MLB

Last winter, A's General Manager Billy Beane actually went on a "shopping-spree" and acquired Matt Holliday via trade with the Rockies. Then he got Jason Giambi, Orlando Cabrera, and Nomar Garciaparra via free agency.

Holliday and Giambi were supposed to bring power to a team that desperately needed some, but ultimately Beane's plan didn't quite pan out.

After a mid-season revelation that his team was not quite ready to compete, Beane unloaded the players he acquired during the offseason, in order to give younger players a chance to strut their stuff.

The Phillies have declined their $5.5 million option on third baseman Pedro Feliz, which means that the 34-year-old will become a free agent and likely won't return to the Phils in 2010.

Feliz quietly hit 12 home runs and drove in 82 runs last year batting in the seven-hole of the Phils' potent lineup. He was the team's best hitter with runners in scoring position, hitting for a .336 average.

In two seasons in Philadelphia, Feliz slugged 26 homers and knocked in 140 runs.

Friday's interesting Milwaukee-Minnesota Midwest regional trade was nice to see. Not only were old divisional rivals coming together for a rare trade that benefits both teams, but it leaves the Brewers with some interesting options.

First, by swapping Hardy for Gomez, the Brewers saved approximately $4.2 million in 2010 salary as Gomez makes roughly $400,000 to Hardy's slated $4.6 million. Next, they picked up an extra year of service time for Gomez, who won't be a free agent for three years to Hardy's two.

In the early fall of 2001, New York was rocked by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.  In one hour and forty three minutes, the tallest buildings in Manhattan had gone from glistening beacons of American achievement to a mass grave for three thousand innocent people. 

Hours after New York Yankees Manager Joe Girardi helped lead the Bombers to their elusive 27th World Series championship in team history Wednesday night, he stopped his car to help a female motorist who had crashed her vehicle into a wall on the Cross County Parkway in Eastchester.

Juan Pierre is baseball’s best fourth outfielder.

The problem is that Juan Pierre plays like—and is being paid like—a starting outfielder.

Pierre, 32, has two more years and $18.5 million remaining on the five-year, $44 million pact he signed with Los Angeles prior to the 2007 season.

As promised, I will begin to count down the top 30 Yankee prospects with in-depth profiles of each guy.

I came up with an aggregate list based on our separate rankings over at Pending Pinstripes, and will use that to count down. To start, here are two guys I would've liked to include, but failed to make the aggregate cut:

Sammy Sosa arrived at the Latin Grammy awards on Nov. 5, 2009 and nobody could recognize the former Major League slugger. It wasn't that he has aged and started to wrinkle, Sammy Sosa was as white as a ghost! 

Over the last few months, Sosa has become frighteningly white. Some say that this could be because of a cosmetic procedure, steroid side-effects, or even Michael Jackson's disease, also known as vitiligio. But Sosa's friends say that Sammy has undergone a procedure to bleach his skin tone.  

Like a good perfume smells better on Penelope Cruz, championships, perhaps, are best celebrated at baseball’s cathedral.

Whether you love them or hate them, you’re a capitalist or a socialist; the Yankees should be respected by every American because they are synonymous with winning and excellence.

By no means are the Yankees a model of perfection, however, but do you think you get to the top in America and stay there by shining everyone’s shoes?

• Year: 1904
• Record: 62-90
• Win %: .408
• Win % Change: -70 from the year before
• Run Differential: -122
• Pythagorean Record: 61-91
• AL Finish: 7th of 8
• Manager: Ed Barrow and Bobby Lowe
• Best Transaction: Traded Billy Lush to the Cleveland Naps for Ed Killian. This trade took place the January before the 1904 season and it appears to have played out in the Tigers favor. Lush was a weak hitting utility guy and Killian put together a pretty decent career with the Tigers.