980s baseball, what do you think of first?  Um, OK, fine, cocaine.  How about after that?  Well, yeah, tight pants are right up there, aren’t they?  After that. That’s right, mustaches!  At least longtime reader and frequent commenter The Common Man, does, and to that end he has put together The All-Time…

Because once you start something you just can’t stop, here’s Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tweeting from spring training: Dept. of First Impressions: Yadier Molina looks in best shape I can remember. If one reporter would write “Just saw [Player X]; he looks like he hasn’t lifted anything heavier than a bottle of…

From the Seattle Times comes word that from midnight to 6 a.m. on New Year’s Day, Japanese TV ran an Ichiro marathon.  But it wasn’t a highlights package per se, it was video of each and every one of his 2,030 Major League hits.  And it got pretty darn good ratings too. Not sure how…

Because there’s not a heck of lot else going on, MLB.com’s Tom Singer gives you an All-Star name full of players with presidents’ names.  Three observations: (1) No Billy Pierce? (2) If it weren’t for that scoundrel Rutherford B. Hayes and his cronies, Former Giants and Cardinals catcher David William Tilden Zearfoss would have a…

As was reported over the weekend, Felipe Lopez fired his agent, Scott Boras, and Kendry Morales fired his agents, the Hendricks brothers . . . and joined up with Scott Boras.  The whys of these sorts of things are always a bit murky, but SI’s Jon Heyman explains in consecutive bullet points in his latest…

When Jason Marquis signed with the Nats he had a lot to say about bringing a winning attitude to Washington and mentoring the youngins.  That apparently wasn’t just a function of post-deal euphoria, because he’s still bringing the rah-rah.  Asked whether the Nats’ many moves this offseason translate to, say, a .500 record, Marquis wasn’t…

UPDATE: The Chron’s Susan Slusser reports that Mark Mulder’s agent is saying that reports that Mulder is retiring are “not accurate” and that “Mark has not made a decision.” Interesting. Earlier Brewers’ pitching coach Rick Peterson said Mulder was retiring, but maybe he misinterpreted.  Or maybe it’s like when I told my buddy at work…

In the interests of equal time, I report good news relating to both my own team, the Braves, and my team’s quasi-nemesis, the Mets. For the Braves, it’s FanGraph’s David Cameron opining that one of the team’s putative weaknesses — Melky Cabrera in leftfield — will actually be a positive: He may not look like…

It was reported last week that Bob Bowman, the CEO of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, had filed papers to run for governor of Michigan.  Today, however, he says that he isn’t going to run. My theory: His initial filing was the product of depression brought on by baseball withdrawal, but now that he’s heard…

Victor Martinez wants to stay, but just how badly is an open question: “A lot of guys like to be free agents, but I’m going to be really honest on this answer. I don’t want to be jumping around, I don’t want to go somewhere else.” But: “As soon as the season starts, I don’t…

Tweet from WEEI’s Chad Rob Bradford, who is on the ground at Red Sox spring training in Fort Myers this morning: Buchholz at 198 pounds after pitching at 185 last year. Somebody didn’t get the “best shape of his life” memo! In other news, I have come to view Twitter as positively essential to doing…

The biggest reason the sale of the Texas Rangers still hasn’t gone final is because the team’s creditors are angry that all kinds of cash is coming off the top of the deal to go to Tom Hicks and others, leaving less for them.  One of the “others,” SBJ reports today, is a deferred compensation…

Money don’t get everything it’s true, but what it don’t get . . . wait, I think it gets pretty much everything these days: On Monday, fans will be able to buy tickets to every Cubs home game, but at a premium of 20 percent over the face value, or 15 percent if they pay…

The Daily News had an in-depth article about Yankees’ catching prospect Jesus Montero over the weekend. The focus follows the standard Montero storyline: kid can hit a ton, but his defense is lacking. As you might expect, there’s lots of stuff in there about bruised arms from ball-in-the-dirt drills, speculation as to whether he can…

The Sox weren’t happy with Dice-K’s conditioning last year, but his offseason was good enough that I feel comfortable giving him the official BSOHL seal of approval: The righthander arrived here Thursday and worked out at the team complex the last two days. After a winter that included several sessions at the Athletes’ Performance training…

If you’re the sort of person who doesn’t want to read a column in which Ernie Harwell tells spring training stories from the 1940s to the 1960s then I don’t have much use for you. And for those of you unfamiliar with his work, Harwell used to begin the first spring training broadcast of each…

Update: According to Ladson, the Nationals have not confirmed their interest in Benson, although they did attend one of his recent workouts. Benson’s agent Gregg Clifton hopes to meet with general manager Mike Rizzo in Tampa next week, where arbitration hearings are scheduled to take place. Clifton also represents right-hander Brian Bruney, whose arbitration case…

It’s not likely that any of you care about J.R. House. Nor should you be expected to I suppose. He had a grand total of 63 major league plate appearances with a line of .167/.206/.367 for three teams.  He had a much more respectable .302/.363/.475 in 3886 plate appearances in ten minor league seasons, mostly…

Defense: the final frontier . . .: This could be the year that baseball-stat freaks finally crack the “Derek Jeter enigma.” A panel of coaches has awarded the New York Yankees’ shortstop four of the past six Gold Glove awards for fielding excellence. That drives statisticians nuts, because nearly every statistical model ranks Jeter’s defense…

Chuck Garfien of SportsNet Chicago sat down with Frank Thomas today and the subject of Jermaine Dye came up.  Seems Dye told Frank Thomas that he’s considering retiring. For his part, Thomas “told him he’s crazy.” In a world where even Mike Sweeney has a job, you’d think Dye wouldn’t be so glum about it…