With the Winter meetings starting tomorrow, and with Jayson Werth signing a 7 year $126 million deal with the Nationals now is a perfect time to resurrect the baseball thread.

Dodgers have squeezed the pitching market by already taking Kuroda, Garland and Lilly. No superstars, but it puts pressure on other teams to get one of the high-priced big game hurlers. All the talk in Angelland is about Carl Crawford, but their pitching was suspect last year too. I'd rather see them get Lee.

I was stoked to high heaven to hear the Gonzales to Boston deal when I woke up Saturday morning....to find out tonight, they didnt have a deal for an extension done by the 2pm deadline.

Talk about disappointment...they better get this deal done..everything is in place but the $$

Would help make that Texiera fiasco go away

I was bummed to see Uribe go to LA but 3 yrs at $21, they can have him. He will be a bust there.

Well, The A's picked up David DeJesus. That should put us in the post season.

Last I heard the A's were taking a serious look at Dunn. That wouldn't hurt.

I keep reading different info as to if the Gonzales/Boston deal is 100% dead..i know the deadline has passed, but is it possible still negotiate? or is it poof..it comes to $$$..Gonzales wanted 25 mil annually..Sox were in the 19-20 mil range..just doesnt makes sense to fly him in, wine and dine him, give him a physical, and not have a clue at where you are with money..

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK

A's have also put an offer to Beltre..you can have him

"Last I heard the A's were taking a serious look at Dunn. That wouldn't hurt."

Yeah, Dunn's not a whole lot different than Cust at 4 times the price. They just let Cust go.

They offered Beltre big money from what I read.

A's have some good pitching and they know the window might close real quick, so it time to get some offense NOW. Giants made it look easy.

now reading that Gonzales is not a dead deal..thinking maybe the timing was wrong for an official announcement..

ears will be peeled tomorrow morning fo sho

Beltre offered in the neighborhood of 50+ mil...??? yikes..That Werth deal is atrocious

Geeze Louise, I just found out about that Werth deal here. Been watching NFL all day. Holy crap, it's become apparent that the Nats have no fucking clue as to what they're doing. And that's coming from a Seattle Mariners fan. The pisser is that this deal raises the ceiling for everyone else (or at least the first tier free agents). You know that everyone that is bidding on Crawford and Beltre is cursing the Nats right now.

Didn't realize there was that big of a gap between what A-Gonz and the Red Sox want to extend for. That has probably been the biggest move of this offseason so far. Since it's Boston, I think a deal is eventually worked out. Look at what happened with Jeter. I guess Boston still has a ton of dough to still throw at Crawford if they want to.

The Blue Jays traded Shaun Marcum to the Brewers for an infielder prospect. Kind of surprising because the Jays seemed to be touting/building upon their youthful pitching rotation. I guess they've got more guys on the way?

Apparently Beltre and Boras have turned down Oakland's offer. They want five years and $90 million. Insane, but look at what Werth got.

Jayson Stark tweets that the Nationals' offer for Werth was so far beyond what everyone else was offering that agent Boras didn't bother to ask other teams if they wanted to match.

http://twitter.com/jaysonst/status/11607089193422848

Saw that Werth deal on tv and my eyes bulged out of their sockets. WTF were the Nats thinking? They wouldn't give Dunn 4 years, $60 million but they give Werth a 7 year deal topping $100 million? He's not worth that contract now it's scary to think what this will look like when he's 39. Damn....

I realize the Nats were going to overpay to bring someone in but this is too much.

Makes the Tulo extension look better, another deal that had me scratching my head a bit. Someone raised the idea that the Rox did that to ensure they keep him around and not lose him to the Yanks which makes sense. Both Jeter's new deal and Tulo old one run out at the same timer. I still think the Rox could have waited another season at least to ensure Tulo can maintain and not keep getting injured.

Rockies also surprised me and resigned De La Rosa with a deal that could go either way.

BTW, I was DT back at sr.com.

Saw that Marcum deal online. I like it for Milwaukee who supposedly gave up a top prospect of theirs but one who plays 2B and, if Milwaukee is serious about locking up Rickie Weeks, would be blocked.

Toronto in the market for Greinke. I wonder if this deal was done to help them collect pieces for a potential Greinkle blockbuster.

White Sox went on a spree this week signing Adam Dunn and resigning AJ Pierzynsky. All signs also point to them resigning Konerko. I know he was great last year but he is another player I wouldn't be too eager to overpay for.

Yeah, apparently Reinsdorf is hot to resign Konerko. I'm with you though, I would approach with caution or at least try not to overspend.

The ChiSox have had a good run this week though. The Dunn signing looks really good especially after the Werth deal. Even signing a 34 year old Pierzynski for $8 million, two years isn't that bad. He has been really consistent over his career and was one of the only consistent players on the the ChiSox in their last Jeckyl & Hyde 2010 season.

I wonder when the M's are gonna do something.

hee hee. What did I say above up there? From Stark's latest column:

"So technically, the winter meetings don't start until Monday. But what happened Sunday will send tremors through everything else that develops at these meetings over the next four days. How can it not?

"You don't think Carl Crawford and Cliff Lee, the other $100 million free agents in waiting, heard their cash registers ringing Sunday when they found out Werth had just reeled in 126 million bucks from a franchise about to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its last postseason game?

"This raises the price on Crawford in a big, big way," said an official of one AL team. "He's looking at maybe eight years, $180 million now, maybe 10 years, $190 million."

OUCH!

You gotta think that Nolan Ryan wants to headlock the Nats GM and pummel his face in Robin Ventura style now too, because there is no way Texas can afford Cliff Lee at this point either.

As a Nats fan and a Phils fan -- hey, I live in Philly and lived in DC for seven years -- I will be the first to admit that this Werth deal is terrible. I really like the progress the Nats have been taking over the past couple of years in building a winner, but I don't think this brings them a step closer. I would have much rather kept Dunn for $60 million for four years.

There is just NO WAY that one can justify giving Werth $18 million a year, until he's 38. The guy has hit 30 homers and driven 100 runs only once in his career, and that was being surrounded by Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, and Raul Ibanez. He has also never hit .300. This year he ended up at .294 but hit something like .165 with runners in scoring position. I'll give him points for hustling in the playoffs but there were many times this year where he made some boneheaded mistakes, and I heard rumors about him not being well-likes in the clubhouse. I was 100% in favor of getting rid of him so that Domonic brown could get a chance to play full-time. Honestly, in two or three years, Brown will be as good as Werth, if not better.

The Phillies are pretty much set for next year. Rollins is getting old but Valdez is a good backup. Brown will fill Werth's shows admirably. They should find a better backup outfielder, and a couple of arms for the bullpen. Otherwise, I feel good about 2011.

Good to see everybody that has migrated over here. The baseball thread was one of my favorite things about SR.com in the last few years. Hopefully, this place will be a haven for music threads again, as well as other interesting topics discussed by intelligent humans.

If Werth got $126 million I'm curious to see what Zimmerman will ask for.

Press conference this morning to introduce the newest member of the Bosox

Mark Reynolds was traded to the Orioles for David Hernandez and Kam Mickilio. Immediately after that the Diamonbacks signed Melvin Mora to be thee new 3b.

"Good to see everybody that has migrated over here. The baseball thread was one of my favorite things about SR.com in the last few years. Hopefully, this place will be a haven for music threads again, as well as other interesting topics discussed by intelligent humans."

Yeah! So far so good.

as an angels fan, i'm not happy about the fact that management has been so tight lipped. reagins is just a stoneman clone and all that will cause is missed opportunities.

Reports are saying that Konerko will return to the Sox

Congrats to Pat Gillick for his election into the Hall of Fame. The guy won everywhere he ever went! Toronto, Baltimore, Seattle, Philly...

The D-Backs signed JJ Putz to a two year deal. They've still got a long ways to go to rebuilding that bullpen.

It's kind of weird that the Red Sox and Yankees have their respective 1Bs locked up with Prince Fielder and Pujols becoming free agents in 2012. That takes a pretty decent added premium off the top for either of them right there.

I'm thinking the Angels end up landing either Crawford or Beltre. They need to make a splash in this free agency after last season. I'm also thinking that the M's probably sign Matsui as their DH and rake in the overseas marketing deals to Japan. Being bad/mediocre on the field but still making money. It would be kind of cool if they could funnel more of those types of players into the market; most notably that Darvish kid that is supposedly coming over in 2012.

I think whoever ends up with Beltre could regret it. He's had two eye popping seasons and both happened to be contract years. I would be worried about guaranteeing him a lot of money over a number of years. Which Beltre are you going to get?

Crawford's market just took a huge dive with the Red Sox out of the mix I think. Yanks have shown interest but unless they lose out on Lee I doubt even they will throw a hundred million at a player who they don't really need. If they lose Lee than maybe I can see them going after him. I really like Crawford so I hope he goes to a team that I can root for him on personally.

Jim Tracy collapsed at the Winter Meetings today and had to be rushed to the hospital. All signs pointing up fortunately.

Rockies sign Ty Wiggington to a 2 year, $7.5 million deal. I really really like this move for them. Wigs will play the role of super utility man and should do so well. He can play so many different positions and his bat should thrive at Coors. This should take them out of the running for Russell Martin who seemed to be a longshot anyways, given his desire to stay at catcher.

Mets sign Ronny Paulino to back up Josh Thole at catcher. Minor move, not bad, but nothing to get excited about . Mets wont be doing anything major this off season which I am okay with (that is unless they trade off one of the guys). The team has too many holes and aren't one player or so away from contending so I don't mind them not being players this off season.