Grinch Mark Sheldon: Ryan Freel's not walking through that door
In the latest Inbox, Mark Sheldon shoots down inquiries about the availability of Ryan Freel to play short and trades for Kevin Youkilis or JJ Hardy. More importantly, he writes that the 2010 savings from the Rolen restructuring will not result in a FA signing.

All is calm on the Fay front
Fay checks in to say not much is going on.  Gomes will likely test his value on the FA market.  Fay will report for jury duty in January.  

BtB: 2009 Catcher Block Percentage
I thought that Ryan Hanigan did a good job defensively last season, but at least by blocking pitches according to this study he was below average.  Ramon Hernandez checks in at slightly above average.   Scrabbles' heart might skip a beat when he sees who's at the top of the list.  There could be a bias against the Reds catchers here based on the pitching, but I didn't read through the methodology.  Still got presents to wrap.

Baseball Prospectus looks at the Hall of Fame Cases at Third and Short
No surprise that Jay Jaffe finds that Barry Larkin is more than worthy of the Hall.  The rest of the article describes in detail the careers and cases for other candidates at short and third.  I had forgotten that Edgar Martinez played several seasons at third before shifting to the DH. Not sure how much that helps his candidacy, though. I doubt many writers gave Tony Perez a significant bump for his time at the hot corner.

Look out Marty - Dunn's learing jiu jitsu 
Adam Dunn is looking to improve his agility and defensive abilities at 1B with an unorthodox offseason training regime.  Even if it doesn't work out, he'll be able to kick that much more ass.

Angels give Fernando Rodney a 2-year, 11M deal 
With another big market team signing a reliever, the chances of moving Francisco Cordero this winter just got a little slimmer. Not that there was much hope to begin with.

Help Will Carroll write his next book. 
He's looking for at least 100 good questions about injuries.   But you can't ask him about the efficacy of Dr. Kremchek's poking stick, because I already did.