Baseball

As a mark to the end of the Winter Meetings, the Rule V Draft occurs each year between GMs to prevent teams from stockpiling talent in the minors that other teams could use on their major league roster.

The Cubs have suffered some disappointing seasons lately. I'm not sarcastically commenting on the last 100 years; rather, I am talking about the problems they have had since 2003. They were 5 outs away from the World Series, and they have not neared that feat since. I'm not going wallow in pity, especially now that Carlos Pena is on the way. He has been a leader for the Rays, a previously horrible franchise, and helped in their run to the World Series 2 years ago.

On December 8th the Seattle Mariners signed free-agent catcher Miguel Olivo to a two-year contract worth $7 million with a club option for a third year.  Just a few days prior to the agreement with Olivo, Seattle signed free-agent DH Jack Cust to a one-year $2.5 million deal.  Personally I am in favor of neither deal. 

Just 24 hours ago, the Yankees made their first official offer to free agent pitcher Cliff Lee, a six-year deal worth about $140 million.

The Yankees have now come back the next day with a seven-year offer for Lee, according to Mark Feinsand and Bill Madden of the New York Daily News.

This offer is coming about 12 hours after the Red Sox signed Carl Crawford to a seven-year deal worth $142 million.

Let me start this post off by saying that when the offseason first started, I was firmly in the camp that suggested a Beltran trade, no matter how much money the Mets had to eat of his contract.

The Mets were 48-40 at the All-Star break this year, and then Beltran returned which started the massive decline to mediocrity. I don't want to say that these two occurrences are linked, but it makes you wonder nonetheless.

In the wake of Red Sox GM Theo Epstein channeling his inner Daniel Snyder and finally winning an off-season I find it interesting how investing somewhere around $300 million in your offense can make your fans forget what the real problem was last year-pitching and defense.  

As of this moment, right here, the 2013 Yankees already have in the neighborhood of 109 million dollars spent. That's with arbitration, or new contracts. 109 million...for a season 3 years away.

What is that team going to look like? Is it going to be as old and brittle as some forecast? Well, maybe. Let's take a guess at what the lineup and rotation might look like by then.

In The Field

1B: Mark Teixeira is penned in here for the foreseeable future.

Sigh...

It's been 17 long years since we've had something to cheer about, a parade to attend. Our hockey and basketball teams don't give us much hope, and we have the NFL every once in a while, but it's not authentic. If only we could party like it was 1993...

In signing Carl Crawford, the Boston Red Sox have powered their way back to the top of the AL East rankings, and don't look to give that up too easily. The Yanks are doing fine, and if they land Cliff Lee, well, nothing will have changed much in the Bronx. 

Ryan Raburn caught fire towards the end of the season, hitting .340 with 13 HR, 38 RBI and 37 R over the final two months of the season.  Obviously, he’s not going to maintain those types of numbers, especially when you look at the peripherals that led to them:

The Boston Red Sox have fired their second warning shot across the bow of the American League East by signing Carl Crawford to a seven-year deal valued at $142 million, according to multiple media outlets and first reported by the Boston Globe's Peter Abraham.