Within the last week, the Phillies avoided arbitration with Joe Blanton and Shane Victorino by signing them both to three-year deals. Blanton will receive $24 million. Victorino will receive $22 million. The Phillies are also getting closer to signing catcher Carlos Ruiz to a multi-year deal. These are all big moves for the Phillies and will help keep Philadelphia's lineup intact and the team will remain as one of the National League's top World Series contenders. These moves also impact Philadelphia's ability to keep Jayson Werth in red pinstripes past the 2010 season. Werth is the only member of the Phillies lineup not under club control for the 2011 season. The 2010 season marks the final year of Werth's two-year deal with the Phillies.

This situation has the potential to create an interesting dilemma for the Phillies next winter. Alden Gonzalez of MLB.com explains the Phillies already have $127 million committed to 14 players in 2011. That includes $20 million for Ryan Howard and Roy Halladay, $15 million for Chase Utley, and Blanton's $8.5 million and Victorino's $7.5 million. Werth is set to make $7 million on his back-loaded two-year contract. He could end up pricing himself out of the Phillies budget in 2011, especially if his numbers resemble the ones he put up in 2009 - 36 home runs, 99 RBI, 98 runs, 20 stolen bases, 91 walks, and .268/.373/.506.

If you read Fangraphs – and if you don't, you really should – then you might know of a little thing called The Contest. In The Contest, the GMs of the Royals and Mets (Dayton Moore and Omar Minaya, respectively) compete against one another to see who can make the most awful moves before, presumably, being fired. Well, today, both managers fired a new salvo. The Royals signed Rick Ankiel for a contract worth $3.5MM this season with an option for $6MM next year, and the Mets traded for Gary Matthews, Jr. Of the two, Minaya's move is far more defensible, as the Angels are going to continue to pay most of Matthews' severely bloated contract ($21.5 of $23MM remaining over the next two seasons).

However, it's still not a smart move. And here's why: Angel Pagan. Pagan, a former Cub, has put up very good numbers in limited time since 2006; his career line is .281/.331/.443, with a respectable .335 wOBA. In the absence of Carlos Beltran, who's still undergoing a surgical saga and will miss the first month or so of the season, Pagan makes a great deal of sense as a replacement center fielder; not only can he hit, but UZR finds him to be a superb fielder in the corners, and average in center. But it seems that Minaya is putting himself in a position to use the far inferior Matthews to fill in for Beltran – and if his past moves are any indication, he might just be inane enough to follow through. If Matthews is relegated to a bench role, then so much the better for the Mets, but if he sees significant ABs in Pagan's stead, it will be an enormous mistake.

As for Ankiel...well, his story is well-known, and his transition from pitcher to hitter has been rather remarkable. In 2007 and 2008, he was great, posting wOBAs of .364 and .360 – certainly the kind of hitter any manager would want in his lineup. But then he fell off a cliff last season, as his .231/.285/.387 line and marginally above average UZR/150 (1.7) led to a 0.1 WAR – about as slightly better than your average minor leaguer as you can get, and well below the league average. Now, it's true that he was hurt for most of the season, which no doubt contributed to his poor showing. HOWEVA, the facts remain that he has a career .311 OBP and is going to be 31 in July. This is not exactly a high-upside play, and when you're the Royals, you'd be better off plugging in minor leaguers or a vet that doesn't cost as much as Ankiel. True, they're not paying him an exorbitant amount now, but it's not hard to envision them picking up the expensive option for next season – which, needless to say, is likely a mistake.

Ultimately, the fact remains that Dayton Moore has told fans that he was going to emphasize OBP when he was hired. Since then, he's acquired OBP sinkholes like Jose Guillen, Mike Jacobs, Yuniesky Betancourt, Jason Kendall, and, now, Rick Ankiel to join a lineup that already is remarkably impatient and impotent. Omar Minaya has been handed a bottomless pool of money to spend improving his roster, and has chosen to...well, you can look here for a more thorough report of the damage he's wrought. The point is, these two gentlemen seem to be engaged in a crusade against their respective employers. Are these two acquisitions, fireable offenses per se? No. But they're the latest entry in a ledger of nigh-indefensible moves that suggest that neither man should be in charge of personnel of a major league team. With all the information available today, they should both know better.

As reported earlier, the Angels signed Joel Pineiro* to a 2-year, $16MM deal. Pineiro, ostensibly, is to try to fill the hole left by John Lackey's departure to the BoSox; indeed, the Angels web site lauded Pineiro as the top free agent pitcher available.

*My favorite memory of Pineiro: my brother (who loved Pineiro when he was on the Mariners) and I were watching him pitch one evening, and they flashed a stat on the broadcast stating that Pineiro had gotten out the first 51 right-handed batters that he'd faced that season, which they said was the longest such streak in history. A quick search affirms that this happened in 2001, and it is indeed the longest since they started keeping track of such things in 1975. Now you know.

Now, the casual fan may not know much about Pineiro, and may not know that his excellent season sort of came out of nowhere. The secret to the newfound success, as the non-casual readers of this site likely know, is that he turned into a groundball machine who walked hardly anybody (1.1 BB/9). Now, we don't know how much of that is a function of Dave Duncan's work in St. Louis, but he presumably had quite a bit to do with it. So the question going forward, then, is whether or not Pineiro will be able to sustain the pitching style that he's adopted.

Trying to keep up with the Mariners and Rangers in the AL West, the Angels have signed Joel Pineiro to a two-year deal worth $16MM.

It's not an awful signing, but I wouldn't classify it as good either. He moves from the NL to the AL West, which I suppose isn't as bad as moving to the AL East. He had a career year last year, and the Cards seemed to realize this and let him move on. That should tell you something.

Have fun with that deal next year, LAA. It won't be pretty.

Remind me never to do anything that angers the people of Tennessee:

Knoxville attorney Drew McElroy has filed paperwork with the Knoxville City Council's Public Properties and Facilities Naming Committee to rename a waste water treatment plant the "Lane Kiffin Sewage Center."

"At first I was offended that he would sneak out in the middle of the night, like a one night stand," McElroy said.

But now, he's over it.

The University of Tennessee has a lot of tradition on campus naming buildings and streets after former greats. Neyland Stadium, Peyton Manning Pass, and Phillip Fulmer Way are examples.

[...]

"It dawned on me--Lane Kiffin told us that he hoped the fans would understand. I thought 'Well, naming the wastewater plant for him would let him know, I think very clearly, we do understand,'" McElroy, an off-and-on season ticket holder said. "We want to memorialize his stay here, and I think this would be doing it appropriately."

This has to have some kind of baseball application, doesn't it? Some names I think are appropriate for players that have wronged me, or their club, in some way:

• Carlos Silva Doughnut Shop
• Barry Bonds Needle Disposal Bin
• John Rocker Tolerance Center
• Alex Rodriguez Bank
• Jamie Moyer Weight Room

Update: The gestapo at Major League Baseball has send us a cease and desist because they think we're infringing on their trademark. The app will be relaunched and the current apps will continue to run but for now you will not be able to find them in the app stores.

We're proud to announce a partnership with Notice Software for mobile applications of MLB Notebook and other Bloguin partner sites for the Iphone and Android Smart Phones (read the press release)

Although bloggers probably don't get away from their computers enough, we understand that you do. However that shouldn't hinder your ability to consume some of the great content across Bloguin when you know you're in a boring conversation, waiting for your friend, on the road, procrastinating at work, or stuck at a horrible movie with Nicholas Cage in it.

By downloading one of these apps you'll be able to:

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Well, it's time for the Giants to fire Brian Sabean, and for Bengie Molina to fire his agent. The Giants have resigned Molina to a one-year deal worth $4.5MM.

I have lots of random thoughts on this deal, so let's get to them:

• The Mets were willing to give Molina over $5MM a year for two years. Why wouldn't Bengie take that? Is he really hoping this boosts his value and he gets a nice new contract next season? I'm giving Bengie some belated advice here: The Mets contract will take you into retirement, and it pays you more money, so you should probably accept it.
• The Mets sort of get saved on this. Omar Minaya gets saved from himself.
• Buster Posey is now blocked for another year. We'll see how much of a dumbass smart Sabean is with this one. If he has any intelligent bone in his body, Posey will save his service time by staying in the minors again this year.
• The good news is that this deal is only for one year and the Giants aren't tying themselves up for too long.
• Brian Sabean is stupid.
• Brian Sabean is a moron.
• Brian Sabean should be fired.

After being very sick the past week, I'm back! Here are some SABR-slanted links to start your day:

• Justin Bopp brings his graphical genius to analyze the Rockies' lineup from last year, with some analysis from one of the guys from Purple Row.
• Dan Novick throws out his ballot for the Sabermetric Writing Awards being given out by Beyond the Boxscore.
• The always fabulous Carson Cistulli gets us thinking about a "All-Joy" team filled up players that every stat boy loves.
• Erik Manning says that the Cardinals inviting Jim Edmonds to spring training would be a nice idea, but thinks that bringing him on board the 25-man roster is not such a good idea.

When the Rangers signed Vlad Guerrero, who should represent a cheap, reasonably productive upgrade to an already powerful lineup, I wondered how the Mariners' GM and new SABRsphere superstar Jack Z(duriencik, if you're of the proper sort; Daddy WARbucks if you're in the Iracane/Liakos crowd) would respond. Well, last night, he answered in fine form – if you consider locking up an elite young talent for five years at below market value fine form, anyway.

The Mariners and arbitration-eligible RHP Felix Hernandez put ink to a brand spankin' new contract last night, one that will keep Hernandez in a Mariners jersey for the next five years at the cost of $78MM. As noted at Fangraphs, Hernandez likely would've earned ~$10MM in arbitration this year, so the deal is essentially 4/$68MM, as he had essentially secured the first year anyway. So we're talking about an average annual price of $17MM for a guy who was worth 6.9 wins last season. Compared to the going rate of a win for free agents this offseason (~$3.5MM), the Mariners are getting quite a discount, as they're paying ~$2.48MM per win from the King.

Of course, that's assuming that he'll be a 7-win player again next year. Which, with any player, let alone pitchers, is a risky proposition – but with a guy who's been tabbed as a star since 17 and who only lost out on the Cy Young lats season because Zack Greinke was historically great, it's a gamble you take. This is especially true in Hernandez's case, as he's shown real development in each of his four full seasons. Compared with 2006, his first full season, he's allowing nearly 2 less hits per 9 (9.2 → 7.5) and half as many home runs (1.1 HR/9 → 0.6). His walk and strikeout numbers have stayed mostly constant, but after a worrying loss of control last season where his BB/9 spiked to 3.6, it's good to see him get back to the 2.7 level he posted last season. He's got four good pitches, strikes out a healthy 8 or so per 9 IP, has shown great durability, and figures to continue improving in the next few seasons – which is a delightful proposition for Mariners fans, as he's already one of the top-10 pitchers in the league. Oh, and another, minor point – he's going to turn 24 next season. No big deal.

All in all, you'll have a hard time finding detractors for this deal. If this is the end of the Mariners' activity until pitchers and catchers report, then Jack Z has put an excellent stamp on what has been a banner offseason for the first-year GM. The Mariners looked like a strong bet to contend this year, and now they've gone and solidified themselves for the next few years as well. With all the lamenting of GM activity recently (looking at you, Messrs. Sabean/Moore/Wade/Minaya/Dombrowski), it's nice to see someone making smart decisions, and making them consistently.

I know this is a little bit late the internet has been less than kind today, so bear with me. Anyway, as you may know, Jose Offerman (which name you can preface 'embattled' or 'mercurial' former Major Leaguer, as you choose) has been suspended for life from the Dominican Winter League. If you're not a fan of clicking links, the long and short of it is that Mr. Offerman saw fit to floor an umpire with a right hook on the heels of an argument over balls and strikes.

Couple of interesting things right off the bat: (1) the guy he punched was the first-base umpire. Now, I know I don't usually cover the Dominican Winter League but I'm fairly sure that they still have the home plate ump call balls and strikes down there. Feel free to correct me if I'm way off base there, though. (2) Offerman is a guy you may recall from something of an illustrious indie league career, as those things go. He spent 2003 with the Bridgeport "One, Two, Red" Bluefish, where he proved himself to the scouts of the Mets, who signed him to a minor league deal in '04. He spent '05 with the Phillies and Mets, then caught on with the Long Island Ducks. Now, that'd be about where most pro ballplayers stop making news, but Offerman found himself back in the headlines for charging the mound with his bat and hitting the pitcher and catcher with it post-HBP. He did go on to play in the Mexican and Caribbean leagues, and even won a Caribbean World Series title in 2008, so he'd avoided being blackballed at that point.

But...maybe not so much anymore. Offerman, who was a replacement manager for the Licey Tigers (replacing a guy who's on a 2-year ban for bumping an ump, no less), can't have much more leeway in the game at this point. Baseball's a game where Milton Bradley – something of a cause celebre for me - is painted as a clubhouse cancer and stuck with the bad egg tag because he's gotten in a few heated arguments; he's still getting jobs because he's one of the better hitters in the league. But how is a guy like Jose Offerman, who now has two rather astounding incidents on his blotter, going to stick around? It is unfortunate that this is how his career will be remembered, and hopefully he's able to find some restraint next time he's in such a situation, but, hey, if his career is over, at least he got to go out in a blaze of ignominy that'll make him the most memorable 1,551 hit guy in baseball history!