Jan lays down and wrestles in her sleep
Moonlight spills on comic books
And superstars in magazines
An old friend calls and tells us where to meet
Her plane takes off from Baltimore
And touches down on Bourbon Street

The Blue Jays are in Anaheim this week, but not to play the Angels. The Winter Meetings are getting underway, and at the rate that free agents are being gobbled up, it seems likely that GM JP Ricciardi will try to make his moves as early as possible. Fiscal responsibility in baseball? The broken-down, 111-loss Diamondbacks are about to sign broken-down Troy Glaus to a 4-year, $41 million contract. What fiscal responsibility?

Welcome to the Winter Meetings, folks. First come, first served.

Jeff Kent signed a 2 year $17 million contract with the Dodgers.

Two questions to ponder:

1. will Kent displace Cora at second, or will he be moved to third base to take over from Beltre?
2. how does this affect his Hall of Fame chances?

For reference, here's my recent Hall watch piece on Kent, Alomar and Biggio.

This has come up in a few threads, so why not make it a question of the day.

Suppose you're the Blue Jays and you have roughly $14 million dollars to spend on free agents. I don't know the exact figure, but we'll go with $14 million.

Given the free agents available today, how would you spend that money? The Jays have a big hole at 1B, and like all teams, could always use more pitching. Would you spend all the money on one or two players or would you fill in five or six holes?

Bonus points go for creative but realistic answers. No "I'd sign Beltran for $2 mil a year" answers, please.

Aside from the Carlos Delgado situation (which is still being tracked and discussed in this thread), there was a lot of movement just before midnight on December 7, as teams signed some players, offered arbitration to others, and non-tendered a whole lot more. This thread is for reports and discussions of all three types of transactions and their implications for the teams involved.

Here are a few to get us started:

Evaluating shortstops is toughest of all. Defence is recognized to be very important, and yet our tools for evaluating defence are rudimentary. Fortunately, for most of today's candidates- Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, Barry Larkin and Julio Franco, defence is not the major issue. With that in mind, let's look at who is in the Hall and who is not.

I've spent too many years
In a war with myself
The doctor has told me
It's no good for my health
To search for perfection
Is all very well
But to look for heaven
Is to live here in hell

Apparently, yesterday TSN did a segment on "The Greatest Jay Ever." Their list, reports here on Da Box tell us, was 1) Alomar 2) Steib 3) Delgado 4) Carter 5) Bell 6) Henke 7) Fernandez 8) Hentgen 9) Olerud and 10) Clemens. (Half were still active in 2004!) So today's rather obvious ...


Question(s) of the Day: Who bears the mantle of "Greatest Jay"? This could mean oh so many things, so clarify how you're defining it. Who will crack the Top 10 or take the title in the future?

The Baltimore Orioles announced today that they have signed Chris Gomez to a minor-league deal with an invitation to spring training.

It's a sad departure for me, at least, because Gomez proved me wrong in spades, with a fine year as a Blue Jays infielder. I was hoping he'd stick around, but the Jays obviously had other priorities.

Please share your memories of Chris Gomez in this thread. GOMEZ HIT GRAND SLAM NOW.

As a public service, we're pleased to present, free of charge, two alternate versions of tomorrow's standard Canadian newspaper article on the Jays' decision [not] to offer arbitration to Carlos Delgado. Since Delgado's return [departure] will be a major story, this will surely be of assistance to harried columnists. Editors should feel free to adapt the article of their choice to suit the precise circumstances and/or agendas of their publications (e.g., search-and-replace "Godfrey" for "Ricciardi.")

The rumours fly about which one of Oakland's three aces Billy Beane will trade, as if it's inevitable. Barry Zito to Texas? Tim Hudson to the Yankees? Mark Mulder to the Nippon Ham Fighters? What's the best deal possibe, or is the answer "none, stand pat"? And that's today's ...

Question of the Day: Play GM for a day and structure the best deal possible -- for both sides,(e.g. no "Menechino for Zito" deals) -- involving one or more of the A's Big Three. Make sure the money works and that the talent would appeal to both (or all three or four) teams. Best (most realistic/creative) deal wins a prize!

The Jays have until midnight tonight to work out a deal with Carlos Delgado or offer him arbitration. If they cannot, then it is almost certain that Delgado will not be back next season and the Jays will not get any draft picks as compensation when Carlos signs with another club.

Today's question has its genesis in an e-mail exchange between Jordan and I. An abbreviated summary follows:

The Veterans' Committee player's ballot contains some interesting names:

Dick Allen, Bobby Bonds, Ken Boyer, Rocky Colavito, Wes Ferrell, Curt Flood, Joe Gordon, Gil Hodges, Elston Howard, Jim Kaat, Mickey Lolich, Sparky Lyle, Marty Marion, Roger Maris, Carl Mays, Minnie Minoso, Thurman Munson, Don Newcombe, Tony Oliva, Vada Pinson, Ron Santo, Luis Tiant, Joe Torre, Maury Wills, Smoky Joe Wood.

Since we last talked, Ismael Ramirez went to 5-0 for Oriente in the Venezuelan League, after allowing 2 earned runs on 4 hits and 2 walks with 3 strikeouts in 6 innings against Lara. He's now gone 34 innings, allowing 25 hits and 7 walks, while stiking out 27 and surrendering only 2 homers.

Box regular Paul D. has publicly begged in the current Hijack Central for another one of these hoops-oriented threads. He even apologized for hijacking a thread called "Hijack Central," so we'll give him a (fast) break, especially since we don't have weekend QOTD's, and pose his questions here ...

"The Raptors have just imploded and gone insane. Rafer Alston wants to quit, the coach won't start two of his starters, the players hate each other ..."

"What does it say about the Raptors that Butch Carter was the best coach they ever had?"