It looks like Luis Sojo will have some things to do with his free time now that he will be managing the Venezuelan squad in next year's inaugural World Baseball Classic, which will be the first international hardball tournament ever to include Major League players.

Tony Pena, who recently signed on to be the Yankees' first base coach, used to be the coach of the Dominican Republic team (which has players such as A-Rod, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Miguel Tejada and Vladimir Guerrero amongst its player pool).

Roberto Kelly, another former Yankees player is also mentioned in the article as he will be leading the Panama team (I wonder if Mo will pitch for them...). The games are scheduled to be played from March 3-20 in Japan, the United States and Puerto Rico.

The Daily News is reporting this morning that Flash Gordon wants a three year deal and that the Yanks are only interested in two. So far, most reports have shown that the Yanks have shown interest in B.J. Ryan, Kyle Farnsworth, and Scott Eyre to help add some stability to the bullpen.

Also, some of the side trimmings from an article about the Matsui signing were interesting:

First, Scott Boras has to be crazy for setting that as Damon's asking price. $12 million a year for an aging centerfielder who isn't great defensively, is starting to show some offensive decline and has a less powerful arm than Bernie Williams. HOWEVER, if some GM actually signs Damon for that ludicrous deal, I will then bow to Mr. Boras, who will have displaced Stephen Hawking as the new smartest guy in the universe.

Second, a center field rotation, huh? I'm going to assume that rotation will consist of Matsui, Giles (I went into detail about it earlier) and Crosby (and after the first couple of months, hopefully Kevin Thompson as well, once Yankee management realize that he can do everything that Bubba can do, except better). I wonder how that would play out and what percentages each will play in center.

We've got two sources saying that Mr. Matsui has officially signed with the Yankees for $52 million over 4 years (that's $13 million per). Is he overpaid? Sure, but he brings in a lot of revenue as a stand-alone star from Japan, doesn't get into trouble, and hey, he wears those pinstripes well. Good to have you on board Hideki. See you in spring training.

Still, it sure felt like Cashman was cutting it close! Now, on with the rest of the offseason - B.J. Ryan, pick up your phone!

Tanyon Strutze's option was picked up:

Now that the awards have all been given out, let's take a look at some of the hot topics for the Yanks, starting with the wooing and potential signing of Brian Giles. I've always thought very highly of Brian and he has been on my radar ever since his prospect days with the Cleveland Indians. I heard a lot of people speaking and writing pretty highly about the guy's tools and makeup. He didn't light the world on fire a la Miguel Cabrera in either 1997 or 1998 when he was given 350 ABs to show what he was made of. Still, Brian definitely didn't tank either and ended up putting up an OPS of .827 in 1996 and .856 in 1997 (with an OBP of .396). By this point, I was praying that the Yankees could find some way to get him from Cleveland but it was not to be.

November 18, 1998: Brian was traded by the Cleveland Indians to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Ricardo Rincon. Hmmm... yeah, that didn't end up being a very good trade for the normally very astute Indians organization. In his first season as an unopposed starter, Brian put up a line of .315/.418/.614 with 39 HRs, 115 RBIs and OPS+ of 157 (an OPS that was 57% better than the league average). This would be the first of several great seasons (four and a half in total) that Brian would have for the Pirates. None of these accomplishments earned him any MVP consideration though as the highest he ever finished was 13th in 2002 (which incidentally turned out to be his last full season with the Pirates). Not too shabby considering that he played for a team who could afford few quality hitters to surround him with.

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Congratulations to Alex Rodriguez on winning the 2005 AL MVP award.

In the end, he finished ahead of David Ortiz by 24 points, receiving 16 of the 28 first place votes. Ortiz took 11 of them with Vladdy taking the other 1. No one had him lower than 3rd (1 guy had him third?!). No one had Ortiz lower than 2nd. Gary Sheffield came in 8th with 84 points, Mo came in 9th with 59 points, Jeter came in 10th with 23 points, Matsui came in 14th with 8 points and Giambi came in at T18th with 5 points. Good to see.

Update: Congrats to A-Rod on his 2nd MVP award! He definitely deserved it for his great year. (As a side note, Gary Sheffield (8th), Mariano Rivera (9th) and Derek Jeter (10th) rounded out the top 10.)

In my mind, there is no doubt that A-Rod is the MVP and for him to lose to a DH would be akin to a DH winning a Gold Glove without playing more 30 games at his position (see Palmiero, Rafael in 1999) or a SS winning an MVP award when another shortstop CLEARLY had the better year (see Tejeda, Miguel in 2002).

I grant that David Ortiz has had a great hitting season (though A-Rod's is still better since he played half his games in a pitcher's park, which also happens to favor left-handed batters!). Still, Ortiz had a great hitting season, too - I'll give you that. But baseball is played out on the field as well and that's where any Ortiz argument invariably breaks down. To replace Ortiz, you would need to find one thing: a great hitter. To replace A-Rod: you need a couple of things: a) a great hitter, b) a very good defensive third baseman and (this is often overlooked) c) a great baserunner. I like David Ortiz but he is not your AL MVP. A-Rod is.

Still, not convinced? Well, here are a few quick thoughts from the past couple of months on why A-Rod should be the winner:
-Tony DeMarco at NBC Sports
-Ken Rosenthanl from The Sporting News
-Elliot Kalb at Fox Sports
-Gary Peterson from the Contra Cost Times

Update: Even the folks at ESPN are pulling for A-Rod:
-The experts (God forbid Peter Gammons picks a Yankee... though to me the bigger travesty is that the experts showed Derrek Lee no love in the NL voting. Anyone who gives Andruw Jones votes over Derrek Lee didn't pay attention to his season.)
-The Daily Quickie

And finally, required reading from Larry Mahnken at The Hardball Times and Steve Lombardi over at WasWatching.com. Enough said.

If you want Ortiz support... well, this IS a Yankees site. ;)

Here is the full list of Yankee free agents per Lee Sinin's Around the Majors:

Kevin Brown, RHP (Good riddance!)

Alan Embree, LHP (Bye bye!)

John Flaherty, C (That's the door!)

Tom Gordon, RHP (Hmm... would be a good guy in the pen but a declining K rate, 3 year contract demand, severe injury potential and a history of overuse sound the alarms. Combine that with the 2 first round draft picks the Yanks could potentially recieve and it might be time to say goodbye to Flash.)

Matt Lawton, OF (Ouch.)

Al Leiter, LHP (Another hmm... may be of some use as a LOOGY out of the pen.)

Tino Martinez, 1B (Thanks for the memories!)

Ramiro Mendoza, RHP (Another hmm... is he done because his AAA numbers this year say otherwise.)

Felix Rodriguez, RHP (See ya!)

Rey Sanchez, SS (Buh-bye!)

Ruben Sierra, DH (If the Yanks care about winning, do not resign him!)

Tanyon Sturtze, RHP (This would mean that the Yankees declined his '06 option - I wasn't aware of that happening but if that's the case, then I for one, am very happy about it.)

Bernie Williams, OF (Maybe a 4th OFer? If not, thanks for the memories and I'll see you in Monument Park!)

This is currently just a rumor being floated out there but Newsday is printing that the Yankees are about to open up the bank to keep Hideki in pinstripes...to the tune of $50 million over four years (update: the NY Times is saying that the $50 million is on the table as well). For those of you keeping score at home, that's an average of $12.5 per year (well above the $7 he earned in his first three years with the Yanks) and would keep him in the Bronx through his age 35 season. If this report turns out to be accurate, we should all pray that he ages as well as his fellow corner outfielder, Mr. Sheffield.

There was something else of note in the article that I found interesting.

Honestly, I wouldn't have expected this game of monetary one-upmanship from Matsui. Frank Thomas, Sheff, A-Rod... but not him. Maybe it's my naiveté but he seems so placid about everything when he's at bat, on the field or fielding questions that I wouldn't have expected money matters (or more specifically, how much someone else was being paid) to bother him.

A question was posed in the comments section of an earlier post that wondered if Hideki is really a free agent after Nov. 15th? The question was picked up over at WasWatching and here's a recap of the findings.

Murray Chass's article in the Times does a good job in explaining how the contract was set up:


Then, Baseball Musings, a phenomal baseball site run by David Pinto, picked up the question as well and a commenter named Mike (update: who runs hs own site - Baseball Insights) was able to provide a more detailed explanation:

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