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Buried at the bottom of this piece in the New York Post about Jason Bay’s impending physical is mention that Omar Minaya “has turned attention in recent days to a starting pitching pool that includes Ben Sheets, Joel Piniero and Jon Garland.” This is good news for Mets fans, especially if it distracts Minaya from…

I’m kinda mad I didn’t think of this bit myself, but FanHouse’s Matt Snyder does a pretty good job of it, so I’ll get over it: Once the clock strikes midnight and the calendar turns to a new year, millions of people decide they are going to change something about themselves that they could just…

The Dodgers have started to talk to Matt Kemp about a long term deal, but Kemp seems content to go year-to-year through arbitration and hit the market one day: “We’ve got to figure out if it even makes sense to do a multiyear. The club is looking for something, the player is looking for something.…

It’s not just the Angels. ESPN’s Jorge Arangure reports that the Blue Jays are making a play for Chapman too, and it’s more than just talk: The Toronto Blue Jays held a private workout for the touted Cuban pitcher Thursday morning in Florida, then met with his representatives, a source close to Chapman told ESPN…

Sure, it was at a very hitter-friendly park in a very hitter-friendly league, but Koby Clemens hit the cover off the ball last season: Say what you want about the Astros’ eighth-round pick of the 2005 Draft, that he’s a product of a hitting league and a very friendly ballpark, but it’s difficult to look…

Chipper Jones sat for a wide-ranging interview with Dave O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  Among the nuggets: He’s spent a lot of his offseason hunting. Shocking. Despite what a lot of Braves fans thought last year, he wasn’t hiding an injury or anything. His season-long slump was merely a function of things not coming together.…

Mike Saxson of ESPN Los Angeles is reporting that the Angels are going to make an offer to Aroldis Chapman, and they think they have an ace in the hole: Chapman has become a close friend of Angels first baseman Kendry Morales, a fellow Cuban refugee who recently helped convince him to switch agents. Chapman…

MLB.com’s Corey Brock does a Q&A — apparently with himself, about the state of the Padres. The most interesting one comes when he asks “what kind of player” new GM Jed Hoyer wants to bring to San Diego. The answer Brock gives, presumably based on conversations he’s had with Padre people: There’s not one type…

I’m not the biggest fan of “storylines” in the “what storylines will we be following . . .” sense. Stuff is going to happen on its own anyway, so taking too much time to frame the issues beforehand seems somewhat artificial to me. But I’m obviously swimming against the tide here, because I’ve seen several…

I suppose it’s possible that something else will happen in the world of baseball today, and if it does, we’ll be all over it. But for now I think it’s safe to slip out to bid goodbye to both the year and the decade. I foresee an adult beverage or two and a lot of…

You think the Hall of Fame debates about Mark McGwire are thorny? Wait until my son strikes out 500 dudes in 2030 with the help of a bionic elbow: As advances make robots act more like us, titanium parts and artificial aids can give humans bionic capabilities. “I think this will be the decade when…

UPDATE: According to Gordon Wittemyer of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Byrd deal is backloaded: $3 million this year, $5.5 million in 2011 and $6.5 million in 2012. I guess that’s because Byrd is gonna get more valuable as time goes on. 12:22 P.M.: Rosenthal just tweeted that it’s happening. A three year deal, details to…

Remember how the Phillies were reported to be close to signing a mystery reliever that everyone knew was going to be Danys Baez? Yeah, it’s Danys Baez.  My guess is that the deal will be something of a comedown from the three-year $18 million the Orioles just got done paying him.

When I was little I was given a biography of Roberto Clemente. It wasn’t a tome or anything. It was one of those little Scholastic Readers, probably bought at an elementary school book fair. Though I would later come to appreciate Clemente’s game, his arm, his bat and his unique and colorful personality a bit…

Good observation at NoMaas: since Brian Cashman was given more or less complete control in 2005, the Yankees have gotten younger and younger, with the average age of the team’s pitchers clicking down nearly five years since then and the average age of the hitters going down nearly two years. So sure, the Yankees’ payroll…

I’ll be honest: I miss those halcyon days of the late 90s when guys like Pat Meares would get $15 million deals. Sure, we still see stinkers, but not in the sheer volume we used to. Now we’re left with only one or two total head scratchers every winter. There’s still plenty of time for…

The Rockies were playing footsies with Yorvit Torrealba earlier this month, reportedly close to a deal to bring him back to Colorado, probably as Chris Ianetta’s backup, but maybe more as an 1-1A setup.  Now, according to Troy Renck of the Denver Post, they appear to have moved away from him, and have signed Miguel…

There will probably be a lot of these today. They’re all kind of fun on some level. Here’s Bill Conlin’s: Blyleven, Morris, Dawson, Alomar, Martinez and McGriff. Conlin has been on the Morris bandwagon for a while so that’s expected. At least he pairs him up with Blyleven. I’m surprised to see him go for…

Yesterday I said that there were no perfect Hall of Fame ballots. I should have waited to see Newsday’s Ken Davidoff’s before I said that, because his is pretty close to perfect: Alomar, Blyleven, Larkin, Martinez, McGwire, Raines, Trammell. There is no one on that list I wouldn’t include on my own ballot. There is…

Yesterday I said “Holliday signs with St. Louis in the next 48 hours, right?” Fine, make it next week, but the end game approacheth Last night Derrick Goold of the Post-Dispatch reported that the Cardinals and Matt Holliday are “working toward an agreement that multiple sources described as gaining momentum.” There is no indication that…

Jon Heyman ads a smidgen more to Buster’s earlier tweet: “[The Cardinals] offered holliday at least 6 years and $100-million-plus at some point. but he didnt accept and is still talking to multiple teams“ That particular wording doesn’t necessarily clarify anything. “[A]t least 6 years” could still mean that it was $100 million over, say,…

Newly-signed Athletics’ starter Justin Duchscherer participated in a conference call with local reporters today. The Chronicle’s Susan Slusser reports that he discussed his battle with depression at length during the call and has some of the details and flavor of it all here. Dealing with depression is a tough enough row to hoe, but the…

Hideki Matsui, upon arriving back in Japan: “I’d like to prove I can play defense at spring training. It will be difficult to play defense every day like in the past, but I’d like to reach the point where I can play defense once every few games.” Matsui played no defense last season. He played…

Buster Olney tweets that Matt Holliday’s offer from the Cardinals exceeds $100 million. We’ve been hearing more in the $80 million range for offers. With Bay signing and no sign of other serious offers, I can’t really imagine that the Cardinals have actually upped their offer in terms of guaranteed money, so this has to…

You’d figure that if anyone was going to hire Mike Bordick as a coach it would be to coach defense considering, you know, that he was one of the best defensive players in the game back in the day.  Nope, he’s going to be a roving small ball coach: The club signed a one-year deal…