Posts by Andrew Johnson at FanHouse

When we last heard from home run king Barry Bonds, he was telling a annoying pesky reporter from TMZ that he wasn't retired outside a of Los Angeles restaurant.

Well Bonds hasn't let go of his desire to play again, according to John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle, but there's now a complicating factor -- the slugger recently had surgery on his hip. He underwent the procedure so that he'd be able to play in 2009, but it could negatively affect his chances to actually make a timely comeback.

A source familiar with the operation said it was conducted by Dr. Arthur Ting and that Bonds won't be 100 percent before spring training but that he could be recovered by Opening Day.

Barry Bonds is not retired in the same way that I'm not retired. We'll both put on a uniform for any team that wants to pay us, but no one's actually calling. To be clear, I think Bonds got a raw deal last year. He should have gotten a chance to keep playing somewhere. But he's another year older. He actually is going to go on trial this March. And now you can add a serious health ailment to the list of concerns that come with offering him a contract.

Bonds is nothing, if not defiant until the very end, but even for him, it's probably time to put to bed the idea of him ever donning a major league uniform again.

It's no secret that the Giants need offensive help. They've finished 15th in the National League in scoring two years running. It's also become abundantly clear that they're gearing up for a run at the NL West crown in 2009, having signed Randy Johnson, Edgar Renteria, Jeremy Affeldt and Bobby Howry this offseason.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise then, that San Francisco is making a run at the biggest and best bat still available.

The Giants, the NL West's most active team this winter, are quietly making an aggressive play for free agent Manny Ramirez, according to a major-league source.

Acquiring Ramirez would come with a number of headaches -- from simply having the mercurial slugger on their roster to likely having to trade one of their incumbent outfielders (Randy Winn, Aaron Rowand, Dave Roberts). But all in all, he'd probably be worth it for a team that isn't all that far from seriously contending. They play in a soft division where 85 wins could easily equal a playoff berth.

That's especially true when you consider three factors: (1) the market for Ramirez is severely depressed because of the number of all-hit, no-field corner bats on the market, (2) signing him would simultaneously improve the Giants' offense and weaken the rival Dodgers and (3) it would save GM Brian Sabean from having to engineer a complex trade for a bat that would cost him one of his top young pitchers like Jonathan Sanchez.

Sign Manny? Sure, why not? It's not like folks in San Francisco aren't used to having a sometimes-surly, Hall of Fame slugger prowling around in left field after all.

In a year where the vast majority of free agents will be unsigned on New Year's Day, what's two more? According to Enrique Rojas of ESPNdeportes.com, pitcher Yadel Marti and outfielder Yasser Gomez have defected from the communist island nation.

Both played for the top team in Cuba, Industriales, but were thrown off the club recently for an earlier attempt to leave the country and are now in an undisclosed location, planning their route to the Dominican Republic.

A talent scout who has seen Marti and Gomez playing at international events told ESPNdeportes.com that both are ready to play in the majors.

There is certainly reason to be skeptical of the talent coming out of Cuba. Are Marti and Gomez really 29 and 28, respectively, as they say? What kind of competition did they face in their homeland? How much can we really know about them from a small sample of international games?

On the flip side, what we do know about them is impressive. Marti didn't allow an earned run over 12 2/3 innings at the 2006 World Baseball Classic and Gomez is a former Rookie of the Year in Cuba. They certainly wouldn't be the first international stars from the island nation to succeed in the majors -- look no further than Alexei Ramirez, Jose Contreras and Livan Hernandez for a few recent examples.

From the Windup is FanHouse's extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

Season's Greetings. Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.

As baseball fans across the country gather to celebrate the holiday season with their loved ones, we here at MLB FanHouse have come up with a present we'd like to give to fans of every team -- even the ones who root for the Yankees, it turns out you folks don't have quite everything just yet.

On a day like Christmas, baseball season can seem an awfully long way off, especially here in the Northeast, where the snow banks are piled four and five feet high. In reality, pitchers and catchers can report to Spring Training in a mere 52 days.

Enjoy the hypothetical gifts for now; it won't be very long before we can all unwrap a very tangible one -- a brand spanking new baseball season.

It is only a surprise that the Yankees wound up with Mark Teixeira in the end when viewed through the prism of the last few weeks. Unlike with CC Sabathia, New York general manager Brian Cashman lurked quietly in the weeds as the Angels, Nationals, Orioles and Red Sox bid for the first baseman.

Had you taken a straw poll of baseball insiders at the outset of the offseason, the Yankees very well may have been the favorites to land him.

So while the baseball operations people in Anaheim, Baltimore, Boston and Washington might be feeling stunned today, they can't be all that surprised that Teixeira is being fitted for pinstripes.

Things change quickly in baseball and now the hard-working folks who lost out on Teixeira will have to shift their focus to Plan B, whatever that may be. Before running down what each team will do now, let's state the obvious. Now is not the time to panic for any of these clubs.

Teixeira was a singular force in this free-agent class. There are certainly plenty of bats available that can roughly replicate his offensive production, but there is no complete package like him on the market -- splurging for one of the pretenders out there (Adam Dunn, Pat Burrell, even Manny Ramirez) won't solve the problem that losing out on Tex created.

Thankfully for bloggers and baseball fans alike, the Mark Teixeira sweepstakes will likely draw to close in the next few days, if not the next few hours.

The Red Sox say they will not be "a factor" in the bidding, but they probably will be. The Angels are out of the running, and seem much more serious about it than Boston. The Yankees are lurking, but appear unwilling to get involved unless Teixeira's demands drop considerably, and the Orioles are lagging behind everyone else, hoping against hope that Tex will sign at a huge discount just to play in his hometown.

All of which brings us to the Nationals, who, despite finishing with the worst record in baseball this year, remain a factor. Considering the massive rebuilding project they're facing, that's no small achievement, and it's enough to make pitcher Collin Balester awfully optimistic about the state of baseball in the nation's capital.

Every month, Washington pitcher Collin Balester appears on a satellite radio show (MLB Home Plate, Sirius 210 and XM 175). It's called "Minors & Majors with Grant Paulsen." When Paulsen asked Balester this week about his feelings if the Nationals sign Mark Teixeira, here's what Balester said...

"If that happens it's going to be a dream come true. That guy is a great player and if he comes to the nation's capital, watch out, we're going to the World Series and we are winning it all. I'm calling it right now. We're playing four games in the World Series, sweep, see ya!"

Just as quickly as the Red Sox appeared on the verge of a blockbuster deal for Mark Teixeira, owner John Henry, president Larry Lucchino and general manager Theo Epstein boarded a plane in Dallas and returned home with no deal in hand.

In fact, all they seem to have is the complete opposite, an indication from Teixeira and Boras that an agreement will never be reached.

"We are not going to be a factor," said Henry in an e-mail Thursday night.

If we take that statement at its face value, then Boston has been outbid for Teixeira. That's certainly a possibility, even considering the Red Sox's rumored eight-year, $184 million offer to the first baseman. He's a special player. The Yankees and Angels have the resources to best the Sox. The Nationals seem so wildly intent on landing Teixeira that they too could have topped Boston as well.

But this could all be a negotiating ploy on the part of Henry and the Red Sox.

Just like that, the Red Sox appear to be in the homestretch of their quest to sign prized free-agent first baseman Mark Teixeira to a long-term deal.

Via the Boston Globe comes a report from a local Boston television station that Red Sox officials are in Texas at this writing and in face-to-face negotiations with Teixeira's agent Scott Boras.

According to [television reporter Mike] Lynch, who cited unnamed sources, the Red Sox were offering an eight-year, $184 million contract (average annual value -- $23 million) and are hopeful they can wrap up a deal tonight.

The Globe's Adam Kilgore has confirmed that Boras is in Dallas tonight. We are presently trying to confirm the rest of the information.

Boston has long been the rumored destination for Teixeira despite the lack of any concrete offer that had been leaked to the media. If true, that's a whopper of an offer, especially for the current Red Sox regime, which has, generally speaking, balked at handing out deals of that length or value.

If you recall, this isn't the first time this Red Sox ownership stride has taken a cross-country flight to seal a deal. Boston took similar steps to ink Daisuke Matsuzaka in the 2006 offseason and Curt Schilling in 2003. Usually, when the Sox take a long trip away from home in Hot Stove season, they wind up coming back with something pretty special.

Also of note: Depending on who you talk to, the terms of the deal may have already been agreed upon.

Free-agent first baseman Mark Teixeira is expected to make a decision on his new team in the very near future, potentially even in the next 24-to-48 hours. In the meantime, we're all stuck devouring the latest scraps from the rumor mill.

On Tuesday, I wrote that Teixeira should choose the Orioles. Now, according to ESPN's Buster Olney, Baltimore has essentially dropped out of the bidding, by refusing to upgrade its initial seven-year offer.

"The Orioles are out of it, unless Teixeira really, really wants to play there," said one source.

It's not all that surprising that the O's are falling behind in the chase for Teixeira. They can't offer him the chance to be on a winner, at least right away, they don't have the financial resources that the Red Sox, Angels or Yankees do and they aren't a Tom Hicks-esque wild card in the bidding like the Nationals appear to be.

On the flip side of things, the Red Sox appear to have moved to the front of the line for Teixeira's services. A general manager of one of the five teams involved in the bidding told Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe as much.

From the Windup is FanHouse's extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

Mark Teixeira, merely the best free agent left on the market, is set to choose a team before Christmas. It's probably fitting then that there are four calling birds (and maybe a fifth looming giant) in pursuit of his services.

Teixeira is the ideal Scott Boras client. First and foremost, he's a tremendous ballplayer, but he's also calm and collected with the press, a family man, and, most critically for Boras' purposes, seemingly completely willing to go to the highest bidder.

Let's assume for a second that Teixeira isn't a Boras-bot sent from the future to destroy humanity lighten up some billionaire owner's wallet. Let's assume that big Tex will consider a wide variety of factors as he makes the most important decision of his baseball-playing life.

Which team, then, should he sign on the dotted line with?