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UPDATE:  I received a call from someone with the Greenberg group. They couldn’t explicitly comment because of confidentiality agreements, but they deny the report that there is anything amiss with financing and say that everything is going just fine. Fair enough. The way it breaks down right now, however, is that I have a source…

Jason Bay may have a mystery team courting him, but he’s got nothing on the Phillies who have come to terms with a mystery closer: According to a person with knowledge of the situation, the Phils have an agreement in place with a pitcher that they believe will help fortify their bullpen. The person could…

That’s not me gushing over the guy — my love for Jeter is a private thing — it’s the name of a new exhibit at the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center (“Learning Center?” For Yogi?): The big item on display is the original Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year Award. First given out in…

I took a bunch of Spanish in college, to the point where there was a month or two where I was thinking in Spanish all the time, getting pretty conversational and everything. At that point I should have spent a summer in an immersion program to solidify it. Instead I took a $4.25/hour job taking…

From WEEI: The Boston Chapter, BBWAA also announced Tuesday that Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman has been selected as Major League Baseball Executive of the Year. They say that the Yankees-Red Sox thing is like an arms race or a cold war or something. Pfft. It’s not a true clash of the titans until the…

Maybe it’s not how they drew it up, but Mark Bowman* of MLB.com reports that the Braves were getting very little interest in Vazquez outside of the Yankees as no one outside of his no-trade clause (i.e. the NL and AL West) was willing to pay $10M+ for a pitcher while giving up any talent…

The guys behind the most excellent Blue Jays blog Drunk Jays Fans love them some Roy Halladay, but they’ve had a bit too much of the post-trade Halladay-love.  After first acknowledging that Halladay was the best pitcher to ever wear the bird, they let loose: What I don’t understand is the sentiment that seems to…

ESPN’s Buster Olney (and about a zillion other people today) note that the Jason Bay-to-the-Mets stuff is dragging on.  Rather than come up with new and exciting Mets jokes, Buster gets constructive and makes eight suggestions for adding depth and improving the team without blowing a big chunk of money on Jason Bay.  His ideas:…

It’s from Ken Rosenthal this year, who thinks that the rest of the AL East should “just give up.”  It’s less an argument than a rundown of the the deals the Red Sox and Yankees have made so far this offseason, and which Rosenthal thinks aren’t over yet (“I guarantee you, their outfield next season…

It was reported on Monday that Justin Duchscherer has offers from three clubs and as poised to make his decision shortly. Today Buster Olney says that he could land right back where he started with the A’s. The Yankees had been one team inquiring about him, but now that their take-a-chance-on-a-comeback-candidate strategy has been jettisoned,…

Wait, so they signed Jamey Carroll to start at second base by choice?! How would you say the divorce proceedings between Frank and Jamie McCourt have impacted the Dodgers’ spending this winter? Have you been asked — by Frank McCourt, by Major League Baseball or by anyone else – not to take on major long-term…

Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times caught up with Brandon Morrow before he left town for Toronto. Morrow’s view of the world: he’s happy about the trade because now Seattle can stop messing with his development as a starter: “I was never really allowed to develop as a starter the way I and a lot…

Rosenthal tweets it.  He’ll play first base. He has six career games at first base.  It’s a one-year, incentive-laden contract. Glaus is coming off shoulder surgery and back problems which limited him to 29 at-bats last season. He started 151 games and hit .270/.372/.483 in 2008, so maybe there’s still something left in the tank.…

SI’s Jon Heyman on Twitter: “not that theres anything wrong with it, but the stat people are taking over [the Yankees]: johnson .426 OBP, vazquez 1.02 WHIP.” Call me crazy, but if recognizing on-base percentage and WHIP is the harbinger of the “stat people” taking over, the stat people took over twenty years ago. Maybe…

And here I thought Raul Mondesi disappeared from the face of the Earth after putting in 155 atrocious plate appearances for the Braves in 2005: When Raul Mondesi left baseball after 13 seasons as a major league outfielder, he returned to his dusty, overcrowded and impoverished hometown determined to make a difference. And both of…

Like I said yesterday, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that the Braves did a good job in the Vazquez trade. There are many potential sliver linings to what some are unfairly calling the blackest of clouds, but Atlanta clearly didn’t get anything approaching equal value for a pitcher of Vazquez’s caliber. Melky…

Jon Paul Morosi of FOX reports that the Nats are near a deal with Everyday Eddie Guardado.  Guardado went 1-2 with a 4.46 ERA in 48 relief outings for the Rangers this year.  He had talked about retiring at the end of last season, but he has a left arm, however, which means he’ll probably…

Roy Halladay is not the only ballplayer taking out full-page ads as he leaves town.  Would you believe Milton Bradley? On behalf of the Bradley family, I would like to express my deepest ingratitude to the racist fans of Chicago, my former teammates, manager Lou Piniella, general manager Jim Hendry, the local media and the…

Via Dodger Thoughts, comes word from Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw that his great uncle discovered Pluto. No real context there. Kershaw just asserts it in response to a question about, um, Pluto. OK, I’m guessing that was a plant by someone who knew that Kershaw’s uncle discovered Pluto.  If Wikipedia is to be believed, Kershaw’s…

So tweets MLB.com’s Bill Ladson.  He says that if the Nats sign Hudson, Cristian Guzman would go back to short. Which would blow my mind just a little bit considering that just over a month ago the Nats made a big point of telling Guzman and Nats fans everywhere that defense is too important with…

It’s Brian Anderson. The centerfielder of the .227/.290/.370 career slash line.  He’ll go nicely with Jason Kendall and Yuniesky Bentancourt and the rest of the Royals’ “attack.” Can someone tell me what was wrong with keeping Coco Crisp around?

I’m just casually monitoring the Brian Cashman/Javier Vazquez press conference. Of note: Cashman says that “Brett Gardner is now in a position to be an every day player for us.”  He also said “We’ll continue to look at any remaining pieces, but it’s not going to be a big piece.” That seems to foreclose the…

CTB readers knew this already, because Aaron wrote all about it on Friday. Orioles fans at large knew it because Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore Sun originally broke the story the day before. This piece, in the Baltimore Sun, however, just popped up in my RSS feed, reporting that the physical has been passed and…

Rosenthal and Morosi report that, rather than the Mets-only show it has appeared to be so far, there are as many as four teams in on Jason Bay: the Mets, Mariners, Giants and Angels. Not that there is any stunning movement here or anything. The FOX guys note that the Mariners have no real need…

Granderson? Vazquez? Halladay? That’s all you got Yankees and Phillies?  How about Dickey, babies? As in R.A., the knuckleballer, who the Mets are about to sign. Dickey is a knuckleballer. Knuckleballers rule. Ergo, the Mets are now the favorites to win the NL East, the NL Pennant, the World Series and the forthcoming battles against…