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Day 1 of Caribbean Series

Both of the Dominican teams won their first games in the Caribbean Series on Saturday. The Tigres de Licey beat Venezuela 6-4 behind the strong hitting of Ronnie Belliard. Belliard was 2-for-4 with a home run, driving in four runs.

The Dominican club got a solid start from Jose Capellan of the Colorado Rockies as he went five innings, allowing one run on four hits. Carlos Marmol of the Cubs recorded the final four outs of the game to record the save.

In the second game, the Aguilas del Cibao scored six runs in the first inning and two more in the second to jump out to an 8-2 lead over the over matched Mexico team. With a lineup stacked with major league talent, the Aguilas tallied a total of 13 runs on their way to a 13-6 victory.

The Aguilas lineup included established major leaguers in Rafael Furcal, Miguel Tejada and Edwin Encarnacion and also had players like Victor Diaz, Tony Pena Jr., and Brayan Pena to round out the lineup.

Later today, the Dominican teams will look to move to 2-0 in the Series as they switch opponents as the Tigres de Licey will battle Mexico with the Augilas del Cibao facing Venezuela.

Padres, Greene close on contract

Corey Brock of MLB.com is reporting that the San Diego Padres and Khalil Greene are close to signing a one or two year deal.  The Padres are wanting to get this done to avoid going to arbitration with Greene, but have already failed in attempts of working out a multi-year contract.  A two-year contract would take him up to his free agency years.

The Padres countered Greene’s  $4.9 million offer for arbitration with $4 million for 2008.  If they work out a deal, I’d suspect them to meet somewhere in the middle with Greene earning $4.5 million in 2008, or in the $10 million range for two years.

Santana passes physical

Marty Noble of MLB.com is reporting that Johan Santana passed his physical, clearing all hurdles in the way of completing the trade that would send Santana to the Mets.  After all the saga over whether or not the Mets will make the deadline, they’ve finally got their man.

Outfielder Carlos Gomez and three pitchers, Philip Humber, Deolis Guerra and Kevin Mulvey, all make their way to the Twins organization as part of the trade.

Freddy Sanchez close to a three-year deal

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting that the Pirates and Freddy Sanchez are closing in on a three-year deal.  The agreement would keep the two parties from going to arbitration and would buy out one year of Sanchez’s free agent years.  He’s currently slated to become a free agent after the 2009 season but this deal would lock him up through 2010.

If they meet in the middle of the arbitration figures for year one, he would be looking at $4.5 million for 2008.  With two years on the end of that, Sanchez is probably looking at a deal in the $17 million range.

Rauch, Nationals agree to deal, avoid arbitration

Jon Rauch and the Washington Nationals agreed to a two-year contract worth $3.2 million to avoid going to arbitration. The deal is broken down in a way that Rauch will earn $1.2 million in 2008 and $2 million in 2009. The deal also has a club option for $2.9 million in 2010. The option must be exercised within five days of the end of the 2008 World Series.

Rauch was asking for $1.4 million through arbitration, with the Nationals countering with $1.1 million.

The Caribbean Series starts today

The field this year is made up of two teams from the Dominican Republic, the Tigres de Licey and the Aguilas del Cibao, the Tigres de Aragua representing Venezuela and the Yaquis de Obregon representing Mexico.

The games start today at 3 PM ET and 8 PM ET. For any baseball fan out there missing out on baseball, XM Radio is going to broadcast the games live on channels 176 and 177.

Braves Notes from “Camp Roger”

On the first day of Roger McDowell’s voluntary workout at Turner Field, the Braves got some bad news in regards to Chuck James. James was diagnosed with a slight tear in his rotator cuff after the end of the 2007 season, which at the time was described as minor and James was told rest would cure the problem. During workouts on Friday, James felt some discomfort in his shoulder that has put his start to Spring Training in doubt.

Thoughts from David O’Brien of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution from Day 1 include:

• Tim Hudson appears to be in excellent physical condition and seems confident about the Braves chances in 2008, Santana in New York or not.
• Outfielders Jeff Francoeur and Brandon Jones have both come to camp noticeably bigger. Francoeur spent the off-season working out with a trainer looking to add upper-body strength.
• Tom Glavine feels good about going to Spring Training and is happy about being closer to his family, but gave no ill word about his time with the Mets or the city of New York.
• The Braves still aren’t sure how they’re going to use Brent Lillibridge. There is thought that he has the skills to be a super-utility player or an every day shortstop.

Mets, Feliciano avoid arbitration

With the Mets having nothing to worry about during the day, they took a break from the Santana talks to sign Pedro Feliciano to a one-year, $1.025 million deal to avoid arbitration. Feliciano asked for $1.2 million in arbitration while the Mets offered $880,000.

Combining this with the extension with Santana, the Mets made quite the haul on the first day of February 2008 adding two left handers to their pitching staff, one being their ace starter and the other being their ace reliever in front of Billy Wagner.

Santana, Mets agree to extenstion

UPDATE (2-1-08; 6:58 PM): Metsblog, along with XM Radio, is reporting that the deal is worth six years, $137.5 million. Rosenthal confirms the financial terms. It is believed that he will stay under his current contract for the 2008 season with an additional $7 million added on top of the original $13.25 million, taking the total package to $150.75 million over seven seasons. The yearly average, slightly north of $21.5 million, is the largest yearly salary ever given to a pitcher as part of a multi-year deal.

UPDATE (2-1-08; 6:40 PM): ESPN is currently reporting that the two parties have agreed on negotiations for a long-term contract. Financial terms haven’t been passed along.

UPDATE (2-1-08; 5:40 PM): Rosenthal’s latest on the situation places Santana in the meeting himself. They’re still wanting more dollars and an extra year. Heyman’s latest has quoted an executive of another team as saying, “I think they blew it.”

Matthew Cerrone of MetsBlog.com is saying that they are “negotiating what could end up being a seven-year deal in total, with an eighth-year option.”

UPDATE (2-1-08; 5:06 PM): We are now past the initial deadline for this negotiating deadline, however, WFAN is reporting that the Mets asked for and were granted a two hour extension. 7:00 PM is the new deadline. I would assume that with the extension it means that they didn’t agree to a deal before the 5:00 deadline, but were close enough to feel that with two more hours they could get it done.

UPDATE (2-1-08; 2:38 PM): Heyman is continuing to track the Santana situation, reporting now that the Mets are likely to give Santana a six-year extension for $22 million per year. He says the Mets may also add $7 million to Santana’s $13.25 million 2008 salary, taking the total package to $152 million over the next seven years.

UPDATE (2-1-08; 1:32 PM): Ken Rosenthal is saying that the sixth year is the hang-up in the extension talks. The Mets are offering $22 million per season for five years with vesting options to extend the deal. The contract will be added on to the end of his existing deal.

Santana’s agents are adamant about getting the sixth year, and maybe a seventh, of the deal in guaranteed form.

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Jon Heyman of SI.com is reporting that the Mets and Santana are still about $20 million apart in negotiating an extension, but states that “high-ranking baseball people” still feel the deal will get done. The Mets have until 5:00 P.M. today to get a deal worked out with Santana or their impending trade will go for naught.

It is believed that the Mets are wanting to stop in the range of $21 million per year, while the Santana camp is pushing for something closer to $26 million per year.

The Santana camp has to have all the negotiating power in the talks as it is nearly certain that he will get the amount that he wants on the open market following the season. The Mets, on the other hand, cannot possibly let this deal not get done.

While Santana has all the power, I would imagine the Mets will do whatever they have to do to get it done but will hold out to the last moment to do it hoping the Santana camp budges first. There’s just no way the Mets would be able to face their fanbase if they don’t get this deal done.