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Scott Miller over at CBS Sportsline provides a whole lot of hot stove buzz in his latest entry.  Some highlights:

The Cards have offers out to Jeff Weaver and Jeff Suppan. 

The Dodgers have come to the Tigers asking for Craig Monroe.  An odd target, I would say.

The White Sox could hold onto their starters.  Meanwhile, Nate Silver analyzed Kenny’s position of strength at BP.

The Dodgers and Mariners are talking to Luis Gonzalez’s agent.  Gonzo prefers the Dodgers because of location.  Seattle signing him would probably be contingent on a Richie Sexson trade.  The Ms are also listening to offers for Adrian Beltre.

The Reds are asking about Scott Linebrink, and the Pads would want Ryan Freel in return.  Adam Dunn’s name has been bandied about as well.

I am in debt to RotoWorld, a site that is on top of the news like no other.

Okay, so it’s not a rumor, and won’t have a monumental affect on your team necessarily, but this needs to be reported. MLB will have a "Civil Rights Game" on March 31st in an effort to continue honoring the African-American community and its tremendous impact on baseball. The Cards and Indians will play an exhibition game at AutoZone Park in Memphis, the city where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1963.

"This game is designed to commemorate the civil rights movement, one of the most critical and important eras of our social history," MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said. "I am proud of the role that Major League Baseball played in the movement, beginning with Jackie Robinson’s entry into the big leagues on April 15, 1947, and very pleased that we have this opportunity to honor the Movement and those who made it happen."

Let me take this opportunity to congratulate baseball on another step in the right PR direction. The induction of Negro League players this past summer was long overdue, but it happened nevertheless. Then MLB and the MLBPA agreed on a new CBA nearly 2 months before the current one expired. Tremendous. Now they are continuing to change their image in the wake of the Steroid Era. Kudos to Bud Selig for being commissioner and obviously having a huge say in all of these events.

The game will be televised nationally on ESPN, and Spike Lee will make a documentary for the game’s festivites.

Tickets for the game will go on sale Dec. 5, and will be available at Indians.com, stlcardinals.com and memphisredbirds.com. Tickets will also be available on MLB.com and at the AutoZone Park box office beginning Dec. 6. If you are able to go, it should be an amazing experience.

Quotes and this story came from an article on mlb.com by Barry M. Bloom

by Chris Hurst

Unfortunately, I am not.  Good ol’ Chicago for me.  But I am happy to link to any interesting reports from Orlando if you are in attendance.  Drop me a line and I’ll link to your blog or article to help pass along any good info.

And if you’re not there, why the hell not?  What, you have a job?  Please.

ESPN’s winter meetings article is being constantly updated with new info. Highlights:

Joe Borowski could sign with the Tribe if his medical reports check out.  Confirmed at MLB.com.

The Angels may have some interest in Mike Piazza.

The Cubs are close on Ted Lilly and Jacque Jones seems plenty available.

The Reds will likely snag David Weathers for two more seasons.

Baseball beat writers blogging is all the rage these days, and I love it.  It’s great that these guys can post news the second they get it without editors and that most of them engage in lively conversation with fans in the comments.

I thought it would be cool to compile a list here of all the newspaper columnist blogs that are updated regularly.  Here are a few; I will update the post with more as we come up with them.

On The Yankees Beat – by Jim Baumbach of Newsday

The LoHud Yankees Blog – by Peter Abraham of the Lower Hudson Journal News

Cleveland Plain Dealer Blog – by Paul Hoynes

Extra Bases Red Sox Blog – by various Boston Globe writers

Surfing the Mets – by Adam Rubin of the New York Daily News

Roch Around The Clock – by Roch Kubatko of the Baltimore Sun

BravesBlog – by David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mariners Weblog – by John Hickey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The Heater (Devil Rays) – by Marc Topkin of St. Petersburg Times

Bird Land – by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Here’s some commentary on deals and signings I missed while I was off in Cancun.

– Yanks win Kei Igawa bid for about $26MM.  Ugh.  This is ugly.  Why are the Yankees so enamored of this guy?  Just because he’s a fresh face?  I’m going to reprint Keith Law’s scouting report.  But I’ve made one minor substitution, see if you can find it.

"John Smith, who is not from Japan, is primarily a two-pitch pitcher, with a below-average fastball in the 84-88 mph range with a little run, and a plus 74-79 mph curveball with a late two-plane break."

Not that I’m any huge fan of Adam Eaton, but how is talking to Igawa worth more than three years of Eaton?  Oh well, it’s only money.

– Orioles build expensive bullpen.  People said the Cubs were dumb for spending most of their money last winter on Scott Eyre and Bob Howry.  Well who’s laughing now?  Eyre and Howry, mostly…both guys pitched as well as anyone could’ve hoped and the Cubs were still awful.  I keep saying this – one can draw a lot of similarities between the buffoonery of the Orioles and Cubs this decade.  This connection is almost as brilliant as the time I wrote a college paper about the similarities between 12 Monkeys and Terminator.  Two of my top five movies, by the way.

– Cards sign Adam Kennedy and Kip Wells.   Ah, there’s something I like.  Nice work Walt!  Kennedy throws down some league average hitting and quality glovework at a decent price.  Love the Wells signing even more – four mil for one year?  He must’ve wanted to pitch in St. Louis because someone should’ve topped that.  Reading this scouting report, Wells sounds like the ideal Dave Duncan fixer upper. 

– Dodgers sign Randy Wolf (hometown discount).  And we thought the Padres had cornered the hometown discount market.  Wolf at one year guaranteed is a steal and could be the best Tier 2 free agent starter from this winter’s crop.

– Indians sign Dellucci.  You really can’t go wrong on this signing.  Platoons are the new OBP.

– Phils sign Eaton.  I read this and said aloud, "Eh."  My wife looked at me funny for grunting at the computer.  If I were a Phillies fan, I’d be kind of annoyed by this signing.  It seems as if Pat Gillick couldn’t find a way to spend the money he had earmarked for a big bat so he went with Eaton and Wes Helms.  This is not exciting.

– Davis, Eveland, Krynzel to Arizona; Estrada, Vargas, Aquino to Milwaukee.  I have to echo what Jeff said – advantage Brewers.  Davis was getting pricey and less effective and surely planned to leave via free agency.  Vargas is a comparable, cheaper guy.  I like a rotation of Sheets, Capuano, Bush, Vargas, and Gallardo next summer. 

– Astros sign Carlos Lee, Woody Williams.  No worries about the Williams signing.  But that is a large chunk of change and years for C-Lee.  By most accounts Lee’s defense is average on a good day, so almost all of the money is for his bat.  That’s not a $16.6MM bat.  Not to defend the Soriano signing, but Sori should age better and could play a premium defensive position.

– Dodgers sign Juan Pierre.  It’s hard to find an original way to bash this signing.  Others have bashed it already in more humorous ways. 

– Angels sign Gary Matthews Jr.  Most analysts hate this.  Fortunately I am just some guy and not an official analyst, so I can disagree.  I don’t hate it.  For this deal to be a true stinker, I’d have to be convinced that Matthews is not a good defensive CF.  The panel of ten experts from Bill James’s Handbook this year ranked him fourth in the game for defense at the position.  The bar isn’t too high to be an above average offensive CF.  Sum it up, and I see a player who’s above average in both aspects of the game.  Would you rather have a dinosaur like Dave Roberts or Kenny Lofton chasing flies out there?  The Angels can afford to overpay in terms of years.

– Rangers sign Catalanotto.  Sure, three years is a lot for a platoon guy.  But Cat’s affordable and this should work out just fine.           

I just updated the list of free agent starting pitchers, which can be found at this link.  I will keep this and the other free agent position links found on the sidebar up to date as players sign this winter.  Think of it as my own primitive free agent tracker.

Hi everyone.  I’m Tim, the owner of this site.  Remember me?  I’m back from my honeymoon, which was phenomenal.  Just a perfect week in Mexico.  The extent of my baseball monitoring during that time:

– Went on Internet for 15 minutes.  Saw that Juan Pierre signed a five year contract.  Winced and made my way back to the beach.

– Paid three bucks for a day late special "Cancun edition" of the Miami Herald.  Learned that the Astros signed Carlos Lee at an average of $16.6MM annually.  Winced and made my way back to the beach.

Good times.  I’ll run through the other hot stove I missed in another post, for those interested.

Many, many thanks and a big round of applause to the five guys who helped me out while I was gone.  It was fun reading through the November archive when I got home today to see all these different voices.  Jeff, Jake, Koch, and Mark kept us updated on all the latest news, supplied cutting edge analysis, threw in some humor, and introduced us to all sorts of interesting baseball links.  That’s all you could ask for.  Thanks guys.  Please visit their websites today and bookmark them.  We haven’t seen the end of guest posts at MLBTradeRumors – this was cool.

Jeff Sackmann owns Brew Crew Ball and Minor League Splits.

Jake owns Bucco Blog.

Koch owns CubDumb.

Mark Healey owns Gotham Baseball.

And one more shoutout to Adam Howe, who writes for GameFour.  Adam stepped in to keep my fantasy baseball blog, RotoAuthority, rolling.

Cubs people tell me the mysteriously lingering "interim" tag on Cubs President John McDonough will be dropped after the New Year.  Apparently, that’s when Andy MacPhail’s "handshake deal" expires. 

No worries, Cub fans. McDonough will be keeping the job for good (and possibly shelling out more dough).

Also, here is the most recent fantasy scouting report on Juan Pierre, as well as some other things.

–Koch at CubDumb

A source has indicated the Phillies have come to a tentative agreement with Carlos Lee.  This is all I know.