Jim Street of MLB.com reports that Erik Bedard has passed his physical, paving the way for his return to Seattle. Bedard, who turns 31 in March, signed a one-year, $1.5 million contract with a mutual option for 2011. Jon Heyman of SI.com tweets that the contract includes incentives that could push him over the $7.5…

Kevin Millar makes the case for his value to the Cubs: “Everybody is looking at stats … I get it. But my point is when you’re making a team and trying to bring in a bunch of different personalities I think everybody’s got a certain amount of intangibles that they bring. “Obviously, I’ll bring some…

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but the Braves and the Tigers are somewhat interested in Johnny Damon and would sign him if the price was right: It’s not clear how many suitors are showing interest in Johnny Damon at the moment. But the Tigers and Braves are definitely among the group, multiple…

This is part of a 30-article series looking at each team’s depth chart headed into spring training. Philadelphia Phillies Rotation 1. Roy Halladay 2. Cole Hamels 3. Joe Blanton 4. J.A. Happ 5. Jamie Moyer 6. Kyle Kendrick 7. Antonio Bastardo 8. Jose Contreras 9. Drew Carpenter 10. Ryan Vogelsong 11. Joe Savery Barring the…

Over the next several days, I’ll be dipping into my 2010 projections and presenting some leaderboards. 1. Ryan Howard – 47 2. Prince Fielder – 42 3. Albert Pujols – 41 3. Mark Teixeira – 41 5. Miguel Cabrera – 39 5. Alex Rodriguez – 39 7. Ryan Braun – 38 7. Adrian Gonzalez –…

I sometimes wonder if ballplayers who are still unsigned as February dawns get nervous.  I still don’t know if they do or not, but based on this tweet from Jon Paul Morosi, they probably should be: Asked a scout about Jermaine Dye today. His response: “I forgot about him.” 27 homers and 81 RBI last…

Last week the San Francisco Chronicle’s Bruce Jenkins tried to imagine Buster Posey pulling a Craig Biggio in order to save his knees or to keep busy or to allow Bengie Molina to remain the Giants’ catcher until his sons can succeed him or something.  Today we hear from Andrew Baggarly that the notion may…

Why? Because there are more masochistic Yankees fans than you realize, they love this stuff and I live to serve. The last installment from NYaT is the pen, the bench and the coaches: Phil Hughes/Joba Chamberlain. What it would look like: Their 2009 playoffs. The thought is that whichever one of these two does not…

After noting the dearth of contract offers after 2008, and the utter lack of leverage he had with respect to his opt-out clause after last season, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times wonders whether 2010 will be Manny’s swan song: This might well be the last season of Ramirez’s career. If he wants to…

Yesterday at an auction in California an anonymous bidder paid $103,579 for the ball Alex Rodriguez hit for his 500th career homer. Rodriguez hit the homer off Kyle Davies of the Royals at the old Yankee Stadium in August of 2007, and has since hit another 83 bombs. Generally speaking the 500-homer club has lost…

The Twins and their fans are understandably giddy over the Orlando Hudson signing, but Joel Sherman of the New York Post is throwing a bit of cold water on the O-Dog today: No doubt Hudson is a better player than Castillo and, thus, would have helped the Mets more. But Dodgers officials were actually disappointed…

He’s not quite in Russell Branyan territory, but we now know that Yorvit Torrealba cost himself a bunch of money by turning down a good offer early in the offseason. Six weeks ago Torrealba reportedly turned down a two-year deal from the Rockies worth around $5 million, with talks apparently breaking up over a difference…

Joel Sherman tweets that the Blue Jays are no longer interested in bringing back Carlos Delgado. They and the Mets were the only two teams to have shown any interest in him all winter.  The Mets peeled out when they signed Fernando Tatis.  The Jays have decided that Adam Lind is a better bet at…

Last month a Braves source told Craig that the team’s lack of interest in Johnny Damon was largely due to their confidence in stud outfield prospect Jason Heyward being ready for the majors at some point this season. David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote more about that scenario today, reporting that “Braves officials…

The Nashville Scene has a nice catching-up-with-the-former-BMOC article about Rays’ pitcher David Price up today. Pretty standard stuff except for the opening anecdote: “Last year when we were in Philadelphia, a teammate and I were going to Ruth’s Chris and two guys ran after our cab for about three miles,” Price says. “Then one of…

Orioles pitching prospect Brian Parker received a 50-game suspension yesterday due to his second positive test for a drug in violation of the Minor League Drug Prevention and Testing Program. Parker, who was a 19th-round pick out of Lewis & Clark College in 2007, had a 4.31 ERA and 64/26 K/BB ratio in 64.2 innings…

That’s the sentiment of one American League executive reports Steve Kornacki of MLive: “Sometimes, we ask for too much. Then, the smoke clears and you ask, ‘Where am I?’ And now, I can’t believe anybody is going to offer Damon more than the $14 million and $6 million the Yankees did. “If you turn them…

This morning a couple of Orlando Hudson’s new teammates used Twitter to offer their thoughts on the Twins signing the veteran second baseman late last night. First, here’s a tweet from reliever Pat Neshek: Love the O-Hud signing, what a team! And now here’s one from center fielder and leadoff man Denard Span: Wake up…

Carlos Zambrano has lost some weight and has already been in Arizona a week getting ready for the season despite the fact that pitchers and catchers don’t report until Februay 17th.  Lou likes it: “Carlos was a little heavy last year, there’s no question,” manager  Lou Piniella told fans at the Cubs Convention. “He’s another…

Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports that the Diamondbacks are talking to third baseman Mark Reynolds about a three-year extension that would buy out two of his three arbitration years.  There are no hard numbers attached to the negotiations, but Piecoro does some back-of-the-envelope calculations which, reasonably in my mind, suggests that a three-year,…