To recap all the deals since last we spoke:

Marlins sign Mark Hendrickson
Cubs sign Jon Lieber
Rays trade Jeff Ridgway for Willy Aybar and Chase Fontaine
Rangers sign Jason Jennings

Let's begin with Hendrickson / Lurch as he's become affectionately known as during his time in Tampa. The former NBA power forward is a soft tossing lefty who's spent the past season and a half as a swingman for the Dodgers. He'll be 34 in late June which automatically makes him an elder for the Fish, but he's all ready slotted in as a rotation member joining some combination of Scott Olsen, Sergio Mitre, Andrew Miller, Rick VandenHurk and Ricky Nolasco. In roughly 16 innings at Dolphin Stadium Hendrickson has an ERA near 4.9 which is pretty close to his career ERA of 5.01. I wouldn't expect too much from him, but maybe the Marlins can spin him off at the deadline.

It's nice to see Lieber back with the Cubs for nostalgia's sake, if we can call the period between 1999 and 2002 nostalgic nowadays. Lieber is essentially your prototypical back of the rotation average results, innings eater type that are more valuable than you'd think. He'll battle with Sean Marshall and Ryan Dempster for a rotation spot - assuming Marshall isn't traded for Brian Roberts.

Anytime you can move a 28 year old lefty reliever with control issues for a young third baseman with a chance to be above average off the bench you do it, when you can land a nice organizational infielder with early comparisons to Chase Utley you don't think twice about it.  Jeff Ridgway really doesn't fit in with the Braves who all ready have Royce Ring and Will Ohman, and you would think after Omar Infante broke his hand the Braves would want to hold on to Willy Aybar, but apparently the substance abuse issues weigh above his talent. Chase Fontaine should add depth to the deep Rays' farm system if nothing else.

Finally Jason Jennings found a home, and it was naturally in Texas. I'm pretty sure a 68 ERA+ isn't what Jennings thought of entering a free agency year, so he'll attempt to build upon his run of good success from 2005 as a Ranger. If nothing else the contract is very reasonable and he's going to give you better bang for your buck than Kyle Lohse who may never find a job at this rate.

Also on a BTB note, we'll begin team previews on Monday with the talented Mr. Sackmann kicking off the American League, I'll chime in on Wednesday with the Diamondbacks.

It seems like every week now the Oakland Athletics are making a trade, the only question is who goes next after today's deal that sent Mark Kotsay to the Atlanta Braves for pitcher Joey Devine.

Kotsay recently turned 32, but 2007 was a disaster for the former Marlin and Padre, and hit .214/.279/.296. Assuming Kotsay bounces back he's just as good of an option as Josh Anderson, but both are just stop gags for Jordan Schaffer, in fact Kotsay's 8 million dollar bill in 2008 will be the last of his current deal.

The Braves lineup will probably project to something like this:

CF    Mark Kotsay
2B    Kelly Johnson
3B    Chipper Jones
1B    Mark Teixeira
C    Brian McCann
RF    Jeff Francouer
LF    Matt Diaz
SS    Yunel Escobar

As for Devine he was a former 1st round pick in the 2005 draft, remember when he and Craig Hansen were the new wave of draft and insert closers? He's only got about 20 innings of pro experience, and the problem has been he's walking more than he's striking out. In the minors he's been flat out untouchable. Even if Devine doesn't reach that level the A's are smart only giving up a year of Kotsay and the six million of his salary. Travis Buck will likely man center until Carlos Gonzalez is ready to take over.

You have to wonder who's next to go in the Oakland rebuilding stage, recently Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors sat down with Susan Slusser to discuss the trade prospects of Joe Blanton, Mark Ellis, and Huston Street - you would have to think at least two of them are gone before the year ends, and how about selling high on Jack Cust?

The National League Central has been one of the more active divisions this off-season and today that still holds true:

Mike Cameron is now a Milwaukee Brewer, the team had reportedly been after the services of Kenny Lofton, but didn't want to swap Bill Hall to left field and weren't sure about putting him at third base and moving Ryan Braun to left, this deal seems to suggest the latter scenario will happen.

Cameron's deal is worth 4.22 million this year due to his 25 game suspension with a club option for 2009 worth 10 million, add in a signing bonus of 1.25 million and a possible 750K option buyout and it's a reasonable add for a reasonable price.

The Brewers defense was sorely lacking at third base with Braun, he should fit in a lot better out in left and will undoubtedly play better defense then Carlos Lee did a few years back. Factor in that Braun's bat isn't exactly going to cost the Brewers' value out in left field and really the move makes sense. Hall had a disappointing 2007, only possessing an OPS+ of 89 after back to back years with OPS+ over 115.

As for Cameron he adds Gold Glove worthy defense and a bit of a streaky bat, but he hasn't posted an OPS+ below 100 since 1998 if you can believe that. You really shouldn't put much weight into a 10 game sample, but Cameron has absolutely mashed at Miller Park, including four homeruns and an OPS over 1.100. He struggled a bit last season and it's not much of a surprise he turned to stimulants to try and jumpstart his season heading into the off-season as a fere agent.

The Brewers don't seem to have a qualm with adding players accused or charged with stimulant or performance enhancing drug usage and really they shouldn't, I'm sure some columnist will bash them for giving the juicers jobs, but at the same time you're still playing a game of shadows - pardon the pun - with the users who haven't been exposed yet.

It's a bit hard to believe, but the Cardinals are the World Series' champions once removed, today however they dismantled another part of that team by moving Scott Rolen for Toronto third baseman Troy Glaus - assuming both waive their no-trade clauses and pass physicals. All along teams like the Brewers had been mentioned concerning Rolen, but in the end the Cardinals executed a challenge trade.

Rolen and manager Tony LaRussa aren't fans of each other, Glaus has PED concerns and his knees can't stand the turf, so in a way the two had to be moved and what better way to execute a trade but to swap two birds with one deal - no pun intended that time. Contract wise Rolen will make 12 million through the 2010 season while Glaus makes 12.75 million this year then has a player option for 2009 worth 11.25 million, interestingly the Diamondbacks will also save money in this deal by not having to pay an extra year or two of the difference in tax that Glaus had to pay for playing outside of the United States.

Glaus is 31 and played in 115 games last year, hitting .262/.366/.473 and was on pace to come awfully close to his 2006 season when he made the All-Star team and finished 30th in MVP voting. He's not great in the field, but he probably won't hurt the Cardinals, and if nothing else he should fill the offensive void left by Rolen while not having that creeping sense of tension between manager and star player.

Rolen will turn 33 during the opening week of the season and is coming off of only playing 112 games with a down 89 OPS+, making it the second time of the past three years he's played in fewer than 140 games and finished below 100 in OPS+. Certainly going to the American League where he can occasionally pace Frank Thomas as the Jays' designated hitter should help, but remember if Rolen had issues with LaRussa and Larry Bowa before him he's going to have a field day with Jays' manager John Gibbons who has had a few confrontations with players over his time, if Rolen wants to fist fight Gibbons will oblige.

On paper the deal is pretty equal based on both players having issues, injuries, and past success with a chance to rebound in 2008, but the Cardinals seem to have gotten the slight edge based purely on age and clubhouse tension.

Finally one minor signing: the A's inking Emil Brown who was terrible last year, but could provide decent pop off of the bench, it doesn't hurt that Brown had two straight years of OBP's around .350 entering last season, perhaps he regains the ability to have an OPS over .800 next year because he's surely not going to earn his job in the field.

Recapping a signing I overlooked at the end of last week, the St. Louis Cardinals signed Matt Clement to a one year, 1.5 million dollar deal with a club option for 8.75 in 2009 or a quarter of a million buyout, the option can possibly be worth 11 million and buyout worth 2 million, but I don't think anyone sees Clement finishing top five in the 2008 Cy Young vote.

It's hard to believe Clement is all ready 33, it seems like just yesterday he was going from the Padres to the Marlins for Mark Kotsay or to the Cubs for Julian Tavarez and Dontrelle Willis. Clement would go on to have his best three seasons with the Cubs and turn that into a payday with the Boston Red Sox, three years, 25.5 million.

Early returns had the Red Sox deal turning out rosy, Clement would post a first half ERA of 3.85 and earn an All-Star invite, but things quickly spiraled downward - both for his season and Red Sox career - just weeks after the All-Star game Clement would be hit in the head by a Carl Crawford line drive, capping off his worst month of the year with an 8.88 ERA for July.

2006 would be a bad season for Clement and he'd end it with shoulder surgery, causing him to miss all of 2007, which essentially leads us to the signing. The Cardinals desperately need starters, so Clement makes sense, and you can't pass up on a low risk high reward. As stated his best success came for the Cubs in the same National League Central, and he figures to slot in along with Adam Wainright, Braden Looper, Joel Pineiro, and Anthony Reyes.

Other minor league deal signings of note:
Hideo Nomo gets yet another shot at the big leagues with the Kansas City Royals, don't expect him to last beyond the second week of camp, as expected Hideki Irabu is apathetic towards the deal.

Shawn Riggans' job security is non-existent as the backup catcher in Tampa, first the Rays signed former Astros' top catching prospect Hector Gimenez and now they bring back inaugural Ray member Mike DiFelice.

Speaking of the Rays, the Marlins are turning into Tampa southeast, which is a sign of the times in South Beach. Jorge Cantu, Tim Corcoran, Doug Waechter, and Marcos Carvajal are amongst the former Rays hanging around the park, with only Cantu likely to have any positive impact - and that's only if they play him at third with a butterfly net in hand.

Who saw this one coming? The Sox make another trade for an on-base conscious outfielder to join Carlos Quentin, and Beane continues to rebuild the A's by poaching three of the White Sox top 10 prospects, including the top two.

Let's start with the A's bounty: Gio Gonzalez, Fautino De Los Santos, and Ryan Sweeney. Gonzalez is a 22 year old lefty who strikes out most of the world and should start in AAA, he was traded from Chicago to the Phillies and back again last year. Speaking of striking out the world, De Los Santos must strike out the universe if Gio strikes out the world, he's got a huge roof on his potential, and frankly those two alone make this deal seemingly favor the A's, at least after this year, but they also get Sweeney who may find a home in the A's outfield if Mark Kotsay is dealt.

For the Sox, they do indeed get a more walk promiscuous slugger, but you have to wonder if they overpaid for him. Swisher had a .381 on-base percentage last year and as of now is pegged as the starter in centerfield for the White Sox which should concern fans of good centerfield defense. He's 27 and signed through 2011 with a 2012 club option at an affordable rate, essentially the Sox will get the rest of his prime years.

Swisher will certainly help the offense that ranked near the bottom in runs scored and dead last in on-base percentage, but Kenny Williams essentially just emptied his farm system for a short sighted upgrade. The A's won't be contending for a playoff spot anytime soon, and neither will the White Sox, the difference is the A's future looks a whole lot brighter than the south side crew despite what should be a short term win and upgrade.

So a note to Kenny Williams; I'm glad to see you're learning that you do need players who get on base to win games, but gearing up for another run with your current core isn't a good idea, sitting on the young arms and hoping a few work out while you move out the old, ineffective parts probably would've been smarter if not quicker.

Thank you Ed Wade for making a move after the post. Essentially it's a one year deal with incentives to potentially raise the one million base salary. Erstad isn't very good at all, but I imagine he'll become the backup outfielder behind Carlos Lee, Michael Bourn, and Hunter Pence as well as playing some first behind Lance Berkman. He's a lfet handed bat and used to be a good defender - assuming he doesn't end up on the DL. Not a great move, Erstad gets a raise for an awful 2006, I guess you just fail upward in baseball nowadays.

Also my e-book came out tonight, you can find out more about it here.

Rounding up a few moves from the past week that I missed due to the holiday:

-    Marlins sign Jose Castillo
-    Phillies sign Chad Durbin, Geoff Jenkins (2 years, 13 mil with 7.5 vested option based on PA) , and So Taguchi (1 year, 1 mil, with option)
-    White Sox sign Alexei Ramirez (4 years, 8 million with 4 million of that in incentives)
-    Royals sign Miguel Olivo
-    Astros sign Chad Paronto and Jack Cassel
-    Mets sign Matt Wise
-    Braves sign Javy Lopez to minor league deal

Yes, a ton of minor moves, so let's get to work:

Castillo will be 27 on opening day, but that hasn't stopped the Marlins from apparently penciling him in as their starting third baseman despite coming off of a season in which he hit .244/.270/.335 and a career line of .256/.297/.380. He's better suited to play second base where his range should make up for a bit of his offensive ineptitude much like Dan Uggla's offense makes up for his poor defense. An infield of Castillo, Hanley Ramirez, Uggla, and Mike Jacobs figures to give the Marlins poor defense as it is, but at least another option like Jorge Cantu could've given them the possibility of an offensive breakout, Castillo seems worthless to the Fish. The worst part about this move is that Castillo made 1.9 million last year to avoid super two arbitration - he was asking for 2.2 million, the Pirates offered 1.8 and they met in the middle rather than Castillo losing that extra hundred thousand, but since he'll be heading back to arbitration he can't make much less than he did last year, meaning the Marlins very well could be paying Jose Castillo two million next year, making him their highest paid player.  To sum it up: a player with a career 75 OPS+ with no presumable upside other than the potential to hit 15+ homeruns will be the highest paid player on a team by making two million dollars and starting at third base. Perhaps I was in abnegation about how bad the Marlins situation was, but Jeffrey Loria needs to sell that team, those fans don't deserve this.

The Marlins National League East competition also made a few moves: the Phillies started the party by signing three. Durbin has made his fair share of rounds over his career - remember when he began with the Royals in 1999? Me neither, from there he'd jump to the Indians in 2003, Arizona in 2004, and Detroit for the past two years. He's a hard thrower and has issues with the longball, but last year was the best of his career, whether or not he was lucky like he was in 2001 doesn't matter since he's always going to give up a ton of baserunners and homeruns, it's about forcing those homeruns to be solo shots. I imagine Durbin will be a pen arm for the Phils and also be the first called upon when one of their rotation mates suffer an injury - Cole Hamels, Brett Myers, Kyle Kendrick, Jamie Moyer, and Adam Eaton; needless to say I think we can count on Eaton getting hurt - perhaps on a road trip to Florida a kraken will eat him. Jenkins and Taguchi figure to join the outfield with Pat Burrell, Shane Victorino, and Jayson Werth, with Jenkins likely starting in right field and Taguchi being the first reserve in center - Werth meanwhile had a great season last year, and although his BABIP was out of the roof his line drive rate supported it. Jenkins is easily the more valuable of the two outfield additions, but I can't believe someone is actually paying Taguchi  a million to come to the ballpark, I always figured his last payday would be to stay away.

Taking a break from the NL East show for a while let's focus on the AL Central where the White Sox signed Cuban import Alexei Ramirez. All along he'd been marketed as a shortstop who could play second and centerfield if need be. Frankly I don't know where he'll fit in, perhaps taking Danny Richar's spot at second or Jerry Owens spot in center. I don't know a ton about Ramirez but I believe it was Clay Davenport at Baseball Prospectus who essentially compared Cuban ball to low-A ball - that doesn't seem to suggest Ramirez will be too successful, at least not until he gets over the learning curve.

Olivo is a journeyman catcher for the 21st century, since 2002 he's played with the White Sox, Mariners, Padres, Marlins, and now Royals. All the while a career 76 OPS+ hasn't stopped Olivo from getting more than 300 at-bats all but twice in his six season career, and one of those times was a brief stint in 2002. He's not particularly good at anything, but he hits homeruns so naturally he's valuable to a team that gave Jason LaRue and Paul Phillips nearly 200 at-bats last year.

Ed Wade loves him some relievers, think of this off-season alone, he's added Jose Valverde, Doug Brocail, Geoff Geary, Oscar Villarreal, and now Paronto and Cassel. Paronto isn't a big signing, he's 31 heading on 32 in July, but he's had two straight seasons of an ERA+ over 100 and while his WHIP rose last season from 1.271 to 1.636 his strikeout rate also went underground. Cassel was lucky last year in terms of his ERA, but he's only 27 and has enough minor league success to warrant more than 20 innings of look-see at the big league level - particularly when he's coming from the organization that is the best at making the most of relievers.

Back to the NL East to wrap our moves up, the Mets added Matt Wise, who hasn't had a bad run since 2001, but however he got hit around a bit more than usual, and some suggest that he hasn't been the same since hitting a player in the helmet, which frankly can't be good for either the pitcher or the hitter's mental health.  The Mets have a ton of guys vying for a few relief spots: aside from the locks the likes of Carlos Muniz, Jorge Sosa, and Joe Smith figure to battle with Wise for a spot, oh and I can't go without mentioning Willam Collazo who went to Florida International University, why? Simply because he's left handed and frankly I like the name Collazo - otherwise I doubt he'll find a spot in the Mets pen.

Finally we arrive at the Braves and Javy Lopez re-uniting, it seems like just yesterday Lopez hit 43 homeruns on his way to fifth in MVP voting before bolting to Baltimore. He was never close to his 2003 numbers again and it ended last spring when the Rockies essentially allowed him to retire - that after an embarrassing stint with Boston in 2006. Javy was never the most consistent player, here's a look at his OBPs over his career beginning in 1994:
.299
.344
.322
.361
.328
.375
.337
.322
.299
.378
.370
.322
.297

Who knows what - if anything - he'll do this year, but simply put unless Javy is back to his 2003 form he shouldn't get a job over Clint Sammons. Hopefully Frank Wren and crew don't get all nostalgic with Tom Glavine and Lopez running around, otherwise Eddie Perez and Jorge Fabregas will be knocking on their doors next spring.

I talked about Mark Prior not too long ago here, and today he signed a 1 year, 1 million dollar deal with the chance for him to earn five million. Simply put it's a very good deal for both sides, Prior goes home, gets to work with Bud Black, pitches in PETCO, and if he's healthy forms a heck of a rotation.

The Padres get a low risk, high reward starter to join Jake Peavy, Chris Young, Greg Maddux, and if they can stay healthy Randy Wolf and Prior. You'd expect above average performances (ERA+ of 120 and above) from Peavy and Young, and average (95-100) from Maddux and Wolf, but Prior is the wild card, if he can replicate his career average ERA+ 123 the Padres might have the best rotation in the league for the second straight year.

The risks here are Prior not pitching well or at all and losing the Pads a mere million, or Prior pitching extremely well and testing out the open market in 12 months and cashing in, but he seemed pretty deadset on pitching at home, I can't see him simply bolting on the Pads.

This won't be Jamey Newberg quality, but here we go anyways. The Reds swapped Josh Hamilton for Edinson Volquez and Danny Ray Herrera.

Jon Daniels has proven to be a risk taker in trades since taking over for John Hart and some of those haven't worked out so well - like trading Alfonso Soriano, Chris Young, and Adrian Gonzalez. He's also had his fair share of deadline deals outside of just the Eric Gagne and Mark Teixeria deals remember when he acquired Carlos Lee?

Essentially the two teams here swapped future potential stars for each other - the Rangers giving up the last part of DVD, and the Reds sending their Rule 5 prized pig.

Let's start with the Rangers - Hamilton is a risk, but every player in this trade is - he's become injury prone, and there's always the lingering possibility that he might recede back into the depths of drug usage. Despite missing a ton of time last year he showed a power stroke - versus righties at least, he boasted a 1.028 OPS against his handiness he only managed a .588 one, he also had a lower OPS away from the Great American Ballpark, but it's not as if Arlington is a huge offensive drop off.

Volquez showed some signs of life last year as a 23 year old he was league average but has far superior stuff than his performance suggested, he just allowed too many baserunners. He's a flyball pitcher so heading to a better hitter's park (through park factors) may or may not work out for him. Herrera is a screwball reliever, not sure exactly how far you can project him out, but the Reds could do worse for a minor league arm.

Four - eight - zero - zero - zero - zero - zero - zero. That's size zeros. Six. For this:

A pitcher who just a year ago was detrimental to his team is now making 12 million annually. In fairness to Silva he did allow more line drives than before in 2006, but this signing is inexcusable for me - pitchers like Ted Lilly, Javier Vazquez, and Gil Meche are making - Silva isn't nearly as good as that trio.

Apparently this won't effect the Mariners' pursuit of Erik Bedard, but I sincerely hope Bill Bavasi doesn't think that signing Carlos Silva would give him enough leverage to not give up a king's ransom for the Orioles' left-handed ace.

As for the pitchers in Seattle, their rotation looks something like: Felix Hernandez, Jarrod Washburn, Miguel Batista, Carlos Silva, and the "winner" of Horacio Ramirez, Cha Seung Baek, and R.A. Dickey. It's just an okay rotation, and the five spot looks atrocious, but isn't the biggest problem with the Mariners the fact that they have two huge underachievers on their roster all ready? Why add another huge salary to a player who doesn't put you over the top and is just as overpaid as your current issues?

Let's just assume that Horacio wins that fifth spot, the rotation could make a combined 34.5 million next year and with their three top pitchers having ERA+ within the 100-110 range the price tags clearly don't match the production. I'm not sure if it's possible to do so in the game with the current crazy market, but the Mariners are spending nearly double the Marlins on their rotation alone, and it's essentially league average! That's nuts.

On behalf of agents and pitchers everywhere: thank you Bill Bavasi, thank you a ton for making the demand on starting pitching even greater. All that's left for him to do is go out and give a similar contract to Kyle Lohse or Kris Benson, that or sign Sidney Ponson.