The Big Hurt is coming to Toronto.

Update: The reliable Jeff Blair writes that it's a two year deal for $18 million with a vesting option for a third year based on plate appearances that could push the total value to $30 million. (thanks to KevinJaysFan for linking that)

Update 2: The contract is for $10 million in year 1, $8 million in year 2, and $10 million in year three if Thomas reaches an unknown threshold of plate appearances.

Update 3:  The signing is official now.

Some AL East moves:

The Yankees traded Gary Sheffield to the Tigers for three minor leaguers, including highly touted Humberto Sanchez.

Not to be outdone, the Red Sox, according to Buster Olney, are going to be the winners of the Daisuke Matsuzaka sweepstakes with a bid of 'between $38 and $45 million.

No, that's not a 20-year-old headline about former Jay Jesse ... the Padres have traded Jesse's kid, Josh to the Indians for Class AAA prospects Kevin Kouzmanoff, a 3B "uber-prospect," and and RHRP Andrew Brown.

The rarest of baseball trades -- young talent for young talent in a "challenge" deal of sorts.

Thoughts?

Fans have the opportunity to vote for the ten finalists for the Ford C. Frick award for baseball broadcasters.  Many Bauxites voted many times for Tom Cheek last year, and we have the opportunity to do so again this year.  You can link to the ballot here.

According to bluejays.com, the Jays have declined Bengie Molina's seven and a half million dollar option for next season and bought him out for half a million dollars.

Gregg Zaun filed for free agency two days ago as well -- the team has an exclusive window to negotiate with its free agents until November 12th, after which they're fair game, however there's no deadline for a player to re-sign with their former team.


Will the Jays end up with an entirely new catching crew for next year?

And who's out there to be had this off-season?

The Elias Sports Bureau player rankings for 2006 have been released. These rankings used to determine the compensation that will be awarded to a team who loses a player through free agency.

I'll admit that I was rooting for the Tigers, but there are not really any sour grapes involved here -- I found the World Series between Detroit and St. Louis to be downright boring.

There will be no labour dispute this time around as the owners and players agreed to a 5 year deal.  The deal essentially continues the status quo, with a few minor changes. Elements of the deal include:

1.   no contraction during the life of the deal,
2.   thresholds for the competitive balance tax were raised significantly,
3.   there will be compensation for clubs that fail to sign a first or second round pick, and
4.   free agent compensation was reduced in a number of ways- no type C free agents; the compensation for type B free agents is changed to a sandwich pick only, and fewer type A and type B free agents by tightening the performance criteria.

Thanks to scms for pointing out the breaking news -- the A's have fired Ken Macha.

Tough gig! Four seasons, two first place finishes, two second place finishes, finally got past the first round ... hit the road, sir!

According to reports I've been hearing on the FAN, the plane that hit an apartment building today in New York City was registered to ex-Jay and current Yankee Cory Lidle.

There has been a report that Lidle was the pilot of the plane. I'm going to look for links now, and will add them to the body of the article as I find them. Please contribute links to anything you can find out about this breaking story.