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Vlad Looking For Multi-Year Deal

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Vladimir Guerrero was hoping to sign a two-year contract last winter, but after finding surprisingly limited interest, found himself settling for one year, $5.5MM plus incentives. As MLBTR's Ben Nicholson-Smith noted last week, Guerrero made the Rangers look quite the clever shoppers, but the 35-year-old slugger told Hector Gomez at the Dominican paper Listin Diario (link in Spanish) yesterday that his resurgent year at the plate has once again raised his expectations for the offseason.

"I want a two-or three-year contract," Guerrero said, "but I'm not going to say the amount of money I want, just that I want a contract in line with the type of season I had." The first half of that season saw Guerrero looking like the beast of old, putting up a .319/.364/.554 line, and even after his .278/.322/.426 second half, he joins Jim Thome at the head of the free agent DH class this offseason. Guerrero told Gomez his primary remaining goal in baseball is to hit the 64 home runs he needs to reach 500, which would be feasible over a three-year deal. However, a glance at this year's free agents reveals all the same names that Guerrero was up against last winter, showing how rare multi-year deals have become at the position.

Friedman Talks Best-Case Scenario For Tampa Bay

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The Rays have proven that small market teams can win in the American League East. It just takes a lot of talent, careful timing and some good fortune. Tampa Bay faces payroll cuts and the likely free agent departures of Carl Crawford, Carlos Pena and Rafael Soriano this offseason, so president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman knows it's too early to say exactly what will happen this winter. But a few months from now when Friedman looks back at the offseason, he knows precisely what he would like to see.

"That we were able to add a meaningful number of bullpen arms," Friedman told MLBTR. "Some with guaranteed deals, some on Spring Training invites and just have the options in house for us to pick and fill out a bullpen. Also to add a bat or two to the mix that helps balance us out offensively and ideally have an extended term of control beyond just 2011 [for the hitter] in an ideal world. Ideally. You asked for ideally. It may not play out that way; we may get a guy on a one-year deal and that's fine."

The Rays bullpen will look considerably different in 2011, since Soriano, Randy Choate, Grant Balfour and Dan Wheeler are all free agents.  How does the team address a bullpen that's completely in flux?

"It's a good question," Friedman said. "We don't really know the answer yet in that we have a number of trade targets that we're focused on, we have a number of major league free agents, we have a number of six year [minor league] free agents and [from] some combination of all three of those pools of players, we're going to have to come out of it with four or five bullpen guys that hopefully offer a diversified look and allow us to replicate some of the success we've had recently in the bullpen."

Building a 'pen in the AL East is tough, but the Rays will look for relievers with above average pitches and hope for good luck. They won't necessarily wait around to address the 'pen, but like the Padres, they will probably add relievers later on in the offseason.

Reds Prioritizing Leadoff Hitter, Bench Help

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The Reds won their division for the first time since 1995 this season, and did so thanks to an offense that led the NL in runs (790), batting average (.272), slugging percentage (.436), and OPS (.774). They did all that despite a collection of leadoff hitters that reached base just 30.6% of the time, third worst in baseball. Unsurprisingly, GM Walt Jocketty told MLB.com's Marl Sheldon that finding someone to bat atop the lineup is one of their offseason priorities. 

"We've been talking to clubs and looking for a potential leadoff hitter, and maybe someone to improve our bench," said Jocketty. "There's not a great deal to do, but we're talking a lot. Generally, we talk to clubs before we come down and follow up here with discussions. We, hopefully, finish what we start [here] at the Winter Meetings. I don't know if we'll find a [leadoff hitter] or not."

Brandon Phillips settled in as the team's leadoff hitter in late June but didn't improve the situation; he hit just .247/.302/.387 from that point on. Ideally the team would employ his power lower in the lineup anyway. Orlando Cabrera also spent time hitting leadoff, but he produced just a .225/.268/.297 batting line from the top spot.  Last week, MLBTR's Tim Dierkes predicted the Reds would fill their leadoff need by signing free agent Scott Podsednik.

The team just re-signed catcher Ramon Hernandez to a one-year, $3MM contract, a deal that is looking good in the wake of John Buck's near-agreement with Florida.  Earlier tonight we learned that Jocketty will get in touch will Miguel Cairo, who hit .290/.353/.410 in a reserve role last season. That won't solve Cincinnati's need for a table-setter, but should help shore up the bench.

Chiba Lotte Marines To Post Tsuyoshi Nishioka

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TUESDAY, 7:55pm: NPB Tracker's Patrick Newman tweets that we should know the high bidder by the 22nd or 23rd.

MONDAY, 8:26pm: The Chiba Lotte Marines are set to announce that they will post infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka within the hour, reports FoxSports.com's Ken Rosenthal and Yahoo! Sports' Jeff Passan (Twitter links). Rosenthal notes that Nishioka will be represented by the Beverly Hills Sports Council while Passan speculates that the bidding could approach $15-20MM in a thin shortstop market.

Both the Giants and Dodgers have expressed interest in the 26-year-old switch-hitter, who hit .346 with 22 steals in 2010. ESPN's Keith Law (Insider req'd) described Nishioka as "valuable as an everyday guy on a second-division club," though he mentions that he struggles with good fastballs and doesn't offer much in the power department. NPB Tracker's Patrick Newman offered up his thoughts at FanGraphs recently, saying he sees Nishioka as a Ryan Theriot/Chone Figgins type.

White Sox Meet With Dunn’s Agent

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While many expect the Cubs to pursue Adam Dunn this offseason, it was their neighbors to the south that met with Dunn's agent recently according to ESPN Chicago's Bruce Levine. White Sox GM Kenny Williams had preliminary discussions with Dunn's people to gauge what the free agent first baseman is seeking in terms of a contract. One GM said that three years and $40MM would be the starting point for discussions.

"Anytime you spend time opening up dialogue and building on relationships, it can't help but to forge a deal at some time," said Williams. "Whether that helps this year or not remains to be seen."

"We are in the process right now of determining whether or not adding to the current mix we have would be the most prudent thing to do and gives us the best chance to win a championship or turning some of our players into young, impact guys," he added. "What we don't want to do is we don't want to be in the middle."

The Nationals had a three-year contract offer on the table for the last three months, so it makes sense that three years would be a starting point if he turned that down. Dunn, 31, hit .260/.356/.536 with 38 homers this season, and in terms of OPS it was his least productive season since 2006. I broke down his free agent stock just a few days ago.

Hoyer Talks San Diego Outfielders, Relievers

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Last year this time, Jed Hoyer was two weeks into his tenure as Padres GM. Now, he's attending the Orlando GM Meetings with a better sense of his club and a surplus of outfielders. He told MLBTR that he likes having outfield depth, but Cameron Maybin, Ryan Ludwick, Kyle Blanks, Will Venable, Scott Hairston, Chris Denorfia, Aaron Cunningham and Tony Gwynn won't all end up on next season's Opening Day roster and Hoyer did acknowledge that a trade is possible.

"Whenever you have surplus, if a team asks about a guy, you're always going to be willing to listen," Hoyer said.

The Padres like Venable in right and Maybin in center. Tony Gwynn's 2011 role has been unclear since the Marlins sent Maybin to San Diego. He is a non-tender candidate (like Ludwick, Hairston and Denorfia) but Hoyer says Gwynn could be covering even more ground than usual at Petco Park next year.

"He's a guy we can use in all three outfield spots and going forward that's probably how we think of him," Hoyer said.

The Maybin trade left the Padres short on relievers, but don't expect immediate additions to the San Diego 'pen. The Padres are likely to replace the recently-traded Ryan Webb and Edward Mujica with other relievers later in the winter. As expected, Hoyer says the Padres will do a lot of their "damage" late in the offseason.

Sosnick On Nolasco & Bruce

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Agent Matt Sosnick has two clients in their arbitration years, but right now extension talks for Ricky Nolasco of the Marlins and Jay Bruce of the Reds aren't far beyond the infancy stages. Here's what Sosnick told Clark Spencer of The Miami Herald regarding a possible deal for Nolasco…

"I would say certainly nothing's going to happen soon," said the agent. "But I would be surprised if something didn't end up happening. We have had some conversations and I think we've made some progress."

Nolasco earned $3.8MM in his second (of four as a Super Two) year of arbitration, but back in September we heard that "a significant gulf" existed between the two sides during negotiations. More recently the club indicated that signing Dan Uggla long-term was their first priority, but after today's trade Nolasco presumably moved up on the list. The 27-year-old righty (28 next month) pitched to a 4.51 ERA with 8.4 K/9 and 1.4 BB/9 in 157 2/3 innings this season.

As for Bruce, here's what MLB.com's Mark Sheldon passes along…

"If Jay can get compensated fairly over his arbitration years and into his free agency years, we're open to it," Sosnick said. "If it makes financial sense, we'll look at it. There is no hesitation on Jay's part to stay in Cincinnati for as long as possible. He loves it there."

Bruce is due a significant raise as he enters his first year of arbitration (also a Super Two), and he's expressed interest a long-term deal in the past. Perhaps Nick Markakis' six-year, $66MM deal can be used as framework. Bruce had a monster season at age 23, hitting .281/.353/.493 with 25 homers.

Huntington On Rotation, Doumit, McCutchen

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Pittsburgh GM Neal Huntington describes the market for available starters as "thin," but says the Pirates "need" to upgrade their rotation. Huntington told MLBTR that he is mindful of pitching prospects such as Rudy Owens, Jeff Locke, Bryan Morris, Jameson Taillon, Stetson Allie and Luis Heredia who are rising through the Pirates system. But they won't prevent him from offering multi-year deals to free agents.

"We're not opposed to multi-year deals for the right player," Huntington said. "But what we can't do is vastly overpay in terms of years and/or dollars just to get somebody … to make ourselves feel better in November. We've got to pay players for what they're going to do, not what they've done."

The Pirates don't have a distinct preference for left-handers or right-handers. Ideally, they'd get a pitcher who can strike people out, but as Huntington points out, every other team wants just that. Recent reports suggest the Pirates are interested in former Rockies lefties Jeff Francis and Jorge de la Rosa. 

Former Rockies manager Clint Hurdle, now the Pirates' skipper, has not yet discussed Ryan Doumit's 2011 role with Huntington in detail. At this point, Huntington says the Pirates can see him filling a number of roles in 2011.

"We've got the ability to have him catch some; he can be the complement to Chris Snyder; he's got the ability with some Spring Training work to maybe go play some at first and then also the opportunity to go play out in right field. So he's got some versatility," Huntington said.

Huntington declined to comment specifically on Andrew McCutchen, but he acknowledged that the Pirates generally have interest in giving top players security with extensions that cover some free agent seasons. 

Diamondbacks Listening On Justin Upton

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6:09pm: Marc Carig of The Star-Ledger says that like the Red Sox, the Yankees were just doing their due diligence when they called about Upton.

3:33pm: The Yankees talked to the Diamondbacks about Upton, tweets Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe.

12:56pm: The Red Sox expressed interest in Upton, report Jon Paul Morosi and Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports.  However, one source tells the FOX writers the talks are "not far advanced," while WEEI's Rob Bradford heard the rumor has "no legs."  Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe concurs, calling the discussions "more due diligence than actual trade talk" (Twitter link).

10:59am: You may have missed it yesterday, but USA Today's Bob Nightengale listed Diamondbacks right fielder Justin Upton as one of the big names GMs say are already "under discussion."  GM Kevin Towers elaborated:

"I'm open to listening on anybody.  We got more hits on Upton and [Stephen] Drew. They're difficult to move, but sometimes to make your club better, you have to move good players. You never know when a deal might present itself."

This could be little more than a GM taking the common stance that no player is untouchable.  Today Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports tweeted that while the D'Backs are listening on Upton, the return would have to be "big."  He notes that they're much less inclined to move Drew – they'd have to be "blown away," given the lack of alternatives at shortstop.

Upton, still only 23, regressed a bit in the first year of his six-year, $51.25MM contract.  He hit .273/.356/.442 in 571 plate appearances, though a shoulder strain may have been partially responsible.  Though he slipped in all three categories, his walk rate was actually higher than it was in '09.  Since Upton would not have been arbitration eligible until now, almost all of his contract will be paid out over 2011-15. 

Trading Upton would be very difficult from a public relations standpoint unless the D'Backs receive a comparable young star in return.  It's difficult to picture Upton terrorizing the D'Backs over the next five years as a member of the Rockies, Dodgers, Padres, or Giants, but any club could afford Upton financially.  In the opinion of Rosenthal's colleague Jon Paul Morosi, the Braves would be at the front of the line for Upton and they have the young arms to pull off a deal (Twitter link).

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