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 …

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 …

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.

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 …

The Atlanta Braves Are in a Legal Dispute With Disney Pixar Over Brave For Obvious Reason  —  In one of the biggest cases of “pick your battles,” the owners of the Atlanta Braves baseball team are reportedly “in negotiations” with Disney Pixar over the title of their next big release, Brave.