It's snowing now in Portland, OR. It never snows in Portland, OR. That means something weird is about to happen. Maybe the Red Sox are about to sign Roy Oswalt, or Edwin Jackson. Or Ty Cobb. Or Roy Hobbs.
Link time!
Yesterday was an eventful day in Red Sox land with two big pieces of news coming out. First, it was arbitration number exchanging day (?), so I hope you celebrated appropriately (it is traditional to rub angry bears on your cheeks). The team and a number of their arbitration eligible players sure did, and they exchanging proposed salaries in preparation for an arbitration hearing both hope will never come as well. Surprisingly, in every instance the team's figure was lower than the players'! The second thing was Carl Crawford, but we'll get to him in a moment.
David Ortiz and the Red Sox have finally exchanged figures and CBS's Jon Heyman has the numbers. And they don't look good. Ortiz asked for a raise of $4 million from last year's salary of $12.5 million while the Sox offered a $150,000 raise. Yeah, that isn't going to work. The Sox have talked to Ortiz about taking a two year deal, but as the dollar figures rise the likelihood of that is probably reduced. The Sox are looking to save money on a two year commitment, and Ortiz is likely to make through arbitration what the Sox wanted to spend on him over two years. Unless the Sox recalibrate, they'll probably be content to overspend on Ortiz for 2012 knowing he'll be playing for next year's paycheck as well, which worked out pretty well last year, if you recall.
The arbitration numbers weren't only exchanged by Ortiz and the Sox. According to Sean McAdam, some other players have gotten into the act. The Red Sox did manage to start knocking some of those names off their list when they settled with Jacoby Ellsbury (one year, $8.05 million) and Mike Aviles (one year, $1.2 million). As we discussed in this space on Monday, Jarrod Saltalamacchia signed a one year deal this past weekend, removing him from the list as well.
The rest of the exciting news after the jump...
OK, you already know this but, via Joy of Sox, the other big piece of news: Carl Crawford underwent arthroscopic surgery on his defense left wrist yesterday and may miss the beginning of the season. Apparently the wrist has bothered him before including later in the year last season. The team and the player decided to get it taken care of now as opposed to waiting and potentially missing a vast portion of the 2012 season. So. I guess it's a good thing they took care of it now, and that's about the best thing you can say about it.
The Yankees made some interesting moves this past Friday. Fire Brand of the AL's Chip Buck analyzes them. (Spoiler Alert: They are good)
Over at Sox Prospects, the excellent Chris Hatfield looks at Garin Cecchini, his health, and his prospects for the 2012 season.
Old friend Victor Martinez tore an ACL and now may have to miss the entire 2012 season. The Tigers may or may not be in trouble.
Baseball Prospectus gives us its ten favorite baseball movies of all time. And yes, Moneyball is mentioned.
The Providence Journal's Tim Britton says GM Ben Cherington is comfortable with the Red Sox pitching staff.
Finally, at Fan Graphs Audio, friend of OTM Carson Cistulli spoke to friend of OTM Jeff Sullivan of Lookout Landing fame, and the subject of yours truly (and Marc Normandin) came up in conjunction with Nazis. If you've ever listened to the second Red Sox Beacon Podcast (as it was then known, before it became the OTM Podcast) you can listen to it, and learn just what the heck Mr. Sullivan is referring to, right here. Then you can tell me, because I'd like to know.