Hello sportsfans!

The Hot Stove is reaching a boil as free agents agree to contracts and trades are made. Here are some of the highlights:

1. CC Sabathia agrees to a $161 M, 7 year deal with the Yankees. The deal allegedly includes a player opt-out clause after the 3rd year.

2. Franscico Rodriguez agrees in principle to a $37 M, 3 year deal with the New York Mets.

3. The Mets orchestrate a 3 team, 12-player deal for J.J. Putz. The Mets sent RHP Aaron Heilman, OF Endy Chavez, LHP Jason Vargas and three minor leaguers (unknown to me at this time) to the Mariners for J.J Putz, CF Jeremy Reed and RHP Sean Green.

Cleveland was the 3rd team involved, sending OF Franklin Gutierrez to Seattle for 23-year-old second baseman Luis Valbuena. Cleveland also received reliever Joe Smith from the Mets.

This was the first trade by new Seattle general manager Jack Zduriencik.

4. More news from New York: the Yankees have agreed in principle to deal that sends Melky Cabrera to the Milwaukee Brewers for Mike Cameron, straight up.

[EDITORS NOTE: This deal now seems dead. The Brewers asked the Yankees to throw in a prospect, and the Yankees asked the Brew-Crew to eat some of Cameron's salary. Isn't that funny?]

5. The Yankees have also sweetened their offer to A.J. Burnett to include a 5th(!) year. The purported offer is for $80 M over 5 years.

6. The Diamond Backs agreed to a 1-year, $3.5 M deal with Felipe Lopez to man 2B in 2009. Orlando Hudson is obviously not expected back. Augie Ojeda was re-signed to remain the utility IF.

7. Ramon Vaquez is on the verge of signing a 2-year, $4 M deal with the Pirates. Whoop-dee-doo.

8. The Washington Nationals have offered Mark Teixeira an 8-year, $160 M deal. I expect the Red Sox will match the years and come in around $180 M.

9. The Cubs & Padres are currently at an impasse with a possible Peavy trade.

Actually, that's backwards. A 16 year-old girl in Japan throws like Tim Wakefield

The knuckleball - the fluttering, hard-to-hit pitch that's rare in the major leagues - is propelling a 16-year-old girl to the pros in Japan. Eri Yoshida was inspired to learn how to throw the knuckler after seeing a video of Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield. On Monday, she broke the gender barrier by being drafted for an independent league team as Japan's first female professional baseball player. "Hope I can see her pitch one day," Wakefield said in a message he texted to the Red Sox. "I'm honored that someone wants to become me. I wish her the best of luck. Maybe I can learn something from her." The 5-foot, 114-pound high schooler was chosen by the Kobe 9 Cruise in the Japanese League, which starts its inaugural season in April. The Cruise are a far cry from Tokyo's Yomiuri Giants. Making the squad is more like earning a tentative slot on a farm team than warming up in the bullpen for the Red Sox.

-Associated Press

Maybe they should sign Doug Mirabelli, too. Dougie wants to deep again!

Replay will go into use with three series scheduled to open Thursday: Philadelphia at the Chicago Cubs, Minnesota at Oakland and Texas at the Los Angeles Angels. For other games, replays will be available to umpires starting Friday.

For the initial deployment, Instant Replay will only be used to help Home Run rulings.

I'm all for this as long as the replay officials can keep the interruptions brief. For opponents who argue that this will cause games to be intolerably long, I have a suggestion: speed up pitching changes.

What's your take?

The Red Sox are among many clubs closely monitoring Mark Teixeira, who is approaching free agency and could be dealt this month unless Atlanta's fortunes take a dramatic turn for the better. The Sox' interest in the switch-hitting first baseman indicates some concern about the health of designated hitter David Ortiz, who has not played since the end of May because of a wrist injury.

-- Boston Herald

Is the Sox' intention a 3-month rental to power into (and through) the post-season, or would they try to sign Teixeria to a long-term deal? Given the prohibitive prospect demands, you have to believe it's the latter. Where does that leave the Sox roster? We just re-signed fan-favorite Mike Lowell to a multi-year deal and Youkilis has come into his own as a tremendously valuable 1B. I can't see the Red Sox dealing either of those two. Could Teixeira or Youkilis be shifted to LF, signifying the end of Manny's Red Sox tenure? It's hard to see where Teixeira would fit in.

I'm concerned about Manny's attitude this year. If you recall he started off in baseball nirvana, meditating on being positive. But a belligerant and angry Manny has been occupying MBM's locker as of late. I can't ever remember Manny acting like this during his entire career. He's been silly, moody, and flakely, but never openly hostile towards teammates or club officials. What gives? I hate to even think "roid rage," but I'm really at a loss to explain away Manny's poor behavior.

Chein Ming Wang will be sidelined until September with a partially torn tendon in his right ankle, which he sprained running the bases in an interleague game. Steinbrenner, of course, blames the Senior Circuit.

"My only message is simple. The National League needs to join the 21st century," Steinbrenner said in Tampa, Fla. "They need to grow up and join the 21st century.

"Am I [mad] about it? Yes," Steinbrenner added. "I've got my pitchers running the bases, and one of them gets hurt. He's going to be out. I don't like that, and it's about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s."

Oh, Hank. You lovable, wacky guy pompous, arrogant jerk.

Aside from reveling in the Yankees misery, this brings up some interesting mid-season questions. Will the Yankees mortgage the farm to bring in C.C. Sabathia or another big-name pitcher on the block? It's hard to imagine the Yankees going very far relying on Mussina to be their ace. Joba is not going to metamorphos into Jesus overnight.

Since 2006 Wang has the most wins of any ML pitcher with 46, followed by the likes of Brandon Webb, Josh Beckett, and Carlos Zambrano. While Wins are a misleading metric of talent, the fact of the matter is that he puts the Yankees in a position to win games.

I hope that I'll have the opportunity to watch the Yankees sink into the basement of the A.L. East.

via www.fangraphs.com

Summary:

The Red Sox jumped out to an early 1-0 lead, but fell behind in the 4th as the Indians put a few hits together. By the end of the 5th was 1-4, Tribe. Both of the Indians' 2-run innings began with a lead-off walk by Lester.

Fast forward to the 9th inning.

With the Red Sox trailing 3-4, Julio Lugo doubles off Joe-Bo to lead off the inning.

Cleveland, do you hear the footsteps?

Consecutive sacrifices from Crisp and the Destroya brought him home to tie the game. With two outs in the 9th, Big Papi hit an opposite-field single to left, against the shift. Ellsbury came in to pinch run, causing a nice distraction at 1B. Then, as only Manny can, the bad man mashed a homer to put the Red Sox up 6-4.

Papelbon slammed the door to finish the Indians off.

Player of the Game:

via l.yimg.com

Great job, Joe Borowski, for winning the game for the Red Sox!

The runner up for yesterday's game is:

via l.yimg.com

Manny Ramirez. That man has one of the sweetest swings in baseball. No one else can smoothly transition his swing follow-through to HR pimp as well as Manny.

"Being", Youk, and Pedroia all had 2 ribbies for the Good Guys.

For Cleveland's part, the top half of their line-up was productive against Lester.

(courtesy www.fangraphs.com)

Summary:

Swept. The Red Sox lost their 3rd straight against our division rivals. Headlines this morning read along the lines of "Beckett Shelled", but that doesn't tell the whole story.  Beckett went 4.2 innings, whiffed 6, and walked 4. His only real gaff was giving up a two-run moon shot to Vernon Wells on a middle-out curve that didn't break well. Thank Delcarmen for coughing up a grand slam to the Big Hurt on the first pitch.

The good news is that Beckett's velocity was good and he felt healthy before and after the game. Tacoby and 'Tek hit HRs for the good guys in the losing effort.

Come home and get some rest, boys.

Player of the Game:

(courtesy yahoo.com)

Credit Frank Thomas for mashing a bases-loaded home run that put the game out of reach for the Red Sox.

Comment of the Game:

"Well, that was a crap weekend" -- tommy.otm

Word.

Red Sox record: 3-4

courtesy of www.fangraphs.com

Summary:

This was a tight game for the Red Sox, who improve to a 2-1 record. The game was much closer than it should have been since 'Tek was robbed of a 2-run HR on a bad call by the umps.

Dice-K went 6.2 innings strong. Mr. Okie-Dokie and Papelbon recorded the remaining outs allowing only 1 hit, notching a hold and save respectively.

Believe it or not, Youk hit a triple.

Player of the Game:

Dice-K had a great outing, striking out 9, walking none, and allowing just 1 ER over 6.2 IP. The 0 BB is the point I'd like to emphasize.

Dice-K will be extremely effective this year if can keep his walks down and be efficient. He threw 64% of his pitches for strikes, which is good, but not exactly "attacking" the strike zone.  Dice-K is going to throw some cheese with his diverse breaking stuff, so 96 pitches over 6.2 is pretty efficient for him. Can he get that IP number up to or over 7?