AL West

The (AL) West just got wilder.

Rich Harden has reportedly signed a one-year, $7.5 million deal with the Texas Rangers.

The deal, which is contingent upon Harden passing a physical, is believed to have an option for 2011 valued at $11.5 million.

According to Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com, there is a preliminary deal between the Rangers and the Orioles to move Kevin Millwood to Baltimore.

Baltimore would send relief pitcher Chris Ray to Texas. Ray is 27 years old and has been less than stellar the past two seasons (2008: 42.2 IP, 16 saves, 4.43 ERA; 2009: 43.1 IP, zero saves, 7.27 ERA).

In 2008, he got shut down because of Tommy John surgery, and he hasn't shown that he's recovered fully yet.

The Seattle Mariners mean business.

General Manager Jack Zduriencik is entering just his second offseason at the club’s helm, but clearly has the franchise headed in the right direction.

Last offseason, he engineered a number of low-risk, high-reward deals and helped turnaround a club that had just 61 wins in 2008 to 85 victories a year ago.

Let’s get one thing straight. This isn’t a done deal. Yet.

We all remember how close the Mariners have come to signing other free agents over the years (Miguel Tejada, Vladimir Guerrero, Omar Vizquel, to name three), only to have the deals fall through at the 11th hour. So let’s not assume this thing is all locked up, at least not until the papers have been signed.

According to Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports, the Seattle Mariners are "clear front-runners" to sign free agent third baseman Chone Figgins . The Mariners did offer Adrian Beltre , their starting third baseman for last several years, arbitration but he will likely sign elsewhere as he is only a Type-B free agent and his Gold Glove defence should be enough for him to get a contract he wants.

According to T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com, Texas Rangers catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia was pulled from his winter ball game in the Dominican Republic Wednesday because he was experiencing tingling and numbness in his right arm.

Saltalamacchia will be examined by the Texas Rangers’ medical staff on Friday.

According to SI baseball writer Jon Heyman, the Mariners reportedly quashed a deal that would have sent Brandon Morrow and Shawn Kelley to the Tigers for right-handed starter Edwin Jackson.

Now, I’ve made my feelings about Morrow known before—I thought it was a questionable choice to draft Morrow over Lincecum then, and, obviously, how it’s played out has done nothing to dissuade my opinion—so I think this is a curious move by Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik, who I think has done an otherwise fantastic job in the role.

From what I’ve seen, the case that Edgar Martinez’s fans have cumulatively assembled to argue for him as Hall of Famer almost exclusively mentions only his statistical accomplishments as a hitter, gauged by both the traditional metrics and the advanced, sabermetric kind.

But of course it is people, not assemblages of statistics, who stand as candidates for the Hall of Fame, and that seems to be part of Edgar’s problem.

Edgar Martinez has made the final list of eligibility for the 2010 MLB Hall of Fame, and it’s a deserving achievement.

Martinez is deserving to be in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and when the voters sit down to decide if he should have their vote, they should make the correct decision and induct him.