Team USA unveils an All-Star line-up for the 2006 World Baseball Classic, with a roster that includes slugger Barry Bonds and pitcher Roger Clemens. The team will not win the tournament despite the high hopes.
Dontrelle Willis (22-10, 2.63), signing a record-setting one-year deal with the Marlins, avoids arbitration by agreeing to a $4.35 million one-year deal which could be worth $4.55 million if certain performance-based incentives are reached. The All-Star southpaw’s deal surpasses those for Roy Halladay and Andy Pettitte, who both inked $3.8 million contracts, for the highest amount ever given to a starting pitcher in his first year of arbitration eligibility.
Jason Bay, Justin Morneau, Erik Bedard, Jeff Francis, Rhéal Cormier, Paul Quantrill, Matt Stairs and Corey Koskie are among 23 players named to Canada’s 30-man roster for the inaugural World Baseball Classic.
The Dodgers acquire All-Star relievers Danys Baez and Lance Carter from Tampa Bay for two pitching prospects.
The Los Angeles Angels agree to multiyear contracts with IF/OF Chone Figgins and OF Juan Rivera. The versatile Figgins gets a $10.5 million, three-year deal, and Rivera agrees to a $3,275,000, two-year contract.
The Dodgers, in an attempt to buy time as closer Eric Gagne recovers from elbow surgery, trade right-hander Edwin Jackson and prospect lefty Chuck Tiffany to the Devil Rays to obtain All-Star penmen Danys Baez and Lance Carter, as well as a minor league player to be named. Baez, who saved 41 games for Tampa Bay last season, will be the team’s closer until Gagne is ready to return.
Relief pitcher Luis Vizcaino and the Arizona Diamondbacks avoid arbitration by agreeing to a $1,775,000, one-year contract.
Davey Lopes joins the Washington Nationals as their new first base coach.
Dontrelle Willis, Mark Teixeira and Alfonso Soriano are among the 100 players who file for salary arbitration, the often acrimonious negotiating process that rankles baseball management every winter. Mark Prior, Josh Beckett, Brad Lidge, Adam Dunn, Morgan Ensberg, Brian Roberts, Travis Lee and Scot Shields are some of the other players who file before the deadline. Last year, players in arbitration averaged a 123 percent salary increase.
The much-anticipated trial to determine if Angels owner Arte Moreno violated a ten year-old contract with Anaheim, in which the city claims to have lost $100 million in tourism and merchandising revenue, when the franchise’s name changed from the Anaheim Angels to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, begins in California’s Orange County. Some of the people in the crowded courtroom wear Angel-colored red T-shirts imprinted with the words, “We Are Not L.A.” to show their displeasure with the Halos’ new identity.
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