Baseball

Shelley Duncan has seen brief success when he has played for The New York Yankees from 2007 to 2009.  It is a completely different story when he gets full time play with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the Triple-A affiliate of the 27 time World Champs.

Duncan lead the International League in home runs (30) RBI (99), runs and extra base hits, thus being honored by the Topps Company of New York, as their Player of the Year.

The New York Yankees are the best team in baseball—for the 2009 season (as we predicted in our World Series Preview ). But is this one of the best teams in baseball history? Is it even one of the best teams in Yankees history? What about this decade?

The Boston Red Sox have acquired Jeremy Hermida from the Florida Marlins in exchange for a pair of minor league left-handers in Hunter Jones and Jose Alvarez.

Neither pitcher is considered a top prospect, as both are relief pitchers who offer little to no upside for fantasy baseball owners.

Hermida, however, is a different story.

According to Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (click here to view the post), the Milwaukee Brewers have traded J.J. Hardy to the Minnesota Twins for Carlos Gomez.

The move is surprising, in the sense that it was heavily thought that the Brewers would move Hardy in exchange for pitching, which they desperately need. Center field, however, was another void considering Mike Cameron is a free agent.

That didn’t take long at all.

On Friday morning, the Chicago White Sox continued moving their roster pieces around before free agency begins by buying out right fielder Jermaine Dye .

Should Chicago's other team consider adding the 2005 World Series MVP?

The Cubs are in an awkward situation with their outfield right now. They have Kosuke Fukduome, and Alfonso Soriano likely to be back, and Milton Bradley under contract but on the chopping block.

On Friday morning, the Milwaukee Brewers traded shortstop J.J. Hardy to the Minnesota Twins for outfielder Carlos Gomez.

Gomez likely has the inside track to replace free agent Mike Cameron in center field for Milwaukee and doesn't turn 24 until December. He batted only .229 last year but is one of the fastest players in all of baseball.

The Twins and Brewers have reportedly agreed to a trade that would send Carlos Gomez to Milwaukee in exchange for JJ Hardy.

• Year: 1998
• Record: 65-97
• Win %: .401
• Win % Change: -87
• Run Differential: -141
• Pythagorean Record: 68-94
• AL Finish: 13th of 14
• Manager: Buddy Bell and Larry Parrish
• Best Transaction: In December, the Tigers signed Luis Gonzalez as a free agent to fill a hole in the corner outfield spots. This worked out just fine … for one season. Gonzalez slugged more than 20 homers but was out of town within a year. We all know how that worked out.
  

In the wake of the Yankees' 27th and most recent World Series championship two days ago, we're likely to hear a lot of talk about parity in baseball. The arguments will mostly be divided into two camps.

One side will cry foul. "This is an outrage!" they'll say. "The Yankees bought a World Series for $208 million. I can't believe Major League Baseball would allow this to happen. We need a salary cap!"