To no one's surprise, Jason Bay has decided to see what the 29 other teams in the big leagues have to offer before deciding whether or not he wants to return to the Red Sox. Jon Heyman of SI.com reports that Bay turned down a four-year contract offer worth approximately $60 million just before free agency officially kicks off a minute past midnight on Friday morning.
It would have been quite a surprise if Bay had decided to skip the free agency process, something that Red Sox GM Theo Epstein admitted to Heyman.
"It's not a surprise that a player that's gone this far wants to see what's out there."
Bay, who hit 36 home runs and posted a 921 OPS in 2009, figures to draw a lot of interest on the open market. The Red Sox offer was decent, but the paucity of other strong bats on the free agent landscape would suggest that he could get either more years or more money once several bidders are in the mix.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.
At $149,373,987, the New York Mets had the National League's highest payroll in 2009. Their fourth place finish in the NL East, 23 games back in the standings, might suggest that the cash Omar Minaya dished out wasn't money well spent. A closer look reveals a team harassed all season by injuries and a group of hitters that could never find a long-term answer to produce runs.
In the outfield, Carlos Beltran had a potential All-Star season broken up, playing in only 81 games due to a knee injury. In fact, only Jeff Francoeur amassed more than 500 at-bats among Mets outfielders, and he was a mid-season import from the Atlanta Braves.
The infield wasn't spared either as mainstays Carlos Delgado and Jose Reyes had their seasons cut extremely short due to injuries. Even staff ace Johan Santana ended his season early with elbow issues.
The good news is that most of these players are expected to be healthy and ready to go for spring training.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.
The Cardinals increased their win total from 86 to 91 in 2009, and in so doing they won the National League Central going away. They had both the presumptive NL MVP (Albert Pujols) and two of the top candidates for the NL Cy Young (Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter) on their club.
Despite that very good season, there were promptly dumped out of the playoffs in three games by the Dodgers, and they suddenly find themselves facing an uncertain offseason with key free agents and the contract of a certain once-in-a-generation first baseman looming over everything. To say this offseason is important for the Cardinals would be an understatement.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.
When you're the Yankees, the only acceptable end to a season is one that ends with a dogpile on the pitcher's mound and a champagne-soaked locker room. The 2009 season had quite an acceptable ending, then, although it isn't one they'll be able to celebrate for too long.
The nature of expecting a championship every year is that the work toward building the next champion begins before Broadway is cleared of confetti. This year's decisions will revolve around a trio of aging stars from the title squad as well as figuring out how they'll use their leverage as baseball's richest team to improve themselves for run at a 28th title.
As always, the latter means that you'll be seeing a lot of Mad Lib headlines with "The Yankees are interested in _______," and, as always, just about any one of them could wind up being true.
CHICAGO -- On a day this week when the stock market had one of the encouraging spikes investors have enjoyed more frequently over the past few months, Kenny Williams let out a sarcastic cheer for what it meant to baseball.
"Let's go, let's party," he said. "We've got cash again."
Then, the White Sox general manager quickly returned to reality, at least the version of reality that he and his colleagues have been describing this week at the GM Meetings.
"I don't think it works that way," he said. "We might need to see six months of recovery before we buy into that. We need an advertiser or a sponsor or two to come back to us."
The Red Sox have a storied history of long-term, very popular left fielders patrolling the grounds in front of the Green Monster at Fenway Park.
Ted Williams spent 16 years in left field for Boston, Carl Yastrzemski lasted 11 and Jim Rice played 12 years. If you add the eight years of Mike Greenwell's tenure and seven from Manny Ramirez, those five players have spent 54 of the 69 years since Williams' first year in 1940 playing left field for the Red Sox.
During FanHouse's marathon live chat of the ALCS and NLCS yesterday, I couldn't help but notice Scott Boras directly behind home plate as the Angels took on the Yankees in Game 3. I was informed during the chat by our own Jeff Fletcher that Boras has season tickets behind home plate at both Angels and Dodger Stadium, and he likes to show up early so he's available to the media.
Contrary to popular belief, Ralph Branca didn't throw away a pennant with his pitch that became Bobby Thomson's shot heard around the world. All of the Brooklyn Dodgers kept themselves out of the World Series back then. They choked away a huge lead in September to force that playoff against the New York Giants.
Remember Bill Buckner's gaffe?
Overrated.
That was in Game 6. The Boston Red Sox still had a chance to win the world championship in Game 7, but they didn't.
It truly was one of the more magical endings to a baseball playoff game we've ever seen, a game that can't be described any better than a Hollywood ending in which the hero miraculously manages to fight off an entire army with one gun and six bullets to save the girl.
In the movies, we never get to see the loser's epilogue. The NLDS between the Dodgers and Cardinals leaves its Hollywood atmosphere and shifts to St. Louis this weekend, where we'll find out if the Cards can bounce back from a game in which both Matt Holliday and the entire roster took a collective line drive to the groin.
LOS ANGELES -- Getting the 27th out against the Dodgers this year has proved very difficult.
The 28th? Forget it.
The Dodgers managed 12 walk-off wins, tops in the National League, throughout the regular season, but none of them were as memorable as their first one in the playoffs, a jaw-dropping 3-2 victory over the Cardinals in Game 2 of their Division Series on Thursday afternoon at Dodger Stadium.
They were done. The game was over. James Loney had hit a fly ball to Matt Holliday with two outs in the ninth, trailing by a run. Andre Ethier, standing in the dugout, had already began mentally planning to fly to St. Louis with the series even at a game apiece.
To no one's surprise, Jason Bay has decided to see what the 29 other teams in the big leagues have to offer before deciding whether or not he wants to return to the Red Sox. Jon Heyman of SI.com reports that Bay turned down a four-year contract offer worth approximately $60 million just before free agency officially kicks off a minute past midnight on Friday morning. 
Footprints in the Snow
Footprints in the Snow
The 
During FanHouse's marathon live chat of the ALCS and NLCS yesterday, I couldn't help but notice Scott Boras directly behind home plate as the 
Contrary to popular belief, Ralph Branca didn't throw away a pennant with his pitch that became Bobby Thomson's shot heard around the world. All of the Brooklyn 
LOS ANGELES -- Getting the 27th out against the Dodgers this year has proved very difficult.
