Yesterday the Rockies signed Chris Iannetta to a three-year, $8.3 million contract with an option for 2013, but they’re apparently not done handing out multi-year deals to catchers. Iannetta actually lost his starting job to Yorvit Torrealba down the stretch and Troy Renck of the Denver Post reports that the Rockies have offered Torrealba a…

Don’t freak out — you’ll still be able to get  your Luther Burger at Gateway Grizzlies games — this is about the players eating better: At baseball’s just-concluded winter meetings in Indianapolis, major and minor league strength and conditioning coaches devoted 12 hours on Saturday–about half of their total meeting time–to discussing matters such as…

Assuming that the Mike Lowell trade to Texas goes through as planned Casey Kotchman will temporarily move atop Boston’s depth chart at first base, with Kevin Youkilis taking over for Lowell at third base. That alignment doesn’t figure to last long, with the Red Sox reportedly making a serious play for Adrian Beltre that would…

Via MLB Trade Rumors comes word that St. Louis has made Matt Holliday a formal offer.  No terms were mentioned. The team gave Boras 48 hours to respond.  I take it that this means that the Cardinals are trying to get the hell on with their offseason. How much you wanna bet that Boras (a)…

Phil Coke served as a left-handed specialist for the Yankees over the past two seasons, working strictly out of the bullpen while logging just 74.2 innings in 83 appearances. He pitched well, with a 3.74 ERA, 63/22 K/BB ratio, and .199 opponents’ average, but that success came while being matched up against left-handed hitters 60…

Paul Sullivan of the Tribune tweets that the Sox and Putz have reached a one-year deal (Update: it’s for $3 million; Update #2: Another $3 million in games-finished incentives too).  Putz was an elite closer a couple of years ago but declined big in 2008 and even bigger in 2009, ending the season with a…

The Royals were pretty quiet at the Winter Meetings. I guess staying at a Hampton Inn out in Mooresville will do that (‘Hey, it’s cheap and it’s got a spiffy name! Let’s stay there,” Dayton said). Aside from some mild pursuit of Jason Kendall and Brett Gardner, the biggest news involving Kasnas City dealt with…

I guess that stuff about the Yankees playing hardball with Johnny Damon is legit.  According to Heyman, the team and the player are currently two years and $34 million apart, with Damon wanting $52 million for four years and the Yankees offering $18 million for two years. Heyman asks “doesnt this have to get done…

Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette asks why baseball even bothered having winter meetings: One wonders what the purpose of these winter meetings really is at this point. As Neal Huntington and other executives acknowledged, the timing of the non-tender deadline Saturday works very much against teams making moves. Who wants to trade for…

UPDATE: The deal is now official. It’s 1-year, $7.25 million. 12-10-09, 12:21 P.M. FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal reports that the trade sending Rafael Soriano from Atlanta to Tampa Bay is all but completed after the Rays worked out a one-year deal worth around $7 million with Soriano. Tampa Bay wanted to get a contract finalized rather…

Though the Phillies may be the frontrunners for Roy Halladay, Buster Olney reports that the Blue Jays are demanding the same package from them that they were demanding last summer: Kyle Drabek, J.A. Happ, outfielder Dominic Brown and others. Can someone tell them that, last summer, Halladay could have been available for the final couple…

Earlier this week the Royals were said to be interested in Brett Gardner, whose role with the Yankees is unclear following the trade for Curtis Granderson, and now the White Sox are reportedly interested in him too. New York may be hesitant to deal Gardner until sorting things out with Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon,…

The Cubs’ new owners may do a lot of things to upgrade Wrigley Field. And with each step they take, there’s always going to be someone watching closely to make sure that the grand old ballpark is not ruined. Some things are obvious: you don’t tear down the ivy. You don’t replace the brick backstop…

Last week, the City of Oakland proposed a handful of sites for a potential stadium that would keep the Athletics from moving down to San Jose.  Only one slight problem — not all of those sites are what you’d call “available”: The Jefferson Street site is composed of about 30 private properties. The infield would…

On Wednesday, I waxed cynical on the Mets’ reported interest in big fish like Jason Bay: Here’s a theory of my own: if the Mets are suddenly thinking bigger, it’s because the Yankees have been going hog wild (relatively speaking) this week, and they don’t want to get blown the hell off the back pages…

To be fair, though, Tony Pena, Jr. is a better pitcher than he is a shortstop. I mean, the Royals decided that Yuniesky Betancourt was a better option at short last year, and he was just about the worst player in all of baseball. And you know what? The Royals were right to think he…

That’s what Tom Verducci at SI is saying in light of their “aggressive” pursuit of Roy Halladay, the prize for whom they currently stand as the front runner.  He quotes Brewers’ GM Doug Melvin as saying that between the Halladay stuff and some of their other recent moves, the Phillies are “creating a powerhouse” in…

I had the pleasure of meeting the Marc Carig of the Newark Star-Ledger during the Winter Meetings. Nice guy. Which is why I felt bad for him when I read a tweet of his yesterday in which he said his flight back home got canceled due to bad weather. But the extra time on the…

The one bit of conventional wisdom that came out of Indianapolis is that the Astros made some really, really bad moves. Brandon Lyon for $15 million?  Pedro Feliz?  This is not the stuff a smart team does. But they do have at least one defender. This unattributed post comes from the FOX Sports.com rumors blog…

As far as the big names go, the focus of the second half of the Winter Meetings was definitely on Jason Bay and Roy Halladay. In fact, no one really had anything on Matt Holliday or John Lackey yesterday or most of Wednesday. As of this morning, however, FOX’s Jon Paul Morosi reports that the…