I hope everyone had a happy holiday. There isn't a whole lot of news today since obviously there isn't a whole lot of baseball news on Thanksgiving. In fact, MLB seemed to slip into a food coma some time mid-afternoon on Wednesday.
Theo Epstein checked. No free agents are having a "Black Friday" sale today.
- The big news was that Cuban slugger Yasmany Tomas picked a team, and it's the Diamondbacks who swept in at a late hour and signed him for six years and $68.5 million.
- Jerry Crasnick profiles Tomas and talks the three scouts. The one word scouting report is "power."
- Cliff Corcoran thinks Tomas is a good signing for the Diamondbacks, but that expectations need to be dialed down. Corcoran thinks Tomas is more Mark Trumbo than Paul Goldschmidt.
- David Schoenfield thinks the signing means the Snakes are going to trade Trumbo.
- Some minor deals got made. The Royals acquired infielder Ryan Jackson from the Dodgers for this "cash considerations" guy who seems to be everywhere.
- The Rays signed reliever Ernesto Frieri and designated infielder Sean Rodriguez for assignment.
- The Padres and Dodgers have discussed sending Matt Kemp down to San Diego. However, the two sides are not close to an agreement at this time.
- The Giants tried very hard to re-sign Pablo Sandoval. They matched the Red Sox offer and said they would go even higher if necessary. But Panda wanted a change of scenery.
- Ken Rosenthal discusses what's next for the Giants and Dodgers. (video)
- Sam Miller warns us not to read too much into what the Red Sox have done so far this offseason. They had the money and Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez were available.
- Richard Justice feels that the Yankees must respond to the Red Sox moves.
- The Yankees did talk to the Phillies about Jimmy Rollins, but the Phillies wanted too much. (Surprise, surprise.)
- Grant Brisbee says that while it may not be worth it to the Yankees to give up a lot for an aging Rollins, it's not worth it for the Phillies to give him up for anything short of a top prospect.
- Rich Dubroff says the Orioles have an advantage over their richer division rivals: they have better players on their team right now.
- The Kia Tigers of KBO have rejected the winning bid for pitcher Hyeon-jong Yang. So he'll stay in Korea another season.
- David Schoenfield looks at the upside and the downside of signing Ervin Santana.
- Aaron Gleeman asks an interesting question. How many teams would be willing to "wipe the slate clean?" By that he means dumping every player on the team with a guaranteed contract or arb eligible, keeping only pre-arb players.
- Jon Paul Morosi says there is a real possibility of the Rays ending up in Montreal after 2018. This time, there is money and support in Montreal and Bell Media just lost the rights to the NHL.
- Rob Neyer writes that there is some evidence in the data that Brad Ausmus was one of the all-time great pitch framers. Him and Jose Molina, who just got released by the Rays.
- This isn't even a baseball story, but it could have been and it's a slow news day. Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes died after being struck in the neck with a pitched ball. He was wearing a helmet but just like baseball helmets, cricket helmets don't protect the neck. This could have just as easily happened in MLB.
- Rangers prospect Ronald Guzman was driving an SUV in the Dominican Republic that struck and killed a motorcyclist.
- Finally, I bet a lot of you spent yesterday watching football. I know I did, but it was the kind from Europe where you can't use your hands. But back in 1870, fans went out to watch baseball on Thanksgiving instead of football. Sure, football as we know it hadn't been invented yet, but people back in those days knew how to celebrated the holiday right.
And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.