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Joel Sherman of the New York Post runs down some trade candidates for this spring.  His list is fairly comprehensive.  A quick rundown:

Starters

Carl Pavano, Jon Lieber, Mark Hendrickson, Brad Penny, Mike Maroth, Dan Haren

Relievers

Akinori Otsuka, Armando Benitez, Chad Cordero, Scott Linebrink

First Basemen

Todd Helton

Outfielders

Jacque Jones, Rocco Baldelli, Ryan Church, Adam Dunn, Chone Figgins, Jay Gibbons, Ryan Langerhans, Brady Clark, Geoff Jenkins, Kevin Mench, Aaron Rowand, Ichiro Suzuki

Excellent list.  How we expand it to summertime to consider some more trade candidates?  I have a hunch Kenny Williams will do his fair share of wheeling and dealing.  It would make sense to cash in Mark Buehrle for something good, as he seems unlikely to stay.  Jermaine Dye will be tougher to part with, but he too is an impending free agent.  Joe Crede will reach free agency after ’08, so there’s less urgency to send him packing.

As far as the whole trading off impending free agents idea, here are some possibilities: Mike Lowell, Michael Barrett, Jason LaRue, Ivan Rodriguez, Eric Byrnes, Torii Hunter, Andruw Jones, Mike Sweeney, Byung-Hyun Kim, and Jake Westbrook.  Jones and Rodriguez have full no-trade clauses, however.  Sweeney and Hunter have partials. 

Anyone being pushed by a stud prospect?  Orlando Cabrera and Scott Hatteberg may feel the pressure, in addition to the aforementioned Crede and Jacque Jones.  Adam Miller could force his way into the Cleveland rotation, which could result in a trade of Westbrook, Paul Byrd, or Cliff Lee.

When should we expect some deals?  Nothing major happened in February of 2006.  The biggest deal of March ’06 was probably Bronson Arroyo for Wily Mo Pena.  In April of last year, we saw deals for Brandon Phillips and David Dellucci.  All in all, expect just a handful a trades until we hit summertime.

Let’s round up some of the more minor pieces of news that didn’t quite seem to merit their own posts (not that the Victor Zambrano signing was huge or anything).

Scott Boras is a genius.  You just can’t deny it.  That he somehow got Jeff Weaver the same deal he got in the previous offseason after his terrible 2006 was masterful.  Looks like this one will leave a bad taste in the Cards’ mouth for Boras clients.

The Bonds clause…it’s more for show than anything.  He’ll still get his money if indicted.  He may have all the money in the world, but there’s one thing he can’t buy.  A dinosaur.

The White Sox signed Junior Spivey yesterday for a possible backup infield job.  Spivey was really, really bad in Triple A last year.

As reported yesterday, Tom Glavine is 50/50 for 2008.  He has a $9MM player option for ’08 with a $3MM buyout attached.  It becomes guaranteed with 160 innings pitched in 2007, and he’ll get an additional million bucks in ’08 for every ten innings pitched beyond 160 in 2007.  He can decline the option if it becomes guaranteed, and he has a complete no-trade clause. 

SethSpeaks.net recently interviewed the best scouting director in baseball. Check it out.

Lastly, RotoAuthority has One Player To Avoid for fantasy baseball.  Who is the one player you’d avoid?

There are a host of smaller stories floating around, so I will mention them in one post.

Trading Todd Helton seems to be a touchy subject in Denver.  But I don’t think that since Dan O’Dowd made this bed, he has to lie in it.  Yes, the insane contract was his mistake, but if he can do something to improve the team’s outlook and give them the payroll flexibility to compete for the rest of the decade, he has to do it.  Baseball is a business, even if Helton is well-liked and wants to stay in Colorado.  Seems that he might veto any trade though.

Didn’t realize Shawn Chacon’s contract can be bought out for less than a million in spring training.  I think the Pirates should do this and bring in a decent starter.  Maybe not Tony Armas Jr., but Jon Lieber would be cool if the Phils ate some salary.  If the Bucs can get a little defense going on they could almost contend in the NL Central.  They shouldn’t waste 100 innings on Chacon.

Paul Lo Duca is a free agent after ’07 and wants to talk contract extension. The Mets seem a little reluctant.

Would it make sense to trade Adam Dunn for Brad Penny?

How cool would it be to have the Marlins’ manager on your jury?  AND John Schuerholz in the jury pool for the same case?

Buster Olney reports that the Phils and Padres are kicking around an Aaron Rowand trade.  San Diego would send a reliever for him.

RotoAuthority projects Scott Kazmir for ’07.

This might be a little harder to find than an Excel expert, but it’s worth a shot.  I need to integrate Google Adwords Conversion Tracking with Google Checkout, which is much more difficult than it should be.  Similarly I need to set up Yahoo Conversion Tracking with Checkout.

What’s more, I want to set up Google Analytics to analyze conversions from all sources.

If that was all Greek to you, no worries.  But if that made perfect sense to you and you do this stuff in your sleep, drop me a line at mlbtraderumors@gmail.com.  I’ll pay a flat fee for the project.  Thanks.

Head over to Bucco Blog to read Jake’s interview with the man himself, Bill James.  Interestingly, James calls Freddy Sanchez a "legitimate .330 hitter."

Am I allowed to recommend music here?  I think I am.  This is a good listen.

I’ve got some Nick Markakis projections over at RotoAuthority.  Don’t forget to pick up a copy of my fantasy guide for only $9.99.

Fire Joe Morgan skewers a recent Bill Conlin column.

Sam Mellinger followed Billy Butler around for a day, and it was kind of interesting.

Just received my copy of Graphical Player 2007, and I couldn’t put it down.  It’s a must-have if you have any kind of interest in interpreting baseball stats, and a worthy component of any fantasy baseball arsenal.  Flipping to a random page in this thing might be daunting at first, but the player graphs are pretty straightforward.  It’s cool to watch a player’s midseason progression, especially the young guys.  You’ll see when a pitcher started to trim his walk rate or get more groundballs.  Or when Nick Markakis started cutting down on strikeouts.  Plus the player comments are priceless and often hilarious.  Well worth your $15.  Did I mention that friends of MLBTradeRumors Jeff Sackmann and Craig Brown contributed?

While I am hawking things, I’d like to invite you once again to check out my 2007 player projections.  It’s got numbers, player comments, fantasy baseball tools, and frequent free updates for only $9.99.  

Let’s see what we’ve got today.

The Padres made David Wells a one-year offer, and would like an answer by week’s end.  They’ve also got an offer out to Brian Lawrence.  Should they snag both, that would be some nice depth.

Speaking of Lawrence, the Mariners might be the favorite for his services.  Clever Bill Bavasi…building the world’s most groundballingest pitching staff.  Will it work?  Now to acquire Jake Westbrook somehow. 

The Pirates and Rockies are still involved on Lawrence as well.  The Rox might go after Ramon Ortiz or Bruce Chen if Lawrence doesn’t sign with them.  Colorado would also like to sign Rudy Seanez for the pen.

The Rockies lost Chin-Hui Tsao to the Dodgers.  The once highly regarded Tsao is trying to come back from a torn labrum.

The Giants might consider bailing on Barry Bonds.  They’d have to cook up a reason aside from his amphetamine test.  Buster Olney thinks his knees would be a sufficient excuse, and that the Barry Zito signing and preseason ticket sales free the Giants from a reliance on Bonds.

I’d write about the Nats signing Tony Womack, but c’mon now.  Tony Womack?

Final results of my "expert" fantasy baseball mock draft last night can be found here.  How’d I do? I can’t believe I missed out on Rich Hill.

Joe Hamrahi sat down recently with Twins GM Terry Ryan and snagged an interview for his website, Baseball Digest Daily.  Check it out.

Drays Bay speaks to Rays.com beat writer Bill Chastain.

The Rangers will try defensive whiz Joaquin Arias as a center fielder.

Buster Olney mentions that the A’s and Giants may have interest in free agent reliever Dustin Hermanson.  Here’s a list of the remaining free agent relievers.

The bad boys of…San Diego?

Over at Baseball Prospectus, Nate Silver has a bonus ’07 projection for Sammy Sosa as a Ranger.  Outlook: not so good.

Richard Justice’s educated guess is that Morgan Ensberg will be traded for pitching. While a nasty shoulder bruise sapped his power in ’06, Ensberg still had a Bondsian 20% walk rate.

Also, check out my 2007 projections and fantasy baseball tool, on sale here for $9.99.  At the least you should download and play around with the sample – it contains all projections for the Cubs, White Sox, and Cards.

Here’s what’s been going on around baseball recently.

According to his agent, Antonio Alfonseca signed with the Phils for one year and up to $1.1MM. Elbow woes derailed his 2006 with Texas, but he’s lost some weight and is ready to go.  He still dominates the league in one category.  Philly is a good place to slip into some save opps.

The Pirates have upped their offer to Brian Lawrence.  It’s apparently a Major League deal.  Dejan Kovacevic still thinks the Rockies are the favorite. Colorado is quietly stockpiling useful pitchers.

The Devil Rays could bring back Victor Zambrano, an amusing idea.  Zambrano, 31, hopes to be ready in April following TJ and a flexor muscle tear.

I think I reported the near signing but not the signing – the Mets now have Jorge Sosa.  He’ll turn 29 next spring and at least made some progress with his control in ’06. 

I’ll call them third tier options, because these pitchers probably don’t belong in the Weaver/Ohka class.  The Mets aren’t likely to sign either of those two, so Ken Rosenthal says they’re looking at Jorge Sosa, Ramon Ortiz, and Aaron Sele.  Sosa at least has a decent arm, so he might be the best of the trio.  According to the New York Post, Sosa is close to signing with the Mets.

Rosenthal also mentions that the Padres have some other options aside from David Wells.  They could snag Brian Lawrence, Chan Ho Park, or Jeff Weaver instead.  They’ve also got some interest in trading for Geoff Jenkins to play left.

Some center field options for the Fish include David Murphy, Franklin Gutierrez, B.J. Upton, and Elijah Dukes.  Fantasy leaguers hope it’s Upton.