Links

Despite what Paul Meyer said yesterday, it appears the Bucs and Yuslan Herrera do have a three year deal lined up (Pirates.com has a similar story) which will be finalized when he passes a physical and all of the visa stuff goes through.

Via Bucs Dugout, Joe Randa is officially retiring. There was a rumor that was passed around during the Kansas City series last year that the Joker told KC's broadcasters that 2006 would be his last year, but there was really no mention of it in the Pittsburgh media then (or now, for that matter). I like Joe, which made Littlefield's signing of him much worse this year- it put him in a position to be disliked. All in all though, he pretty much gave us what any reasonable person should've expected from him with the problem being that our front office is not reasonable, thus making him a backup that made nearly 10% of a bad team's total salary. The KC Star article linked above mentions that he's thinking about doing some TV work. I hope he does, he'd be much more tolerable on BBTN than the recently departed Jeff Brantley.

Speaking of Bucs Dugout, Charlie has put together a comprehensive list of all of the Pirate fan sites, message boards, and blogs out there. I do my best to keep the sidebar updated but it's not an easy task.

Don Slaught has resigned after one year as the Tigers hitting coach while Andy Van Slyke has re-upped for another year as first base coach (link via BBTF). No word yet on whether Jim Leyland has put in a call to Jay Bell or Bobby Bonilla to fill the opening.

Francisco Liriano is probably out for 2007 after Tommy John surgery.

The most meaningless official award in all of sports, the Gold Glove awards. It's funny that a Tigers' pitcher won the Gold Glove. Maybe ironic is the word.

Uni Watch has pictures of the hat that will replace the venerable 5950 next year (scroll down to the news ticker section at the bottom of the post). I'm still trying to dig up information on the red third uniform that Perrotto casually mentioned in a column a while back. Keep your fingers crossed and hope that I never find anything.

The Mariners aren't going to bid for Daisuke Matsuzaka. Since it's rumored that it's going to cost something like $30 million just for the right to negotiate with him, the field is narrowed down to the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets, though I suspect that MLB requires all of the AP articles to throw the Red Sox and Mets in there because they don't want fans to know that only the Yankees have a chance of signing international superstars. I mean really, would anyone else pay like double the Marlins total salary just for the right to negotiate with someone? The answer is no.

And finally, here's the latest update on free agent filings and the total list of players filed.