Less than two days after Aroldis Chapman’s workout, the good feelings about the guy are starting to spread.  After some piecemeal impressions on Tuesday, Jorge Arangure wrote an extended piece on Chapman’s workout yesterday. The key takeaways: contrary to some rumors about his post-defection partying floating around — I hear Andorra is NUTS, babies —…

Derek Lowe, on the fact that the Braves are shopping him: “I take it kind of personal,” Lowe said. “Nobody made them give me a four-year, $60 million contract. There wasn’t a ransom or anybody holding a gun to their heads. It was a negotiation and that’s what they viewed as fair. I would have…

Rosenthal and Morosi report that Baltimore has “jumped into the bidding” for Matt Holliday. They don’t say exactly what that means — have they made an offer? Have they asked for a meeting? Are they merely Facebook friends? — and while they make some decent arguments as to why Holliday might make sense in Baltimore,…

Not satisfied with adding Mike Gonzalez on the day, the Orioles have also reached an agreement with free agent Garrett Atkins on a one-year deal. Atkins to Baltimore seemed like a pretty obvious call from the moment the 30-year-old was non-tendered by the Rockies. The Orioles wanted a one-year stopgap at third base before they…

The Orioles and Mike Gonzalez are close to an agreement on a two-year, $12 million contract that could be worth $8 million per year through incentives, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Tim Brown. The move would seem to bring an end to Baltimore’s search for a closer and eliminate the team as a suitor for Jose…

FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Dodgers and Jamey Carroll have come to terms on a two-year, $3.85 million contract. It’d be a return to the NL West for Carroll, who played for the Rockies in 2006 and ’07. He spent the last two years with the Indians, posting identical .355 OBPs each year.…

Missed this the other day, but the excellent Field of Schemes blog reports that Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has suggested using federal stimulus funds to help build a ballpark for the A’s: The City of Oakland would not spend any public money on constructing a new ballpark in Jack London Square for the Oakland A’s,…

There are few players I find more loathsome than Sidney Ponson. He’s really the worst of all worlds as a pitcher and a human being. If you’re going to be a drunk, at least be an amiable one. If you’re going to be a jackass, don’t be a drunk. No matter what you do, at…

As if losing Roy Halladay wasn’t bad enough, another potential 2010-11 free agent went off the board on Wednesday, as the Tigers signed shortstop Ramon Santiago to a two-year, $2.5 million deal. The 30-year-old Santiago would have been eligible for major league free agency for the next time next winter. Santiago hit .267/.318/.386 with a…

Eri Yoshida, for those of you who don’t know, is the Female knuckleballer who played for the Kobe 9 Cruise of the Japanese independent leagues last year. She went 0-2 in 11 games.  Having obviously conquered Japan, she’s now aiming her flutterball at the United States, saying on her blog that she’s going to pitch…

Reports last week had the Rockies offering Yorvit Torrealba a two-year, $5.6 million deal to re-sign while the veteran catcher asked for a total of $6 million. At the time I commented that “only $400,000 stands in the way of a seemingly inevitable agreement,” but the two sides look increasingly unlikely to bridge that relatively…

There has been speculation that the Red Sox’ signing of John Lackey was just as much about providing a hedge against the departure of Josh Beckett after next season as it was about winning next season. That’s not so according to Theo Epstein, who said this at the John Lackey press conference: “I sent Josh…

UPDATE: OK, people are now saying that the Lupica Twitter page is fake.  This would crush my dreams, because the one thing I’ve always wanted was instant access to Mike Lupica’s opinions. 3:54 P.M.  Mike Lupica tweets — a phrase I never thought I’d say — that the Mets are “close” with Jason Bay and…

UPDATE:  All of that business about the flunked physicals from a couple of hours ago is totally bogus. Everyone is fine, Selig still has to sign off on the $6 million going to Philly, but  the deal is done and the Phillies and Mariners are going to have press conferences announcing the deals later this…

Non-tendered by the Braves last week, Kelly Johnson is said to be drawing serious interest from the Pirates, but Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports that they view him as a corner outfielder rather than a second baseman. Pittsburgh has previously been linked to free agents like Rick Ankiel and Hank Blalock, so…

On the New York Yankees, that is: “I am going to start looking around. Teams are getting better and there are teams interested. I can’t wait forever and I am sure [the Yankees] are trying to figure things out. I have to be ready . . . Matt Holliday, the stuff on him is starting…

Jose Valverde spent the first five years of his career in Arizona and the Diamondbacks are in the closer market with an eye toward sliding Chad Qualls back into a setup role, but Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports that “it appears his asking price puts him out of their budget.” There was speculation…

As I said the other day, it’s quite something that a utility infielder has multiple multi-year contracts from which to choose. Guys like Jamey Carroll are practically disposable. But at least a couple of teams don’t think so, and Buster Olney tweets that Carroll is expected to choose between the offers sometime today. Buster says…

Boston signing John Lackey and Mike Cameron has Bill Center of the San Diego Union Tribune thinking that the Red Sox are preparing to make another run at Adrian Gonzalez. And sure enough FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal wrote this morning that they’re “working hard to obtain” the Padres first baseman. Center tosses out Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay…

If you’re curious what the ice rink for that New Year’s Day game between the Bruins and Flyers in Fenway Park is going to look like, here’s a pic, courtesy of Amalie Benjamin of the Boston Globe. I hope that the guys have a pool set up that will pay out for shots off the…