The Blue Jays signed catcher Jason Phillips to a 1 year, $500,000 contract.

Two years ago, we looked at Robin Ventura, Chipper Jones, and Scott Rolen. We're moving Alex Rodriguez from the shortstops to the third basemen this time around. This time, I thought that I'd take a closer look at the offensive contributions of the very good and great third basemen in major league baseball since 1900 at age 30, 32 and 34, and see where Ventura, Jones, Rolen and Rodriguez slide in at each age offensively, before we get to defence.

Our own Leigh Sprague got the ball rolling with his fictional take on the Barajas/Zaun affair. Now, Protrade's Ryan Wilkins weighs in with haiku concerning the Manny Ramirez to LA trade rumours. We take poetry very seriously here at da Box, and the possibilities this off-season are endless. A player. A team. A general manager (I'm still searching for rhymes for Hendry). So, let's have them, Bauxites.

Ken Rosenthal reports that the Blue Jays have signed Royce Clayton to a 1 year, $1.5 million deal. The deal is pending a physical (and Clayton not switching agents at the last minute).

*We here at Batter's Box are not generally prone to writing fiction. However, the events of the last two days have inspired me to present the following short story.

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Oh sure, they said it would be fun, but I was skeptical. As comforted as I was by the prospect of an evening of draught beer, sports-related conversation and latently homoerotic male bonding, I just felt like staying home. I told them that I was planning to watch Monday Night Football alone, to see a geriatric Brett Favre, to chuckle quietly while Tony Kornheiser juxtaposes football and pop culture to the befuddlement of an ignorant Joe Theissman, and, most importantly, to selfishly root for a backdoor cover of the eleven point spread.

Jeff Blair says it's a done deal with the Jays and Zaun. Two years, $7.25 million, with an option for a third year based on games played. (thanks to China fan for the heads up)

JP Ricciardi confirmed the Zaun signing today.

Updated: With the informal results of a Batter's Box straw poll ... and no less than four unanimous choices!

It's that time of year again -- post-U.S. Thanksgiving, pre-Christmas, meaning that of course, the gift in all our stockings is a Hall of Fame ballot ... or at least the ability to niff and whine about who should be elected.

Here's the complete list of this year's candidates ...

There's a new catcher in town.

UPDATE: Or maybe not....... TR Sullivan at MLB.com wrote that the Barajas deal fell apart, Barajas changed agents and canceled his trip to Toronto.

Jeff Blair reports that the Jays are in negotiations again with Zaun and that the Barajas signing isn't the done deal that was published as done this morning, pending a phyiscal, and confirmed by Barajas' agent.

"One of these guys is going to be the Blue Jays catcher," a source close to negotiations said late Monday night.

Buster Olney wrote that the Jays were "on the verge" of re-signing Gregg Zaun and "it was not immediately clear if the Barajas deal fell apart".

UPDATE 2 (11:45pm): General manager J.P. Ricciardi said late Monday the team was negotiating with Zaun, and the deal with Barajas was not going ahead. Ricciardi declined to comment about why the contract with Barajas wasn't completed.

"We don't have an agreement with anybody at this point,'' Ricciardi said.

Asked if he still had interest in Barajas, Ricciardi said he couldn't comment right now. Asked if he hoped to sign Zaun this week, Ricciardi said: "Yeah. I hope to have something done with somebody this week.''

It looks like we've seen the end of Gregg Zaun's time in a Jays uniform, which is a shame. His career turnaround has been one of those great baseball stories that will stick with me.

I'll say it again: all the guy has to do is make it to the playoffs to give The Gregg Zaun Story the rousing finale it needs to make it a successful Disney movie in a decade or two.

Here he is, for what is hopefully not the very last time:

We're almost done working our way through the process of building a Hall of Names roster for each of the 25 most-common male names in North America; in fact, just two remain -- #22 Anthony and #23 Kevin. In honor of the man who's made more baseball-themed movies than anyone not working as a big league advance scout, let's go with the latter for now -- though for the record, no, no Costner character (Billy Chapel, Crash Davis, even Ray Kinsella) will be considered eligible.

There are, however ...

Smithers discusses Justin Morneau and his distant predecessor:

And now, a couple of items that need no introduction.

Top Prospect Alert ranks the Jays top ten prospects.

Rotorob explores the Gregg Zaun situation.

With the final hours of the Thanksgiving holiday winding down here in the U.S., let's see what kind of feast we can build filling a Hall of Names table with traditional Thanksgiving-named players ...

In this quick-and-dirty Hall of Names entry, we find just enough for a starting lineup and only a few folks who can take the ball to the hill and get it over the plate, so your suggested edits are welcome and invited!

But for now, it's time to meet ...

A notable signing yesterday, but not of a free agent - the Rockies signed Jeff Francis to a four year deal for $13.25 million.  

Not sure what got me thinking about this, but a lot of great players have fallen juuust short of what our own Magpie has termed The Big Number in some category or another.

The truth is, we can build one of the greatest Hall of Names teams ever assembled with the guys who retired with 493 this or 2992 that ... in fact, let's do just that. And we'll start with just a few basic rules ...