As We Dance To The Arbitration Tango

Just a few quick links of more random stuff interesting to me, as teams hit their arbitration deadlines. I'll have a book review up later tonight, I hope.

Roger Clemens wasn't offered arbitration, which makes perfect sense as the Astros would end up having to tie up $20 million waiting to see if he'll actually play next year, which would make it hard to make any other roster moves. It'll be interesting to see what happens to him; maybe he'll play an abbreviated season next year, maybe he'll retire, maybe he'll end up signing elsewhere. Who knows.

My favorite lefty sidearmer Mike Myers apparently agreed to a two-year contract with... the Yankees. Why do the Yankees always insist on having a couple players that I adore, making it impossible to hate the entire team at once?

Everyone's mentioned it today, but Matt Morris gets 3/27 from the Giants. Good for him.

Apparently acquiring old dudes is the rage these days, as 41-year-old Kenny Rogers gets a 2/16 deal from Detroit and almost-40-year-old Jose Mesa gets a one-year, $2mil contract with a $3mil club option with the Rockies.

Oh yeah, and one of our old benchmen John Mabry moves around the Central from the Cards to the Cubs.

And then in the realm of "WHAT?", the Phillies trade Vicente Padilla to the Rangers for a sack of beans. (Hopefully we'll find out exactly what beans soon, but after the Rangers skunked the Nats with that Soriano trade, who knows?) I don't understand this move at all, aside from the Phillies trying to avoid arbitration with Padilla, since they have the same issues most other teams these days have: lack of starting pitching.

Oh yeah, and A.J.Pierzynski is trying his hand in the world of pro wrestling, or something. Yow.

Japanball's tidbits of the day: Fumiya Nishiguchi, Seibu's "other ace", signed a 1-year, 300 million yen contract, higher than Matsuzaka's 250 million yen salary was this year, but his 2006 salary has yet to be determined. Other fun things in that article are them mistranslating Kazuhiro Sasaki's name as "Hirokazu", and that Orix's Yoshitomo Tani signed a one-year contract after a fairly disastrous injury-riddled year. I'm not a big Tani fan or anything, but it'll be interesting to see if he can regain his all-star form (his 28-31 seasons averaged .329/.394/.493, but this last year he only hit .248/.291/.336).

(Ogasawara took a pay cut but will be the highest paid Japanese player anyway, due to Johjima leaving and Sasaki retiring. Heh.)