Rangers win Darvish rights with record bid  —  The Texas Rangers won the rights to negotiate with star Japanese right-hander Yu Darvish by placing a record $51.7 million bid in a posting auction, sources told Yahoo! Sports.  —  Darvish's team in Japan, the Nippon Ham Fighters, will accept the bid …

Nats working hard to land Gonzalez  —  The Nationals, continuing their quest to add a left-handed starting pitcher, are pushing hard to land the Athletics' Gio Gonzalez, according to major-league sources.  —  Gonzalez, 26, is perhaps the hottest pitcher available on the trade market …

Loyal Kuroda too expensive for Dodgers  —  The Los Angeles Dodgers hoped to sign Hiroki Kuroda, a good man and a good pitcher who once returned to the Dodgers in part because he felt like he owed them more.  —  Weird, I know.  —  The problem was, Kuroda is one of the better starters on the market …

Luhnow chats with season ticket holders  —  New general manager fields questions online  —  During a live web chat with Season Ticket Holders, Astros new General Manager Jeff Luhnow fielded questions about his goals for the 2012 season and beyond.  —  Jeff Luhnow: Hello everyone.

Oswalt Seeks One-Year Deal; Interest Picks Up  —  Roy Oswalt was looking for a three-year deal earlier in the offseason, but he has since told teams he only wants a one-year contract, according to ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick (all Twitter links).  The right-hander wants to prove that his back is healthy …

A Free Market Solution (from Europe) to the Labor Problems in North American Sports  —  The following is a guest post by David Berri, a Professor of Economics at Southern Utah University.  He is also the lead author of Stumbling on Wins, the general manager of the sports-economics blog Wages of Wins …

Phillies re-hire former GM Ed Wade  —  PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Phillies have hired former general manager Ed Wade as a special consultant.  —  Wade was a GM for parts of 13 seasons for the Phillies (1998-2005) and the Houston Astros (2001-11).  He was fired last month …

Today is David Wright's birthday  —  Today is David Wright's 29th birthday.  —  I am very much looking forward to watching Wright in 2012.  It's a big season for him in a lot of ways, and he has numerous incentives to have a strong year for both himself and the team.

Pirates Sign Jeff Clement  —  Here's where we'll keep track of today's minor moves...  - The Pirates announced that they have signed first baseman Jeff Clement to a minor league contract.  Clement, 28, posted a .201/.237/.368 line for the 2010 Pirates, but didn't appear in the Major Leagues in 2011.

Looking at Aoki/Braun scenarios  —  In a little over a week, the Brewers outfield has gone from a relatively — hell, perfectly — stable situation to a full-blown mess rife with question marks and uncertainty.  Ryan Braun's positive drug test and the winning bid for Norichika Aoki …