Top News:
Evan Drellich / MLB.com:
Beimel narrows decision down to three teams — Veteran lefty reliever considering Red Sox, O's and NL club — BOSTON — Free-agent lefty reliever Joe Beimel has pared down his choices to the Red Sox, Orioles and a National League team, and could sign as soon as Thursday.
RELATED:
Troy Renck / All Things Rockies:
No new Rocks' talk on Rangers' Young — With Texas' acquisition of DH-1B candidate Mike Napoli this week, the Rockies have been reconnected to trade rumors involving Rangers' all-star infielder Michael Young. Colorado, however, has not talked with Texas since the Rangers reached out during the winter meetings.
Discussion:
HardballTalk and Texas Rangers
Thomas Harding / MLB.com:
Rockies sign Amezaga, Moeller to Minors deals
Discussion:
HardballTalk and Inside the Colorado Rockies
Keith Law / ESPN:
Ranking the top prospects (Nos. 1-25) — Trout, Harper lead the way in ESPN's 4th annual rankings of top prospects — Welcome to the fourth annual edition of my rankings of the top 100 prospects in baseball. With a slew of impressive debuts from top prospects in 2010 …
Discussion:
ESPN, The Captain's Blog, HardballTalk, The Nationals Review and River Avenue Blues
Julieparise / CBS New York:
Ex-Mets Star Valentine At Work In I-95 Traffic Mess — STAMFORD, Conn. (CBS 2/WCBS 880) — Several stranded trucks turned Interstate 95 into a virtual parking lot in parts of Connecticut Thursday morning. As CBS 2's Wendy Gillette stood in the thick of it, she ran into former Mets player and manager, Bobby Valentine.
Discussion:
USA Today, Mets Merized Online, Amazin' Avenue and Kranepool Society
RELATED:
Craig Calcaterra / HardballTalk:
Bobby Valentine is taking public service very seriously — We all shook our heads when Bobby Valentine was named the public safety director for Stamford, Connecticut, but the dude is committed: he was caught on film directing traffic near the I-95 on-ramp this morning. Click through for the video.
TMZ.com:
MLB Star Adam Kennedy — Busted for DUI — Seattle Mariners 2nd baseman Adam Kennedy was busted for DUI in Orange County last night .... TMZ has learned. — Kennedy — who was a key member of the 2002 World Series winning Anaheim Angels — was driving on the freeway near Newport Beach around 9 PM …
Discussion:
Seattle Times, U.S.S. Mariner, The Goessling Game, baseballmusings.com and Angels blog
Fox Sports:
Guerrero's best bet could be Orioles — Ken Rosenthal has been the senior baseball writer for FOXSports.com since August 2005. He appears weekly on MLB on FOX. Follow him on Twitter. — Vladimir Guerrero could be an Oriole soon, if only because he has no choice. — Try to find another suitor.
Discussion:
MLB Rumors, Britt's Bird Watch, HardballTalk, MLB Daily Dish and School of Roch
Bob Klapisch / Boston Herald:
Yankees' Brian Cashman is unplugged, but why — So what gives with Brian Cashman, the suddenly unfiltered, say-anything GM who must've gone crazy the other day, openly speculating about Derek Jeter's future in centerfield. Either that, or Cashman, in the final year of his contract …
Discussion:
baseballmusings.com
RELATED:
Marc Topkin / St. Petersburg Times:
Tampa Bay Rays switching to AstroTurf at Tropicana Field — Work is underway to replace the FieldTurf playing surface at Tropicana Field with AstroTurf's GameDay Grass 3D60H product. — According to company officials, the new turf will look and play better, and more like natural grass, than any other synthetic surface available.
Discussion:
Yahoo! Sports and HardballTalk
Aaron Fitt / Baseball America:
2011 Preseason College Top 25 — About Our Grades — We love the 20-80 scouting scale at Baseball America; we use it to assess everything from prospects to our favorite local barbecue restaurants (the Backyard BBQ Pit consistently scores highest). So we figured it would be fun and instructive …
Discussion:
SOX & Dawgs
Associated Press:
U2 concert forcing Florida Marlins-Mariners series to Seattle — NEW YORK — A three-game series between the Florida Marlins and Mariners from June 24-26 has been moved from Miami to Seattle because of a U2 concert. — Major League Baseball said Thursday the change was made because of the scheduling conflict at Sun Life Stadium.
Discussion:
baseballmusings.com and Mariners blog
Dave Cameron / FanGraphs Baseball:
The Angels Should Sign Vladimir Guerrero — If we ran a poll on what team has had the worst off-season to date, I'm certain that the Angels would win in a landslide. From losing out on Carl Crawford and Adrian Beltre - including watching him go to the division rival they're trying to chase down …
Discussion:
Angels blog and THE BOOK
