On the Yankees beat

As usual, the Christmas to New Year's week has been pretty slow in the baseball world. Hopefully everyone has had family and friends to occupy their time. And if not, maybe the NFL or college football or the movies.
In any case, Happy New Year's to all and I wish you a joyful 2008.

Hi all, hope you had a good Christmas for those who celebrate it. It's been quiet in the baseball world, aside from Roger Clemens issuing a video denial of the steroid allegations against him and his attorney saying he plans to launch an investigation.
My question for you: do you believe Clemens? Or is he just another athlete who denies, denies, denies until proven guilty?

OK, loyal bloggers/readers/etc., things are getting quiet for the holidays. One thing -- I've talked to several people in the Yankees organization today, and everyone expects Joba Chamberlain to be a starter. So don't worry about a change in plans. He should be in the rotation.
I'm headed home for Christmas tomorrow, so barring news, the blog is taking a hiatus, along with most MLB people. Happy holidays to all!

A couple different topics here:

1. I'm getting some complaints about a new code required to post on the blog. I've been informed by tech people that this is to prevent what has apparently becomem a problem on some of the blogs -- automatic spammers, people who are posting on all kinds of different blogs without any individual effort. It may be just a trial period, not sure. Bear with the initial bumps, please. It could make things better in the long run.

2. Joba Chamberlain made a Christmas appearance at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Cancer Center.They termed the event "Jobapalooza". He also spoke up on some offseason moves. He was a big hit with the kids.

3. Derek Jeter's Turn 2 Foundation held a Christmas event at the Ziegfeld Theatre, busing in 500 kids from around the area who take part in Turn 2 events for them to see the soon-to-be-out movie "The Water Horse" and hear from Jeter. Oh, and get a visit from Santa.
Jeter was surprisingly pretty outspoken in support for Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, both of whom were named in the Mitchell Report and alleged to have used performance-enhancing drugs.
Jeter urged people not to leap to conclusions about Clemens, who has denied ever using steroids, saying: “It seems right now a lot of people are rushing to judgment. You have to let it play out a little bit before you say he is guilty or not guilty.”
Pettitte, on the other hand, admitted using human growth hormone (HGH) on two occasions while on the disabled list in 2002. Jeter gave him props for stepping forward.
“I’ve talked to Andy and he knows how I feel about him,” Jeter said. “It took a lot of courage for him to come out and admit it. He came out and was honest about it and it’s time to move on.”

4. Clemens's agent, Randy Hendricks, sent me this statement from Clemens's attorney, Rusty Hardin. It comes in the wake of the unsealing of the Grimsley affidavit, which shows Clemens's name was not in it: "When this grossly inaccurate story broke in October 2006, Roger said it was untrue and the Los Angeles Times chose not to believe him. As the record now clearly proves, Roger was telling the truth then, just as he continues to tell the truth today. Roger Clemens did not take steroids, and anybody who says he did had better start looking for a hell of a good lawyer."

I wrote on Johan Santana again. Any chance this situation, which began around Thanksgiving, resolves itself before the upcoming holiday of Christmas? Or at least by New Year's?

The Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) seems to think so. It reported yesterday that "there's buzz that a Santana trade could be made wiithin days," without saying which team was/is the frontrunner.

Here's the latest from Hank Steinbrenner (who also said he doesn't expect the Yankees to pursue Mark Prior), as I reported in today's paper:
"There's still an outside chance that we get him," Yankees senior vice president Hank Steinbrenner said by phone yesterday afternoon. "We'll see. We've got to do things based on what we think is best. I think myself and [general manager] Brian [Cashman] are going back and forth. I think we're comfortable staying where we are, and I certainly think we'd be comfortable getting Santana, too."
Neither the Yankees or Red Sox came away with the two-time Cy Young Award winner at the winter meetings, but Steinbrenner did not dismiss the possibility. He did, however, dismiss the much-rumored notion that he is more gung-ho to make the trade and Cashman is more reluctant to give up top prospect Phil Hughes. If there were a difference of opinion, though, Steinbrenner made clear whose opinion would win out.

"The decision is my decision," Steinbrenner said. "It doesn't matter one way or another what somebody ... you have to take advice, but ultimately, the owner has to make a decision."

As yet, no decision has been made on whether to up the ante and pull the trigger to acquire Santana. Both of them are undecided.

"He'll [Cashman] tell me that one day he wakes up and wants to do one thing, and the next he wakes up and wants to do the other thing," Steinbrenner said, "and I'm kind of the same way. I think that we're not exactly panicking thinking that we have to have anything at this point, but it's still a possibility. He's a great pitcher, and it has to be seriously considered."

Roger Clemens denied ever having used steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs today, in a release put out by his agent Randy Hendricks.

Not much significant that is out there: the former Yankees traveling secretary, David Szen, plead guilty to underreporting his income by $53,000 over five years.
And Alex Rodriguez hired a manager from Hollywood (not a new agent): Guy OSeary, who has represented Madonna, Lenny Kravitz, and Penelope Cruz, among others.

The Yankees, at long last, released their 2008 regular season schedule today. They are the last team to do so. Holiday ticket packs go on sale tomorrow.

Mariano Rivera is officially a Yankee again. The Yankees just announced the three-year, $45-million contract that Rivera agreed to last month. Rivera, 38, ranks third on the all-time saves list with 443. He will be on a conference call at 4 p.m. to discuss his return, although since I talked to him Friday and wrote about it, some of it you may already have read.

J.P. Schwartz of Top Prospect Alert (www.topprospectalert.com) has put out his rankings of the top prospects in different organizations. Players are only eligible before they have pitched 50 innings or reached 130 at-bats in the majors in a season.

Here are his Yankee rankings:

1. RHP Joba Chamberlain
2. RHP Ian Kennedy
3. OF Jose Tabata
4. OF Austin Jackson
5. RHP Dellin Betances
6. RHP Humberto Sanchez
7. RHP Andrew Brackman
8A. RHP Alan Horne
8B. LHP Chase Wright
8C. RHP Jeffrey Marquez
9. C Jesus Montero
10. 3B Brandon Laird

Robinson Cano is playing winter ball for Las Estrellas Orientales (the team in his hometown of San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic). He made his season debut Friday, going 2-for-4. He also played yesterday, going 0-for-3 with a walk. The league began well over a month ago, but those MLB stars who still play tend to join late in the season or even just for the playoffs.

I've been told that Melky Cabrera will start playing in the next few days as well.

The Dominican Republic is the host this season for the Caribbean Series (Serie del Caribe), which includes the top team from the D.R., Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Mexico.

Andy Pettitte, in a statement, admitted using HGH for two days, but denies ever having done steroids. He also apologizes. He said he stopped after two days because he didn't feel right about it, even though it was not prohibited by MLB. A story will be online at Newsday.com soon.

An answer to two questions from Jim. A:

Yes, the Yankees are continuing to monitor things with Johan Santana and haven't completely ruled out a trade for him. However, nothing is close and nothing has really changed.

With regards to what players are most involved in charities, I know a lot about some of the Texas Rangers players, as I was around them for close to four years. But as far as Yankees go, a couple are really active with their own foundations, which is great, such as Jorge Posada and Derek Jeter. I asked Ray Negron (who is really active with players' charitable involvement in New York) that question yesterday, and he said that among current Yankees, Robinson Cano is really active and that Mariano Rivera hasbecome among the most active (he always did some). He also named one other player, whose name escapes me at the moment.

Mariano Rivera, Bobby Abreu and retired All-Star Roberto Alomar helped make kids' Christmas yesterday. Alomar appeared at two locations of the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club in the Bronx, and Rivera and Abreu appeared at one. All three donned Santa hats to give gifts to the children, who were delighted by their special guests. The kids got to attend this particularr event as a result of doing well in school.
An aside before some of the players' comments -- one girl that sang at the first site was absolutely amazing. Jocelyn Quiroz, 12, the fourth of six daughters, sang "O Holy Night." Most of the kids there even looked wowed, and when 9-year-old boys are impressed enough by a Christmas song to turn to their friends and comment, you've got to be impressive.
Jocelyn was recently the first recipient of a scholarship given out by Hank Aaron and his wife for accomplishments. She said at the event at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan that her dream was to sing at a Major League Baseball game, and was told by people from MLB that she'll sing the national anthem at two games in 2008. Said Jocelyn: "It's my dream because I get to sing to the world and make people happy and put smiles on their faces."

Anyway, back to baseball. Both Rivera and Abreu said the release of the Mitchell Report is a difficult thing for baseball.

Neither Yankee placed blame on any specific players named in the report. The number of players in the report alleged to have used performance-enhancing drugs -- more than 80 -- caught both players' attention, though.

"It's hard, it's difficult," Rivera said. "I have a lot of guys, people that I respect, and I cannot point fingers at anybody. We all make decisions in life and we have to live with those decisions. I don't assume that they did it. I don't assume that at all."

Said Abreu: "It's something tough. It's tough right now. I don't have the answer for that. What I hear is what you hear on the news."

Neither player commented on any individual teammates named, including Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Jason Giambi and Ron Villone.

Rivera and Abreu had not spoken to New York-area reporters since the news that each will return to the Yankees in 2008. Rivera agreed to terms of a three-year, $45-million contract last month -- the Yankees have not officially announced it -- and the Yankees picked up their $16-million option on Abreu.

"I'm excited," said Rivera, 38, who ranks third on baseball's all-time save list. "I wanted to finish my career with the Yankees. It was what we wanted."

As for how close he came to signing elsewhere, Rivera grinned and said: "It wasn't that close."

Abreu, who missed much of spring training with an oblique muscle strain, said he looks forward to having a better season in 2008. He has been closely following the trade talks for Twins ace Johan Santana, a fellow Venezuelan also represented by agent Peter Greenberg.

"I know him very well," Abreu said. "I know he wants to play here. He's such a good pitcher. If he gets here, it's going to help us get so many wins."

I had a 15-minute conversation with Scott Boras this morning. I had called him yesterday after Alex Rodriguez placed a lot of blame on Boras in the way the optout went down, a scenario Rodriguez called a "debacle" and a "mistake." I had called Boras yesterday morning to get his side of the story, if he had one. He was pretty busy yesterday, though, with the Mitchell Report coming out.
Boras basically said he couldn't comment on anything due to client-attorney privilege. He said that in a lot of different ways with different wording, but that he couldn't comment was the basic message. He also wouldn't or couldn't comment on the state of his and Alex's relationship.
As for the Mitchell Report, he said it had some good aims. However, it seemed to him -- as I'm sure it would to most any lawyer -- that the names should not have been put in there without them having due process, a point with some validity to it.

Also, Ron Villone's agent, Jim Hamilton called me back this morning, but just to say: "No comment" and "I can't comment on that at this time."

Some very big Yankee names were included in the Mitchell Report, including Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Jason Giambi (everyone knew that one), but also Chuck Knoblauch, Rondell White, Kevin Brown and more. How does this news affect your opinion of those players?

Frankly, as big as some of the names involved were (Clemens, Miguel Tejada, Barry Bonds, etc.), most of those players had had their names mentioned with regards to steroids at some point previously. I'm surprised there weren't more "big" names.

Alex Rodriguez's resigning (10-years, $275 million plus $30 million in incentives) was made official this morning. Very interesting comments by Alex on the way the whole thing went down. It sounds as if Scott Boras made him believe the Yankees didn't want to resign him.

Anyway, here are some excerpts from my story which is on Newsday.com:
Alex Rodriguez said this morning in a conference call announcing his 10-year, $275-million contract to return to the Yankees that he wished he had simply bypassed agent Scott Boras and negotiated with Hank Steinbrenner himself.
“If I had to do it again, I would have called Hank and done the negotiating myself,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez opted out of the final three years of his 10-year, $252-million contract, a decision that became public during Game 4 of the World Series. He said this morning that that was a huge mistake. All along, he wanted to remain a Yankee, he said, but he was given information by Boras that led him to think the Yankees were not interested in resigning him. Rodriguez’s resigning was officially announced today.
“I opted out simply because, let me preface it by saying it was a mistake,” Rodriguez said. “I was pretty sure based on the information that I was getting was that the Yankees were not interested in my services. … As far as the World Series, that was handled very poorly. My understanding was the letter would not go public until a day or two after the World Series was over. The timing was distasteful and very inappropriate. The whole thing was a mistake, it was a huge debacle.”
Rodriguez and Boras were skewered by the public and the media alike for the timing of the optout. Weeks later, word got out that Rodriguez was negotiating with the Yankees – without the help of Boras – to arrange his return.
Steinbrenner, the son of longtime owner George Steinbrenner and a Yankees senior vice-president, had vowed that the Yankees would not negotiate with Rodriguez if he opted out. The reason was that the Yankees would lose the subsidy the Rangers – who originally gave Rodriguez the $252-million contract – were paying. But Rodriguez called Steinbrenner directly, he says, “shortly after” the optout, and the two sides eventually reached agreement on a contract.
Rodriguez said he made a mistake in taking verbatim what Boras told him. Boras has represented him since before he was drafted. Though Rodriguez did not fire Boras, the relationship has clearly been altered.
“I was very angry about the whole situation, I was very upset, and I voiced that to him the one time I talked to him,” Rodriguez said.

Here are two notes:

The players the Yankees did not tender contracts to by last night's deadline were righthanders T.J. Beam, Matt DeSalvo and Darrell Rasner; along with outfielder Bronson Sardinha, who had been designated for assignment Saturday.

I talked yesterday with Kevin Cabral, a play-by-play announcer for ESPN Deportes in the Dominican Winter League. Here are his thoughts on a couple of Yankees who are playing there.

Jose Veras, RHP, Escogido: "He's been throwing the ball very well. He's basically a fastball/curveball guy. I've seen him throwing 93-94 miles per hour, with good control of his curveball."
Veras has not allowed a run in 7 2/3 innings. He has given up four hits and three walks and struck out 12.
Wilson Betemit, IF, Escogido: "He's been striking out quite a bit, but he's gotten some key hits for his team. ... More is expected out of him."
Betemit has played in 12 games. He's hitting .286 with 7 RBIs, two homers, 7 walks and 14 strikeouts.

Andy Pettitte officially returned to the Yankees on a one-year, $16-million contract. We should have a story online in a few minutes. In his conference call, Pettitte said one reason it was so hard to decide whether or not to pitch this season is he felt that if he did, he'd be pulled to want to pitch in 2009 as well, when the new Yankee Stadium opens.
Anyway, he sounded excited to be back, and confident in the state of the team.

I'll be back to work tomorrow, but here's a new thread to play with. Talk Matsui, Pavano, whatever you want.

All right, I'm headed out of Nashville. It wasn't quite the newsy week some were expecting. Sure, there was the massive Tigers-Marlins trade, and Andruw Jones signed, and the Nationals picked up Elijah Dukes. But Johan Santana is still a Twin, Danny Haren still an A, and Erik Bedard still an Oriole.
In today's paper, I wrote about the Yankees having early discussions about trading Hideki Matsui to the Giants. I also wrote about the Hank Steinbrenner/Brian Cashman relationship. And Steinbrenner, interestingly, did not rule out getting back into the Johan Santana sweepstakes.
Stay tuned, I'm off for a long weekend, but Newsday will have all the Yankees stuff covered.

A couple of notes:

1. I'll be on the radio tonight at 10:15 p.m. talking about the Yankees. For those of you on Long Island, you can listen it on 'Sports Talk' on 90.3 FM. For those of you in a different area, the audio will be posted after the show at http://sportstalk903.blogspot.com.

2. I came across recent comments by Mariano Rivera. He hasn't yet talked to the NY-area press about his return to the Yankees. However, he was in Panama recently for the funeral of Carlos "Chico" Heron, who "found" Rivera as a teenager, and Rivera did an extensive interview with media there.

Here are some of Mariano's comments, as reported in La Prensa, a Panama newspaper, and in an Associated Press report from there.

With regards to the three-year, $45-million contract he is set to sign with the Yankees, Rivera said: "I think that up until right now I haven't thought about another contract apart from this. If God permits it, there will be. If not, I will retire."
As for the change in manager from Joe Torre to Joe Girardi: "It was difficult to see Torre leave, but it was a decision that he made and it falls on us to keep moving forward." Rivera called Girardi's work with the Marlins in 2006 "spectacular."
Rivera also said he hopes to finish his career with the Yankees. Said Rivera: "I hope and believe in God that I'm going to finish my career with the (Yankees) franchise."
Rivera's interview took place a few days ago, and he spoke highly of the possibility of the Yankees adding Johan Santana, which obviously hasn't happened.

I just got off the phone with Shelley Duncan, a rookie infielder/outfielder for the Yankees this season, who was able to fill me in on his recent health scare. He had a blood clot in his arm, but information has been scarce. Due to HIPAA laws, the Yankees were not able to comment on his health, since it was a non-baseball-related medical issue.

Shelley told me that his arm had felt weird for a couple days, but not hurting. One day he woke up, and his armpit was swollen. So he called the doctor and got it checked out and it turned out he had a blood clot in his arm and spent five days in the hospital prior to Thanksgiving. He saw Dr. George Todd, a vascular surgeon who operated on David Cone after he developed blood clots. Duncan won't need surgery, but is on blood-thinning medication, he said, and can do limited upper-body activity until January.
The good news, Duncan said, is "Everything's going to be perfectly fine. ... The doctor's confident that it won't happen again."
The worst part for Duncan, he said, is "The scariest thing is not knowing what's going on."
The blood clot should not affect Duncan's readiness for spring training. He said that at this point in the winter, he isn't normally doing baseball activities, just staying in shape. "Where I'm at healthwise is where I'm at every single offseason."
The scare, though, "makes you really feel fortunate to be healthy."

No, not that Hall of Fame. Sorry for the swift repost, but I just saw this. Derek Jeter is being inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame at his alma mater, Kalamazoo Central High School. Jeter graduated from central in 1992, and according to the Kalamazoo Gazette, will attend the Dec. 15 induction ceremony.
Hall of Fame coordinator and Jeter's former baseball coach Don Zomer told the Gazette: "He's very excited.
Personally, I'm surprised it took 15 years to induct him. Although looking at the list, everyone else is much older than the Yankees captain.

The meetings are winding down. We had our last briefing with Brian Cashman, who's flying back to NY this afternoon, a little while ago. Cashman said last night he thought they might lose two players in the Rule V draft this morning. That's a good thing, he said, not that they would lose two players, but that they were deep enough, talent-wise, to not be able to protect all the players they like on their 40-man roster.
However, the Yankees only lost one player in the end. The Padres took righthanded reliever Michael Gardner, 26, who was 3-5 with a 2.88 ERA in 44 games and 81 1/3 innings pitched for Double-A Trenton.
In the Triple-A portion of the draft, the Yankees took Bo Hall, a 27-year-old righthanded reliever. Hall (whose real first name is Jeremy) was 5-2 with a 3.46 ERA in 54 2/3 innings pitched. He walked 36 and struck out 56.

The Yankees' bullpen currently is pretty inexperienced, with only Mariano Rivera (once his signing is official) and Kyle Farnsworth as experienced vets. Luis Vizcaino has interest in returning, but his cost is likely to be hihger than the Yankees are likely to pay. Where does the bullpen rank on your list of concerns?
Speaking of relievers, one starter-turned-reliever and soon-to-be starter once again, will be appearing at Modell's Sporting Goods in Times Square in Manhattan at 1 p.m. tomorrow.

The manager's luncheon just finished up a little bit ago. All the Yankees beat writers had lunch with Joe Girardi. It was the first casual time to really visit with him since he was named the new Yankees manager. I happened to wind up in the seat next to him. He was very friendly and engaging with everyone. It was really just a chat, not discussion of his plans so much. He did talk a bit about spring training and so on, but he also shared stories about his recent trip to the Yankees' academy in the Dominican Republic, two trips as a player to Japan, his family, golfing stories, etc.

Despite tons of Yankees discussions so far at the winter meetings -- many, if not most, regarding Johan Santana -- they have actually been pretty quiet in terms of action. Actually, most every team has aside from the Tigers and Marlins. They did make a big score in getting Andy Pettitte back, and there was a nearly unnoticed pickup in the trade for Nationals reliever Jonathan Albaladejo.
Now, after all the Santana discussions with the Yankees and other clubs, there seems to be a decent chance that the two-time Cy Young Award winner will still be a Twin when everybody leaves Nashville.

How would you rate the Yankees' week? Happy with it? Not?

The news of the day is not coming from the Yankees -- the blockbuster deal is the Tiger swinging a huge trade to acquire slugger Miguel Cabrera and pitcher Dontrelle Willis. But manager Joe Girardi did talk. I'll post the entire transcript below.

Still no definitive news on Johan Santana, though various reports are that the Red Sox are close to getting him. We'll update as solid news comes in.

Don Mattingly is here in one of his first official capacities as Dodgers (correction, hitting) coach. Sorry for calling him the bench coach -- lack of sleep makes brain cells function poorly. Friendly as always, and happy to say hello to all his Yankees associates. Probably a bit of an adjustment for him coming to one of these things as a Dodger after a life in pinstripes.

I talked to Luis Vizcaino's agent, Bean Stringfellow, a little while ago. He said of Vizcaino: "He made a point to me that he does like New York." However, he said nothing is imminent and that he is also talking to the Mets, White Sox, Royals and Dodgers, along with the Yankees. Stringfellow also believes that Vizcaino can get a 3-4 year contract along the lines of Scott Linebrink, who inked a four-year, $19-million pact with the White Sox. At those dollars, the Yankees are likely to be out.

A source indicated that Chien-Ming Wang's agent, Alan Nero, was interested in talking to the Yankees about a long-term contract. However, the Yankees told Nero to make them an opening offer. That was the end of any discussions.

Information this morning (I mean the post-sleep portion of the morning, not the 2 a.m. portion) has been scarce regarding what's up with Johan Santana. The Red Sox and Twins exchanged medical files on Jon Lester and Johan Santana, and there are some reports that the two sides could be close to a trade. Others are skeptical that the Yankees could really be out of the mix, though.
I'll update as reliable info comes in.

All right, it's 2:30 a.m. in NY. No news yet. Time to shut it down. I'll let you know when there's news tomorrow.

Hello, everyone. Ken Davidoff here. I'm moonlighting on the Yankees blog, away from my blog, to bring you this middle-of-the-night update on the Yankees' efforts to acquire Johan Santana from the Twins.

I spoke to Hank Steinbrenner at 12:45 Eastern Standard Time this morning, and while he was pessimistic about the Yankees' chances to get Santana, he said that talks with Minnesota were ongoing.

"Brian (Cashman) was giving them one more shot, and we'll see what happens, " Steinbrenner said. "It doesn’t look good to me."

Steinbrenner later added: "We'll sleep on it. Whatever it is, we'll discuss it one final time. But I'm beginning to think they just don’t want to trade him."

Steinbrenner made headlines, of course, by imposing a Monday deadline on the discussions with Minnesota. We'll bring you more updates as they come along.

The beat writers met with Brian Cashman a little bit ago in his suite. Since he hasn't returned calls in so long, everybody jokingly introduced themselves. I wish I could say he gave lots of insight into the talks on Johan Santana, but that wasn't the case. He never even said Santana's name, simply saying he couldn't comment on the "topic of the day" or the player everyone wants to talk about.
Cashman also wouldn't acknowledge that Andy Pettitte is coming back, even though Pettitte's own agent has done so. He won't even acknowledge the pending deals with Alex Rodriguez and Mariano Rivera, since they're not official. At one point, a reporter even asked, "Have you ever heard of Mo and Alex?" Cashman laughed at that, but didn't say yes.
What Cashman did talk about is the official signing of backup catcher Jose Molina, the designation for assignment of Andy Phillips, the fact that they want to upgrade their pitching staff and their spring schedule, which was released today. Oh, and he insists that people keep calling him trying to trade for Kyle Farnsworth but that he doesn't expect to move Farnsworth because he thinks the Yankees need him. Cashman even acknowledged that he doesn't think people believe him on that.

Here are some more details on Pettitte's return. No news on Johan Santana yet.

So Andy Pettitte's coming back to pitch in '08. That's huge news for sure. Could the Yankees get the daily double: Pettitte and Johan Santana (at least agreement on a trade w/Twins) in the same day?

Check online soon for a full report on the state of Santana talks. Here's the abbreviated version: Hank Steinbrenner said this evening that the Yankees' offer expires tomorrow. Take it or leave it. The offer is Phil Hughes, Melky Cabrera and a third player (the identity of which Steinbrenner said will not be a sticking point in a deal). But he "doesn't want to get played" against the Red Sox.

Hello all, from the site of the winter meetings in Nashville. No news yet re: Santana, but we'll be prowling the many lobbies in this mammoth complex for news for the next four days. We'll let you know as things develop.
Scratch earlier -- the Red Sox did in fact offer Jacoby Ellsbury, but it's an either-or. Him or Jon Lester, not both.

So what does everyone think of Phil Hughes being (likely) added to the offer to get Johan Santana? If it's that or Santana going to the Red Sox, does that weigh into your decision?

Barring any breaking news, my next post will come to you tomorrow afternoon/evening from Nashville, site of the winter meetings.