The Boston Red Sox have been pretty busy. All in one day, they reached tentative agreements with husky right-hander John Lackey and centerfielder Mike Cameron.

Lackey agreed to a five-year contract worth roughly $17.5 million annually, according to who else, but an anonymous source familiar with the incomplete, secret negotiations. Meanwhile, Cameron agreed to a two-year contract possibly worth $8 million a season, subject to a physical.

Does this mean they’ve given up on outfielder Jason Bay? Ah, pretty much.

Adding 31-year-old Lackey to the mix would considerably beef up a rotation that already includes Josh Beckett and Jon Lester, not to mention Daisuke Matsuzaka, Clay Buchholz, and old school knuckleballer Tim Wakefield. Too many cooks in that kitchen: say goodbye to Clay, Sox fans.

Lackey, coming off a damn good postseason in which he struck out 14 batters and allowed just five earned runs over 19.2 innings, has a 102-71 regular season record with a 3.81 ERA in eight years, all spent with the Halos.

Cameron, a three-time Gold Glove winner who is almost 37 years old, batted just .250 with 24 home runs and 70 RBIs last season for the Milwaukee Brewers. He will most likely switch to left field, since the Sox are pretty happy with Jacoby Ellsbury in center. And apparently, the Yankees might be interested in Bay anyhow.

[SI.com] | [MLB Trade Rumors] | [The Joy of Sox] | [Full Count]

If there’s one thing we dislike here at BLB, it’s teams pussyfooting around. The Toronto Blue Jays have held Roy Halladay hostage for over an entire season, but it looks as though they’re ready to ship him off to Philadelphia.

In what should go down as the biggest post-winter meetings blockbuster of the offseason, Halladay is likely to be traded to the Phillies in a three-team stunner… at the cost of lefty ace Cliff Lee and a few prospects.

The swap isn’t quite complete yet, hindering on a potential three-year, $60 million contract extension for Doc along with a doctor’s note for all players involved. So here’s the deal. The Jays would get prospects from the Phillies: possibly outfielders Michael Taylor and Domonic Brown, catcher Travis d’Arnaud, and maybe even former #1 pick and highly-touted right-hander Kyle Drabek. And that’s not all.

Seattle would then send 6’7″ top pitching prospect Phillippe Aumont to either the Phils or Toronto, while adding to their payroll 2008 AL Cy Young winner Clifton Lee, who will become a free agent after earning $9 million this season.

Halladay, who was spotted in Philadelphia for a physical, has one year left on his contract, which would dish out $15.75 million to him in 2010. Even though Old Roy is the ccenterpiece in this thing, the Mariners are whispering in the Angels’ ear: we’ve got a new one-two punch and a badass top of the order. And we’re coming for ya.

[Philadelphia Inquirer] | [MLB Trade Rumors] | [The Fightins] | [The 700 Level]

BCB reader dogbone sent me four photos that he said his grandfather took at a game at Wrigley Field on May 29, 1949. On that date the Cubs and Reds played a doubleheader, losing the first game 4-1 and winning the second game 10-2. After that day’s activity the Cubs were 14-21, six games out of first place, seventh of eight teams in the NL. 1949 was a bad year for the Cubs; they finished 61-93, their second straight 90+ loss year (and at the time, those were the only two 90-loss seasons in team history).

What is most interesting about this photo is the “shade” that’s in the center field bleachers. That was one attempt to minimize the “white shirt problem” that finally resulted in the CF bleachers being closed permanently in 1953. This is the only photo I have ever seen of that “shade”.

Click on photo to open a larger version in a new browser window

After the jump, there are three more photos; you will see how people “dressed up” for games in that era — particularly on a Sunday — and the way the “boxes” were numbered, with the metal railings. Note also that the seats were folding chairs, not permanent seats. I’m not sure exactly when the permanent seats were installed — the folding chairs were still there in this 1961 photo.

I have one of those folding chairs. When Tribune Co. bought the Cubs in 1981, they cleaned out a large storage area below the ballpark, where all the chairs had been stored. They put them out on Sheffield and sold them for $1 each. 28 years later, I’m sorry I bought only one.

I can honestly say that when the Cubs signed Milton Bradley (I believe it was during January of 2009), I had never heard of him. I knew nothing about the history of personal problems which have been rehashed ubiquitously since then. Problems with umpires? I knew nothing. Problems with…



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The trade sending Mike Lowell to the Rangers has been called off after a medical examination, sources comfirm.

CINCINNATI (AP) — Scott Rolen agreed to a two-year contract extension with the Cincinnati Reds through the 2012 season, an indication of how much they value the 34-year-old third baseman as a clubhouse leader.

You now, I was really excited for the Seattle Mariners for a little while there. They were movin’ and shakin’ all over the place this winter.

First they signed Chone Figgins, adding some speed and pop to the top of their batting order. Also, he’s great defensively and can play pretty much anywhere. It’s not like they had to break the bank, either. They managed to grab the second third baseman for $36 million over four years with a possible 2014 option. Not bad.

Then, they nabbed a whopper: 2008 AL Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee, who will be one half of what is likely to be one of the most killer one-two punches in baseball along with Felix Hernandez.

The Mariners were beginning to take shape as the team to contend with in the AL West.

Then they totally crapped the bed. Milton Bradley you guys? Are you joking me? Do you not read the news, Jack Zduriencik? You’ll regret this, buddy. Mark my words. That dude is loony toons. A bad egg. A rotten apple. He’ll bring dysfunction to your happy family… and he’s not really that good at baseball anymore, either.

Get ready to be persecuted, Seattle fans. It’s going to be your fault soon enough.

[Seattle Times] | [Delusional Cubs Fan] | [Chicago Breaking News]

Now that you’ve all had a day to express disgust, outrage, “FIREHENDRYNOW”, etc. over the trade of Milton Bradley to the Mariners for Carlos Silva, let’s examine how this really will affect the 2010 Cubs on the field.

We don’t have to rehash the reasons that Bradley had to be moved, but it was clear after he was sent home in September that he would be, no matter what. And when that happened, it was also clear that what the Cubs would get back wasn’t going to be much — likely someone else’s bad contract. And that is precisely what we got.

All of you here know that I was against the signing from the beginning — but I’m not going to say “told you so” here, because even I never imagined that Milton would melt down in the way he would. Let’s just say he was never a good fit for the high-profile team that is the Chicago Cubs, and Jim Hendry should have known that. Hendry took responsibility for the entire debacle, and you can bet that Tom Ricketts will have him on a pretty short leash for the rest of this offseason and 2010. If the Cubs don’t return to the playoffs in 2010, I’d expect Hendry to be fired, and that firing would be justified. Until then, I do think Hendry deserves a chance to clean up the mess that he made.

So what, really, do we now have here? There has been some dispute over exactly how much financial relief the Cubs got in this deal, but according to this cubs.com article, it’s $6 million. This article has the same number. So until I hear different, that’s the assumption I’m going on for this post.

Let’s not pretend this deal is something it isn’t. In December 2009, in a vacuum, there is no way any team deals for or signs Carlos Silva, based on his performance the last two years. He’s been horrific. And that might be an insult to horrific players. I’ll cut Silva some slack for 2009, as he was hurt most of the year. Could be, that contributed to his poor performance in 2008 also; maybe he was hurt then and didn’t tell anyone.

Silva has had, since 2004 when he became a rotation starter for the Twins, at least three seasons where his performance would have made him a capable fifth starter for most teams. In 2005, in 27 starts, he put up an ERA+ of 126 and a 1.17 WHIP. In 2007, the year that got him the four-year deal from the Mariners in free agency, he had a 102 ERA+ and 1.31 WHIP; those numbers, along with a 4.19 ERA, aren’t too different from what the Cubs got from Jason Marquis in 2007 and 2008.

Can Silva do this again? The answer is, we simply do not know until we see him pitch. The Cubs claim they have good reports on him from Venezuela:

The Cubs have had scouts watching Silva in Venezuela. He has appeared in four games, striking out two and walking three over nine innings. The club will send its strength and conditioning staff down there to get Silva on a program. The right-hander did report to camp this year 30 pounds lighter.

“We’ll do everything we can to get him as close to back where he was a few years ago,” Hendry said.

There’s no doubt that he needs to lose weight — just look at the photo at the top of this post, which was taken April 14, 2009. Get the guy in shape, bring him to camp, and see what he can do. There were some here who thought the Cubs should just release Milton Bradley and eat the $21 million on his deal. If Silva really can’t pitch any more, he could be released — but the Cubs would only eat $15 million. Even trading for Pat Burrell would have made the Cubs eat $13 million (because the Rays weren’t likely going to take any of Bradley’s 2011 salary), and Burrell would have been a very expensive pinch-hitter.

At his best, Silva was a decent ground-ball pitcher who didn’t walk anyone. There have been pitchers like him who have come from the AL to the NL and had success — Bronson Arroyo, for one, or even Glendon Rusch, who had one decent year for the Cubs (2004) as a long reliever/spot starter. There were some links passed around here yesterday — helpfully combined by Harry Pavlidis — that indicate that Silva is a very intense player who has on occasion called out his teammates in public for not performing. Clearly, this isn’t a good thing, and the only thing I can hope for is that the Cubs clear the air on this right away.

Again, this is obviously not a player you would have chosen to add to your team in a perfect world. The Milton Bradley situation was about as far from “perfect world” as you could get. The $6 million in salary relief, we hope, will allow Jim Hendry to add some help in CF (hey, how about a Ryan Church/Reed Johnson platoon?), or another starting pitcher (paging Joel Pineiro!), or a reliever like Matt Capps.

About Bradley, this portion of Paul Sullivan’s article sums him up:

Bradley referred to himself as a “quiet” guy, and said people who criticize him or athletes in general are trying to make names for themselves.

“Pretty much for me, anybody deep down on the inside, looking out or looking in, you understand how PR works and media works, and how people are promoted, and how you have a bad guy and you can have a good guy,” he said. “And that’s just the way it is. And so I’m portrayed as however I am. It just adds to the mystique, I guess.”

Yep, Milton, sure. It’s always everyone’s fault but yours. Bruce Miles calls you “unrepentant” and I am 100% agreed. For me, this statement by Ryan Dempster sums up the Bradley “era” in Chicago:

“It’s unfortunate,” Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster said in September after Bradley was suspended. “At the end of the day, he was provided a great opportunity to come over here and be a part of a really great organization with a lot of really good guys, and it just didn’t seem to make him happy, anything.”

Somehow, I doubt he’ll be happy in Seattle, either, but for now, I’m going to put the pitchforks down and reserve judgment till I see what else Hendry does this offseason. Let’s the rest of us try to do that, too. Finally, don’t forget to vote in the poll I posted on the right sidebar, if you haven’t already, about this deal.

BALTIMORE (AP) — Mike Gonzalez wants to close games, and the Baltimore Orioles lack an experienced arm to protect ninth-inning leads.

NEW YORK (AP) — Nick Johnson is returning to the Yankees, a move that likely will end Johnny Damon’s time in New York after four seasons.