R.I.P. Paul Blair. He could go get it. Link.
Choo is a pretty good player, but I don’t see him as a difference-maker in that division.
He sure would have made the difference last year.
He’s a huge upgrade in the lead-off spot. Kinsler .281/.355/.432 at the top of the order last year (Texas hitters hit a combined .266/.336/.386), Choo hit .294/.432/.481 in 669 PAs in the same slot.
I just saw this. A little piece of my childhood just died. 
And another R.I.P., for Jerry Coleman. World Champion 2nd baseman with the Yankees; long time broadcaster for the Padres, served in WWII and Korea which significantly shortened his career. Casey Stengel said Coleman was the best 2nd baseman he ever saw at turning a double play.
Don Mattingly gets a three year extension as manager of the Dodgers. That will give the club the stability it will need to win it all next year.
Ongoing talks with Kershaw, Ramirez and Tanaka could also yield pleasant results. Or not.
Imagine a starting lineup of Kershaw, Greinke, Beckett, Ryu and Tanaka, with Howell and Wilson doing setup and Jansen as closer. 
Tanner Scheppers is going to get a chance to start.
I’ve thought for years he was one of the most talented pitchers in the minor leagues. Obviously, he doesn’t belong as a set up man as he was used last year. The Rangers don’t need a closer, so I guess trying him as a starter might work out.
Kershaw gets new deal from LA Dodgers: 7 yrs $215 mil. $30.7 mil AAV for his prime years of ages 26-31.
Kershaw also has an out clause after 5 years.
I wonder if the Dodgers are still in the Tanaka sweepstakes?
They say they aren’t, and I believe them, especially after the Kershaw deal.
I haven’t heard that yet (that Dodgers are no longer pursuing Tanaka) Do you have a link?
Dodgers are already close to $260 mil after the Kershaw extension. And I really think the Yankees want to stay under $189 mil salary cap, this year, since it’s the last chance they’ll have to reset the luxury tax rate for quite a while… Hal Steinbrenner’s statements that they’re quite interested in Tanaka, could just be posturing to make sure the bidding price stays high for other teams.
Cubs and Red Sox are the only big-market teams that have the long-term payroll flexibility to bid high on Tanaka. Cubs have expressed interest, while the Sox remain silent, which may be posturing as well.
Just things I’m gathering given they don’t seem to be really working at signing Tanaka. I’ll try to find the link I read that seemed semi-official, or at least knowledgeable.
My take on the Tanaka negotiations is that teams that are seriously interested will try and publicly downplay their interest, while those that are not that serious will try to play up their interest. The reason being, that, unlike normal Free Agent pursuits, there is a deadline (a week from tomorrow) on the execution of the deal. If you are serious about Tanaka, then you hope to swoop in at the last minute and make an offer to his agent who is starting to feel a little nervous because no serious offers had been previously presented.
A little convoluted, perhaps, but it seems a reasonable approach to negotiating within a predetermined time frame.
The Yankees got Masahiro Tanaka. The deal is worth $155 million over seven years, but has a opt-out after the fourth season.
Well so much for staying under the luxury tax. Have to give them credit for the fourth year opt out, could way to hedge bets a little.
Yeah, they wound up abandoning that idea. Since they can print money and attendance went down last year, it was almost certainly the right decision. It’s too bad they didn’t think it through ahead of time. Perhaps they would have just kept Cano instead of letting him walk and giving Ellsbury a huge deal.
Player opt-outs mean the team is absorbing all the risk. If Tanaka outperforms that contract or if salaries keep rising, he opt out at age 29 and ask for a six- or -seven year deal that will cost more and involve more risk. If he doesn’t pitch well enough to earn a raise as a free agent, he can keep getting around $22 million a year for another three years.
Player opt-out? Sorry, some reason I assumed club. Yeah, not good for Yankees. I do think they have this idea in their head that nobody would ever want to leave them. CC had opt outs in early years of his contract too I believe.
Sabathia opted out but didn’t leave. I don’t think they believe nobody would ever leave the team- it’s just an extra way of enticing the player, but I don’t think it’s a smart one. It worked out fine in the Rafael Soriano situation, though. They gave him a bunch of money and he pitched well for one year (including filling in after Mariano Rivera got hurt), then opted out and left.
I didn’t think Sabathia ever exercised his opt out, basically just used it as a club to negotiate an extension. Which is irrelevant, either way is evidence to your point that the opt out is not a good thing for the team.
A-Rod opted out. And then they gave him the raise.
So yeah, not getting the sense the Yankees have learned much from their experiences.
You’re right about Sabathia, actually: he negotiated an extension before he could have opted out. It really amounts to the same thing. I’m hoping he’ll still be effective even though he’s lost some velocity, but that’s not working out all that well either.