By Kelly:
This is one of my favorite weeks of the year in baseball. Over the next 4 days almost the entire baseball world is in Orlando, Florida for the annual Winter Meetings. Each day I will write up a recap so you have an idea of what went on. Monday is usually a slower day with the GM’s just arriving Sunday or Monday night and today wasn’t any different.
NEWS
The 16 member Expansion Era Committee voted in unanimously Bobby Cox (2,504 wins, 1 World Series Title), Joe Torre (2,326 wins, 4 World Series Titles) and Tony La Russa (2,728 wins, 3 World Series Titles) into the Hall of Fame. None of the other 9 candidate’s received more than 6 votes and you needed to receive 12 votes (75%) to be inducted. The other 9 candidates were Billy Martin, Dave Concepcion, Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Dave Parker, Dan Quisenberry, Ted Simmons, Marvin Miller and George Steinbrenner.
Toronto signed Roy Halladay to a 1 day contract so he could retire as a Blue Jay. He is a 2 time Cy Young winner and 8 time All-Star. He went 203-105 with an ERA of 3.38. He has the 5th highest winning percentage of all time, .659. Three of the guys ahead of him are in the Hall of Fame and the other one will be. So, the question will be is Halladay a Hall of Famer. We had a pretty good discussion on our Facebook page today. I believe he is, to go with all the stats I already mention you can’t forget in his 1st ever post-season appearance he pitched 1 of the 2 no hitters ever in the post-season.
The Miami Marlins held a press conference to introduce a beardless Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Last week he signed a 3 year/$21 million deal to play catcher for the Marlins.
Mark Prior officially retires and he could join Padres front office.
TRANSACTIONS
The Cleveland Indians signed David Cooper to a major league deal.
The Chicago White Sox signed Felipe Paulino to a 1 year/$1.75 million deal.
The Miami Marlins finalized a 2 year deal with Garrett Jones.
RUMORS
Teams interested in David Price are the Mariners, Dodgers and Rangers.
Mystery team in on Shin Soo-Choo is the Diamondbacks.
Chris Sale of the White Sox could be available for the right package.
The Angels are listening to offers on Mark Trumbo and they are looking for pitching.
Sounds like Masahiro Tanaka of the Rakuten Eagles may NOT be posted.
The Indians are willing to listen to offers on Justin Masterson.
The Marlins are actively shopping Logan Morrison.
I know there were many more rumors, but these were some of the bigger ones.