Yakult Swallows filed posting paperwork on outfielder Norichika Aoki on Monday morning (Japan time).

Source: http://twitter.com/#!/jonmorosi/status/146103267334688769

Could the 29 year old center fielder be the outfield help we need if slotted into right field?

Aoki is said to be the best pure hitter to be posted since Ichiro, boasting a career .336/..411/.472 BA/OBP/SLG slash. Defensively he won the Japanese equivalent to the Golden Glove from 2006-2010, in center field.

Personally, I was extremely impressed with him in the World Baseball classic. I'd love for us to bid on Aoki and see if we could sign him to a reasonable contract. However, as impressed as I was with him at the WBC, I wouldn't break the bank for a 29 year old contact hitting Japanese import.

The Boston Red Sox recently called the Brewers to inquire about the availability of outfielder Jim Edmonds, who still wasn't sure as of Friday afternoon whether he wanted to be traded to a contender.

Out of respect for Edmonds' career and his contributions to the Brewers this season, general manager Doug Melvin promised Edmonds that he would run a trade by the player before striking any deal. 
"I'm still thinking about all that's going on," Edmonds said. "I might have more later, maybe even later today. I'm kind of kicking it around: Should I or shouldn't I? If something comes up, what should I do?
"[Doug] basically told me that if he heard anything, he would come to me. That's what we talked about. There's been some rumors out there."
Edmonds worries about how his lingering right Achillies injury would affect a trade. He has started only one of the Brewers' last seven games. 
"I don't know if that would squash it," Edmonds said. "I don't know if it would even come up. There's a lot going on right now behind the scenes, and we'll know more as the day goes on. It will be interesting. [A trade] is still not beyond the question."

Curt Schilling's video game development company 38 Studios is about to release their first game published by EA.

Curt talking about the game (Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning) and his love of gaming:

The first information and trailer of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was revealed at Comic Con at a panel made up of Curt Schilling, the President & CEO of 38 Studios, R.A. Salvatore, Ken Rolston and Todd McFarlane. Curt started off by telling a couple of stories, describing himself as a hard-cord gamer. “I’d be looking at the time and thinking that if this inning ended by eleven, I’d be able to still get in the raid at 12:30,” he said, telling us that in his last three contracts before he retired from baseball, that he had high-speed internet access written in so he could play still play EverQuest while on the road.

The members of the panel reminded the audience that the trailer was directed by Todd McFarlane, and the passion every member had for the game being developed was clear to the audience. Curt knew who he wanted on his team and went forward to do it. He’d known Todd for over ten years, but he made a cold call to R.A. Salvatore and it turned out that both men were big fans of each other. They reminisced on how they spent the first fifteen minutes of their conversation saying to each other “Oh my God, I can’t believe it’s you!”

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 After watching 2 innings of work on march 17th agains't the Twins in which Tazawa retired 6 straight, Tazawa looks like a very promising future pitcher. Tazawa featured a nasty curve, a fastball that ranged from 91 - 93, and a split finger fastball.

 So what do we know about Tazawa?

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 How is he doing so far this spring?

                       W L  S   ERA  G GS IP    H   R   ER BB K
J Tazawa:      0 0  0  1.80    3  0  5.0    3   1      1    1  7

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 Stuff:

90-94 Mph Fastball that works inward on righties.

Low-mid-80s Slider.

75-78 Mph Curveball.

Above average Forkball.

 Style:

 He has excellent command, and likes to paint corners similar to Daisuke Matsuzaka, one of his idols. His delivery is somewhat unconventional, similar to Michael Bowden's.  His arm lags behind his shoulder and he has an abrupt whipping action down from his elbow as he releases the ball.  His follow through isn't all that smooth,  and some might say its almost non-existent.  However, his lower body has solid mechanics and stays balanced throughout his motion. 

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  How much, how long?

Tazawa's deal is a major league contract worth an estimated $3 million over three years, though Tazawa would not become a free agent at the end of the contract. By agreement between the player and team, Tazawa would become eligible for arbitration after he accrues three years of service time (as is the case with any player) and would not be eligible for free agency until he has six years of service (in this case, no earlier than the fall of 2014).

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Junichi Tazawa looks like he has a lot of potential, lets just hope that translates into success in the majors!

Do you think the presance of a guy like Smoltz in the club house will help young pitchers like Clay Buchholz, Michael Bowden, Justin Masterso? Even if Smoltz isn't able to bounce back from his surgery having him around the club house could be a true asset.

Buchholz said he was the most comfident he can remember being in his start agiasn't the Orioles, after a talk with Smoltz.

"I definitely felt good. It was the best outing I've had in a long time," said Buchholz. "I was talking to John Smoltz before the game and he was like, 'Hey, go out there and know what you want to do prior to even warming up and everything.' That's probably the most confident I've been."

Source, Bucholz talks about Smoltz Influence.

So what do you think, if Smoltz doesn't make a come back, will having him in the club house as more of a mentor to the younger pitcher be worth the 5.5 mil?

    Some love the world baseball classic and some hate it. Those on both sides of the coin cant deny it's a risk to ask players to give their all this early in spring. Lets hope the one player who would never be accused of giving anything less than his all isn't seriously hurt.

Team USA second baseman Dustin Pedroia has been scratched from tonight's game in Miami with a strained left oblique.

Whether and when he could return to the WBC is unknown.

He was scheduled to leave the stadium and head back to Fort Myers, where he will be examined by Red Sox team physicians tomorrow.

Mark DeRosa will replace him at second base tonight against Puerto Rico at 8 p.m.

"I was hitting extra yesterday and I felt some soreness," Pedroia said Saturday afternoon. "Maybe I pushed too hard, too fast.

"Today there was a shooting pain and that's the sign to stop. I have to do what the doctors say. I don't like listening to them, but I will."

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[Note by Randy Booth, 03/12/09 12:12 PM EDT ] This is a promoted FanPost, but I'd figure I'd give my two cents. Usually I don't like it when guys on the team just kind of spit stuff out like this, but it's Papelbon. He doesn't hold back his fastball, so why should he hold back feelings about an ex-teammate? It's obviously not the smartest thing to do, but he was being honest and he's not going to sugar coat anything. Plus, we all knew it anyway...

"It just takes one guy to bring an entire team down, and that's exactly what was happening," Papelbon reportedly told the magazine. "Once we saw that, we weren't afraid to get rid of him. It's like cancer. That's what he was. Cancer. He had to go. It [stunk], but that was the only scenario that was going to work. That was it for us."

"He was on a different train!" Papelbon reportedly said of Ramirez in Esquire. "And you saw what happened with that. We got rid of him, and we moved on without him. That comes from the manager, and it comes from guys like Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield and David Ortiz. Nobody is ever going to be allowed to do that."

"So Manny was tough for us," Papelbon reportedly added. "You have somebody like him, you know at any point in the ball game, he can dictate the outcome of the game. And for him not to be on the same page as the rest of the team was a killer, man!"

"And after, you could feel it in the air in the clubhouse, We got Jason Bay -- Johnny Ballgame, plays the game right, plays through broken knees, runs out every ground ball -- and it was like a breath of fresh air, man! Awesome! No question."

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Update, Papelbon was asked about the comments he made to Esquire.

FORT MYERS, Fla. - "I'm not going to sugarcoat anything, It takes 25 guys on a team to win, not 24, and that was blatantly obvious, It doesn't matter who you are - you could be Babe Ruth - if you're not in that same cubbyhole with the rest of the guys going to war with you, you're all going to die. That almost happened."

"It was bad enough to where we weren't winning games [with Ramírez]," Papelbon said, emphasizing he was not speaking for his teammates. "We weren't doing our job. When it comes down to that, we've got to find a cure. Jason Bay was our cure. It's that simple. We've got a team with one guy, we're not winning games. He leaves, a new guy comes in, and then we start winning games. That's pretty much putting the writing on the wall, if you ask me."

 

Yesterday Papelbon said it was not frustrating to see Ramírez succeed with the Dodgers. Fact was, Papelbon was excited when the trade came through.

"I was excited because I knew he didn't want to be there," Papelbon said. "I wasn't excited that he was leaving because I know how good of a player he can be when he wants to be a good player. If you don't want to be a good player, you're not going to be good. If you want to sit out games against certain pitchers or you want to sit out because you don't feel like [it] for whatever reason, I mean, you've got guys like [Dustin] Pedroia that are playing with a broken wrist and guys like Mikey [Lowell] that are trying to make it through hips that need surgery. You've got [Josh] Beckett with a bad back, everybody in the bullpen that's picking up extra innings that's breaking down. All kind of extra stuff that we're pushing through.

"When 25 or so guys are pushing through and one guy is not, that creates a problem. A problem was created and we weren't winning games, so we had to do something. It is what it is. Yeah, we lost a great player, but we started winning games. So what's more important?"

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