Quick Hits: Free Agency, Draft Bonus Pools

With 259K Twitter followers, MLB Trade Rumors ranks fourth on Sports Business Daily's MLB rankings, behind ESPN's Buster Olney, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports, and Peter Gammons of MLB Network.  Andrew Westney conducted an interesting roundtable on the topic of Twitter with Olney, Rosenthal and the also well-followed Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.  In the discussion, Rosenthal blames/credits MLBTR for his joining Twitter, and I do recall urging him to give in to the inevitable so that we wouldn't have to keep refreshing his blog.  On to today's links:

• "Free agency is neither dead nor dying; rather, it's just become a lot less interesting," writes Rob Neyer of Baseball Nation, with so many of the game's top players signed to extensions.  Neyer contends that trades are more interesting than free agent signings anyway, because they involve two teams rather than one.  But doesn't free agency involve many teams bidding on one player?
• "For the foreseeable future, I’d expect free agency to be the place you buy a short term fix rather than a long term superstar," suggests Dave Cameron of FanGraphs, who thinks the recent Red Sox offseason is what free agency is moving toward.  
• MLB's assigned draft bonus pools have risen 8.2% over last year, reports Jim Callis of Baseball America.  Callis has obtained the bonus pools by team, from the Astros at nearly $11.7MM to the Nationals at about $2.7MM.