Yesterday the Mariners signed Felix Hernandez‘s older brother to a minor-league contract and now they’ve signed Vladimir Guerrero’s nephew, giving 17-year-old Dominican outfielder Gabriel Guerrero a $400,000 bonus. Ben Badler of Baseball America has a brief scouting report on Gabriel and it actually sounds quite a bit like Vlad: Guerrero, a big-bodied right-handed hitter, has…

Jon Heyman tweets that Orlando Cabrera has signed with the Cleveland Indians. The Indians are Orlando Cabrera’s eighth team. I know he’s been around, but I was kind of surprised to see that.  Even more surprised to learn that he played for the Expos for eight years.  I didn’t think there was anyone left other than Vlad…

Steve Dilbeck makes a list of the “Top Ten Coolest Dodgers” over at the L.A. Times.  The top four — Sandy Koufax, Jackie Robinson, Fernando Valenzuela and Jackie Robinson — were pre-selected. He picks 5-10. Click through to read them. Milk/cow/free, don’t you know. With the understanding that “cool” is about as subjective an adjective…

Milwaukee avoided arbitration with Shaun Marcum by agreeing to a one-year, $4 million deal yesterday, but they don’t appear close to doing the same with Rickie Weeks and Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that they have a hearing scheduled for February 17. Weeks requested $7.2 million and the Brewers countered at $4.85…

Yesterday I talked about how baseball views the Wilpon and McCourt situations differently and about how, because of this, Bud Selig is likely to take a harder stance when it comes to McCourt’s proposed use of TV money vs. Wilpon’s use of SNY money. Today Ken Rosenthal has his own compare and contrast on it,…

I’m guessing that Reds and A’s fans — and other fans of a certain age — knew this already, but I had never heard this story about Rollie Fingers, Johnny Bench and the intentional walk that wasn’t from the 1972 World Series: With Bench standing in the box expecting a wide pitchout, Fingers broke off…

The Angels had no problem taking on Vernon Wells‘ $81 million deal, but dadgummit they fought Jered Weaver over less than $1.5 million.  In arbitration, that is.  An arbitration that was held yesterday. Which the Angels have won, reports MLBTR. Weaver wanted $8.8 million.  The Angels offered him $7.365 million, which seems at least two…

Jon Niese arrived at spring training about a week before pitchers and catchers were due at Mets camp and told Dan Martin of the New York Post that his goal is to improve his conditioning after tiring down the stretch as a rookie last year: Last year, I kind of got fatigued. I don’t think…

On the heels of Joe Christensen’s report this morning that the Twins may be open to trading Francisco Liriano comes a column by the Star Tribune’s Howard Sinker in which he toys with a possible scenario: a Francisco Liriano for Michael Young trade: In a deal with the Twins, that would mean Texas picking up…

Seattle has signed Felix Hernandez‘s older brother, Moises Hernandez, to a minor-league contract. Felix is a 25-year-old Cy Young winner, but Moises is a 27-year-old journeyman with a 4.37 ERA in six minor-league seasons spent in the Orioles’ and Braves’ systems. Larry Stone does write that Moises “bears an uncanny resemblance to his brother” and…

I’ve been asked about the Orioles offseason a lot.  My standard answer is that while I still have a hard time seeing them finish in anything but last place due to how brutal the division is, I do think they have improved themselves and will be a better team this year. They could win 80…

Back in mid-December the Yankees signed reliever Luis Vizcaino to a minor-league deal, but they’ve voided the contract after the veteran right-hander injured his Achilles’ tendon while pitching in winter ball. Joel Sherman of the New York Post writes that Vizcaino was “throwing consistently in the mid-90s” after missing most of the past two seasons…

Late Tuesday night Troy Renck reported that the Rockies were out of the Michael Young derby. Not so fast says Jon Heyman. He tweets that there’s still a disagreement about the sort of player and sort of dollars that would be involved in a trade but that the Rockies “haven’t heard they’re out.” Who knows?…

Remember that stuff I wrote the other day about the future of sports writing?  Well, not everyone’s buying it.  Particularly not Andrew Humphries of the Let’s Go Tribe blog, who argues that the sort of blogging I do here at HBT is not in keeping with the “meaning-building pieces” that Jason Fry described in his excellent…

As has become standard practice, the day after the New York Times says something bad about the Wlipons/Madoff case, the New York Daily News has a story — sourced, quite clearly, by Wilpon’s lawyers — endeavoring to counter it.  Today’s story: explaining the Wilpon defense. And that defense:  ”hey, if the Securities and Exchange Commission…

There is no denying that Jim Joyce and Armando Galarraga will forever be linked in baseball history. But did they really need to have a book out already? Yes, that’s right. The pitcher who nearly threw a perfect game last season, and the umpire who blew the call that would have clinched it, have co-authored…