With Jason Varitek signing with the Boston Red Sox for less than originally expected, Kenji Johjima figures to be the third highest paid catcher in all of baseball next season behind Jorge Posada and Joe Mauer.
Meanwhile, Johjima was the worst hitting catcher in all of baseball last season and calls a horrible game.
Awesome.
please opt out [...]

Jason A. Churchill of Prospect Insider has a new rumor posted that is making my head spin with speculation:
What I dug up/have been told is that the M’s are working on a trade that would rid themselves of either Jarrod Washburn, Miguel Batista, or even Carlos Silva to an AL Central team.
But Brandon Morrow and [...]

I’m sorry that the site was down all day.  It started going wacky this morning but I didn’t have time to sit down and try to figure out the problem until just a little while ago.  I hope you didn’t all get as frustrated as me while trying to access the site!
Here’s a few of [...]

This morning I was running around trying to get my day started, so I didn’t have much time to digest what was going on with this trade (RHP Aaron Heilman to the Cubs in exchange for LHSP Garrett Olson and SS/2B Ronnie Cedeno).  Now I have some time to sit and think about this.
I am [...]

FOX’s Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Seattle Mariners have dealt RHP Aaron Heilman to the Chicago Cubs for SS/2B Ronny Cedeno and a minor league pitcher, and that the deal will be announced later today.
Cedeno can challenge Yuniesky Betancourt at the shortstop position this Spring Training, and if anything will likely be an upgrade [...]

Chase Wright, a soon to be 26 year old starting pitcher in the Yankee organization, was designated for assignment today to make room for Andy Pettitte. Wright is a left-handed arm who missed some time last year due to injury, but posted remarkably good numbers in the Yankees minor league organization, with a 2.80 ERA [...]

Seattle’s annual “spring” luncheon was today, producing some good material (John Hickey, Larry Stone, Ryan Divish, Larry LaRue, John Hickey #2).  Some highlights:

Jeff Clement, Erik Bedard, Adrian Beltre are all fully recovered from their surgeries and will be entering Spring Training with no limitations.
Carlos Silva dropped “more than 20 pounds.”
Brandon Morrow is a starting pitcher.
It [...]

There was some mixed reaction after the Fabian Williamson-for-David Aardsma trade yesterday.  That’s not surprising, because when you pull up his stat line you see a 5.55 ERA and a bunch of other iffy looking numbers.
Boston LHSP Jon Lester, courtesy of Geoff Baker:
“I think he’s going to really help. He’s got a strong arm, good [...]

The Hardball Times has published their much anticipated outfield arms rankings for 2008.  For for full rankings, including their method for coming up with these rankings, click here.  (The ratings don’t measure arm strength, but rather performance in certain situations when a good throw from an outfielder is important.)
I thought Ichiro’s rankings were the most [...]

As of today, these are the right handed relievers that are scheduled to be in big league camp for the Seattle Mariners come Spring Training:
Aardsma, David
Batista, Miguel
Corcoran, Roy
Heilman, Aaron
Hull, Eric*
Jakubauskas, Chris*
Kahn, Stephen
Kelley, Shawn*
Lowe, Mark
Messenger, Randy
Munoz, Luis*
Stark, Denny*
Vega, Marwin
Walker, Tyler
* Non-roster invitee
That’s 14 pitchers.  You could even make a case for Brandon Morrow, Carlos Silva as [...]