The Cubs had miserable centerfield defense last year. Lou Piniella loves Mike Cameron. Mike Cameron loves Lou Piniella. Gordon Wittenmeyer of the Sun-Times says that these two love birds are about to stop pretending and get on with it already: Center fielder Mike Cameron could take center stage for the Cubs by the time the…

Jon Heyman tweets: royals, rangers, giants rays in mix for my miami neighbor pudge. Miami neighbor? Pudge has made over $100 million in his career. Either Heyman’s definition of “neighbor” is a loose one, or else Sports Illustrated overpays its writers.

Losing Chone Figgins to the Mariners opens a hole at third base for the Angels. One that some people have speculated will need to be filled with Adrian Beltre or someone like him.  It seems, however, that the Angels are more likely to finally give Triple A slugger Brandon Wood a chance to start and…

While John Henry tries to fool Sox fans into thinking that payroll drives ticket prices, the Cubs’ know that it’s merely a function of supply and demand: Cubs’ season ticket holders will pay more for prime seats at Wrigley Field in 2010, while bleacher and most upper deck seats will remain about the same. Despite…

Last summer, Sony pulled the plug on the adaptation of Moneyball, likely thinking that even with Brad Pitt and Steven Soderbergh attached it wasn’t going to make any dough.  But now that another Lewis sports adaptation — “The Blind Side” — has made good money in its first week, Hollywood is changing its mind.  Sony…

That thing I wrote yesterday? Yeah, let’s just forget it: Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd said the club is not actively pursuing free-agent second baseman Orlando Hudson . . . “That is not anything near a front-burner issue,” O’Dowd said. “We’re very happy with Clint Barmes as our second baseman.” They’re even still talking about…

If there’s a team that has less regard for young talent than the Giants, I’ve yet to see it: The Giants’ brass met several times this week in preparation of the winter meetings, which begin Monday in Indianapolis, and the feeling was Posey’s not quite ready to play everyday in the big leagues, meaning the…

At first blush, this sort of thing may make Red Sox fans smile: San Diego Padres GM Jed Hoyer, who served as Red Sox Assistant GM through the 2009 season, suggested in a conference call that the Padres would have a “level of comfort” in any potential trade with the Red Sox. Hoyer suggested that…

Ed Price from FanHouse: Why did [the Brewers] sign Gregg Zaun? Source said Jason Kendall was seeking $5 million to come back for another year. Some may scoff, but I think it’s rather refreshing to know that Jason Kendall has such high self esteem. I mean, he sucks, and he just won’t admit it to…

Baseball Prospectus’ Will Carroll is a Twitter tease: I know of two HUGE announcements coming at the Winter Meetings. I expect both will be bigger than any player signing or news made during. Best guesses in the comments. Here’s mine: they’re going to four outs. You know, because it’s one better than three.

The Associated Press has learned that the Mariners and Chone Figgins have come to terms on a four-year, $36 million contract with a vesting option for 2014. The option is also for $9 million, making the deal potentially worth $45 million. SI.com’s Jon Heyman reported that the Mariners began the day at $27 million for…

Rangers claimed infielder Joe Inglett off waivers from the Blue Jays. Inglett, 31, played a key role of the 2008 Jays, but he spent most of last season back in the minors, as the team preferred the right-handed-hitting Jose Bautista in the spot the lefty-swinging Inglett could have occupied. He’s a career .293/.349/.396 hitter in…

Everything else is moving as slowly as anticipated, but the non-first base portion of the infield market has been extremely active in the early part of the winter, and now that Chone Figgins (apparently), Marco Scutaro and Placido Polanco have all agreed to terms, the picture for Orlando Hudson, Adrian Beltre and others is coming…

FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal tweets that the A’s offered Marco Scutaro a better deal than the Red Sox did before the veteran opted to sign with Boston. Scutaro was guaranteed $12.5 million as part a two-year deal with a mutual option for 2012 with the Red Sox. The A’s guaranteed the full three years, but Scutaro…

Tony La Russa is saying that Mark McGwire is going to make himself available to the media sometime soon. Likely not at next week’s Winter Meetings — really, why would Mac want to come to Indianapolis in December? — but probably before Christmas. I still don’t know what the big deal about all of this…

Now that their bullpen is sorted, the Braves have three things to sort out before spring training: leveraging their pitching surplus via a trade of a starter; filling their hole at first base; and adding an outfielder.  MLB.com’s Mark Bowman — after first telling what have to rank as some of the lamest Tiger Woods…

From the I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it department comes ESPN.com’s Buster Olney’s latest tweet: Yankees finished org. meetings — they’re cutting payroll. I’m not sure yet by how much, but during season, expectation was to $185 mill. $185 million would be the team’s tiniest Opening Day payroll since 2004. The team did drop payroll slightly last year, going from…

After attending my first winter meetings three years ago I concluded that there seemed to be an inverse relationship between how important a person is and how well they dress for the event. For instance, Peter Gammons looked perfectly at home holding court in the hotel lobby while wearing an old t-shirt, gym shorts, and…

Rosenthal (or is it Tracy Ringolsnby? Is he crashing Robo’s space?) is reporting that Colorado is showing interest in second baseman Orlando Hudson. The idea would be to move Clint Barmes into a super utility role, for which he is better suited (hmmm, where did I hear that before?).  This runs counter to that rumor…

FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal reports that “the Angels are working hard to trade Gary Matthews Jr.” Of course, if the Angels could have traded Matthews without eating a significant portion of his remaining contract they would have done so long ago. Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports recently ranked Matthews’ five-year, $50 million deal as the eighth-worst…