Jeff Fletcher

Well I think 4 is more likely. And if it's 3 it's probably a higher AAV. Vargas got 4 years but the AAV is only $8M

FYI, if any team was going to give Garza 5/75 he'd have signed already. I now believe he's looking at more like 3-4 years and 14ish per year, so 3/42 to 4/56. If he gets 3 it's likely got an option.

Apparently Tanaka's agent said he didn't want anything leaked. Usually it's the agents that leak the offers, not the teams, so if the agent doesn't want it out, it's not getting out. My guess is at this point 90 percent of the work has been done in terms of Tanaka getting across what he wants and teams saying what they are willing to pay. So at this point it's just Tanaka deciding or going back for a last little sweetener to get him to one team or the other.

This report about the Angels being a finalist comes from the Japanese media that also reported 10 different times that Tanaka was not going to be posted/was going to be posted, when nothing had been decided. I'm not saying the Angels can't sign him, but I'm highly skeptical that he's really eliminated teams already. Also, the Yankees are about the same amount under the CBT as the Angels. The difference is their tax is 50 pct and the Angels would be 17.5.

That is not what they did with Hamilton. They were signing him no matter what. And I'm sure the reason he's still out there is that teams have done just that. I can't believe there's really negotiating and counter offering going on for the past month. I assume teams have put their offers out there and he's put what he wants out there and it's a big game of chicken.

My point was that I'm sure Garza is aware his value could go up after Tanaka is gone so he may not want to sign now unless you want to overpay now.

I actually I wouldn't have voted for Biggio under any circumstances. I didn't vote for him last year when I had 3 empty spots. I have nothing bad to say about the guy, but to me his case is based more on longevity than dominance, and I prefer the latter. Nothing wrong with being in the top 2 percent of players in major league history instead of the top 1 percent.

I hope Matt Garza doesn't read this board!

And one more point... The Hall of Fame decides who votes and what the criteria are. Not the BBWAA. We are doing this because they ask us to. If they wanted anyone else to vote, they could have invited them at any point in the last 75 years.

What bugs me is the constant focus on the few outliers. There were 571 voters and people are griping about 5 or 6 of them. My guesstimate... 70 percent do an awesome job and put a lot of thought into it 25 percent are old timers who go too much by the "eye" and "feel" tests for my tastes but still mostly produce thoughtful ballots 5 percent have no business voting There are plenty of ways you could tweak it and make it better but I don't think any of them will change the end result of who gets in the HOF because the biggest issue in that respect now is PEDs, and that will be divisive no matter who votes.

Johan Santana. Worth a look. Maybe didn't do it long enough. But a great career.

I got it from Dipoto. That being said. I don't know if John's tweet was after mine, but it's possible they had nothing scheduled when I asked Dipoto and had something scheduled later. That's why I couched mine that I expected the Angels to be involved regardless of whether anything had officially been scheduled at the time of my tweet.

I think the 75 percent rule is sufficient to limit too many people getting in.

I'm all for including lots of other people in the decision so they can share some of the ridicule. There will be questionable decisions by any group. Period.

I don't think there's any reason to have a limit of 10. I wanted to vote for 12. Those two lost votes could have made a difference to the outcome. In fact some people's lost votes would have gone to Craig Biggio. He only needed 2.

Mussina and Glavine are pretty much identical but Glavine decided to pitch 2 more years, which increased his wins and his ERA. Still the 2 Cy youngs and the fact he did get those 300 wins is why I picked Glavine over mussina for my ballot.

Mussina was No 11 on my list. I would have voted for him if I could have. I think he and Kent were most likely the most common No 11s I hope they change it because right now I'm looking at 11 next year too. I only lost 3 this year and next year would add Pedro, Johnson and Smoltz.

FYI, mine.... Bagwell Bonds Clemens Glavine Kent Maddux Piazza Raines Schilling Thomas If anyone happens to subscribe to the OCR... http://t.co/ovfTtxojra And you guys are going to have to stop with any sentence that makes any kind of generalization about what "the writers" think, because apparently you guys think the same way.

News flash: Jack Morris was a douche too. And having covered Barry Bonds for 8 years, he was not as bad as the stories, to the media or his teammates. As for saying Morris did not pitch in the steroid era, I think it's using semantics to claim he did. Did players use steroids while he was pitching? Of course. But the vast majority of his career was before use became rampant, as the offensive numbers show.

The "system is broken" because Greg Maddux gets 99 percent of the votes instead of 100 percent? I disagree that getting 100 percent would be anything historic in terms of being memorable. Ask 100 fans at a game who holds the record for highest vote total. Does having the highest vote total make you the best player? All that matters is whether you get in. What about this? 30 percent of fans wouldn't vote for Maddux.... http://m.espn.go.com/general/blogs/blogpost?blogname=sweetspot&id=42689&src=desktop There is nothing black and white about this. It's an opinion. You can disagree with an opinion, and I disagree with a lot of them (including Ken's), but they aren't wrong. If Ken wants to eliminate everyone from the steroid era, that's his right. It's more logical in some ways than attempting to draw some crazy gerrymandered line through the era. Finally, I'm interested to see this group has about the same view of the steroid era as the writers.

Some of you guys need to relax. I disagree with Ken's ballot but I know and respect him and know he put a lot of thought into it. It doesn't mean he shouldn't vote and it certainly doesn't mean the system is broken if Greg Maddux gets 99 percent of the votes instead of 100 percent.

Ummm ok

There are no shortage of innings to be pitched in spring training. Hes not taking anything from anyone.

Here are the scenarios in order of likelihood..... 1. Blanton gets released at the end of spring training (50 percent) 2. Blanton gets traded sometime in spring training, with the Angels eating all but about $1M of his salary (45 percent) 3. Someone gets hurt and Blanton ends up on the team (5 percent) Personally I wouldn't be shocked if he has a good spring because he said at the end of the year he figured out what the problem was and he planned to throw a lot over the winter to maintain it. as lousy as he was, he's got a track record of a lot of years in the big leagues of being an average starter. Last year was a fluke. Some team will realize they can get a major league no 5 starter for $1 million and will take him.

Vernon Wells. Had a great spring. Curtis Granderson got hurt. Bingo. Angels saved $13 million bucks.