Baseball

The arbitration deadline has come and gone and now is the time for the rumors to start to fly even more than they were before.

For some teams, adding a veteran pitcher to the rotation or bullpen is priority No. 1. For others, adding some offense to go with a quality pitching staff will take up most of the front office's time.

The San Francisco Giants have only one thing to upgrade—it's terrible offense. General manager Brian Sabean will be searching the market, minus Jason Bay and Matt Holliday, for the "second- tier" bats his is trying to find.

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.

The Red Sox shortstop saga appears to be at an end. According to reports, the club and free agent shortstop Marco Scutaro have reached agreement on a two-year contract, pending a physical.

Alas, the Sox no longer have to contemplate shifting Dustin Pedroia to shortstop!

It was just two seasons ago that B.J. Upton posted a 24 HR, 22 SB season sending fantasy owners into a frenzy, thinking the next great outfielder had emerged.

Since then, while the speed has proven to be real (86 SB the past two seasons), the power is nowhere to be found with just 20 home runs total.  Is there any hope that he can get reasonably close to his 2007 campaign?

First, let’s take a look at the numbers he did post in 2009:

On Wednesday evening I had the pleasure and privilege of interviewing current Milwaukee Brewers relief pitcher, Seth McClung .

Now before I begin, I’d just like to express my well wishes to him, not only for doing the interview but also for his speedy responses.

For the past few weeks all the buzz around baseball has been focused on Hot Stove talk. So I figured why not change things up a bit and talk to a player about baseball in general.

THE TRADE

He A's have traded Matt Spencer, Jeff Gray, and Ronny Morla for Jake Fox and Aaron Miles.

A's lost

Matt Spencer 
age: 23
drafted: 3rd round 2007
positions:  OF-188, 1B-26

Talk about anticlimactic.

Smart, but anticlimactic.