Links for Saturday…
- Junichi Tazawa is expected to announce early next week that he will sign with the Red Sox. He turned down offers from the Rangers, Mariners and Braves.
- The Padres recently offered to talk with Trevor Hoffman, but he hasn’t responded. Tom Krasovic also has a Sandy Alderson quote that the Padres are "highly unlikely" to offer Hoffman arbitration.
- Robert MacLeod talked to Blue Jays insiders who believe trading ace Roy Halladay would send "the wrong signal" to fans since the Jays want to compete in 2009.
- Rob Neyer wonders how C.C. Sabathia’s weight will affect his performance going forward.
- Joba Chamberlain tops Peter Abraham’s list of the 20 most important people to the Yankees organization.
- Peter Gammons asks five post-Thanksgiving questions about free agents and trades. Also within that blog post, Gammons mentions that Kevin Towers went to Sunday’s Chargers game with Brad Ausmus and hopes to sign him.
- Larry LaRue writes that the Mariners could use a couple good outfielders to go along with Ichiro.
- Bob Verdi expects a quiet retirement accouncement from Greg Maddux.
