Even though it never appeared that the Boston Red Sox were really ever in the A.J. Burnett sweepstakes, they may not have had a chance due to some remarks to him from New York Yankees OF Johnny Damon.

“They had some banter back and forth and developed a relationship,” the official said of Burnett and Damon. “It’s over the last couple of years, just chatting.

“Johnny talked to A.J. about New York, the differences between New York and Boston, how he views it. Johnny couldn’t be happier here and he communicated those thoughts to A.J. I know at one point he told A.J. about dealing with New York and told him, ‘Be accountable. If you’re accountable, you’ll be fine. Don’t fear the media unless you give them a reason.’

“I know on a couple of occasions, Johnny said to him, ‘You don’t have anything to worry about.'”

If you remember back to 2005, Damon spurned the Red Sox for the riches of New York so it’s no surprise that Damon would tell Burnett to come to New York.

For the record Johnny, you haven’t won a playoff series in New York. And by the way, the Red Sox won another World Series title in 2007. So as Fitzy would say, GFY.

There had been a rumor out there that free agent Mark Teixeira would be attending the Baltimore Ravens vs Pittsburgh Steelers game this afternoon and sitting in Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos’ luxury box.  However, the rumor turned out to be false.

An Orioles official insists that Mark Teixeira will not be attending today’s Ravens game as a guest of owner Peter Angelos.

I’m told there’s no physical scheduled for tomorrow – which I assumed all along. You need to have an agreement in place before taking that step. You don’t make the guy turn and cough while going back and forth on contract terms. And the Orioles might not require that Teixeira take one anyway. Or he might have taken one earlier and has the results in hand. Or he’ll do it if there’s an actual agreement. But from what I’ve heard, he’s not taking one tomorrow.

Boston Red Sox fans can now breathe a little bit easier.

to Anthony at the Oriole Post.

Where will Mark Teixiera end up?

We all know the Boston Red Sox would love to sign Mark Teixeira to a contract. What we don’t know is how long or the amount of the contract that they offered him during the recent Baseball Winter Meetings in Las Vegas.

We do know that the Baltimore Orioles have an offer of 7 years, $140-150 million and the Washington Nationals have an offer of 8 years, $160-180 million on the table. It’s not known if the New York Yankees have made him an offer but they do remain interested.

Last night, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim GM Tony Reagins confirmed that they have offered Teixeira an 8 year contract but he didn’t specify the dollar amount. It is believed to at least match the Nationals offer.

“It was made during our conversations [with agent Scott Boras] at the Winter Meetings,” Reagins told MLB.com, having returned home to Southern California from Las Vegas. “We have a proposal in place for eight years. The specific dollar amount, I won’t get into that.”

The Angels already lost one of their backup plans when Raul Ibanez signed a 3-year deal with the Philadelphia Phillies yesterday and it seems as though they’ve pinned their hopes on re-signing Teixeira.

We know that Teixeira has said he wants to sign his contract by Christmas so it’s only a matter of time before we learn where Teixeira is playing next season. Of course, I hope he’ll be wearing a Red Sox uniform.

Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com is reporting that the New York Yankees and free agent pitcher A.J. Burnett have reached a preliminary agreement on a 5-year, $82.5 million contract.

While Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and Burnett’s agent, Darek Braunecker are still negotiating final contract terms, the deal is expected to be complete once Burnett passes a physical exam, the source said.

When the signing of Burnett is official, the Yankees will have spent $243.5 million on two pitchers to help their beleaguered rotation out. Right now, without any more signings the Yankees rotation will be Sabathia, Burnett, Chien-Mien Wang, Joba Chamberlain and Ian Kennedy/Phillip Hughes.

This one scares me a little bit because I was hoping Burnett would land in Atlanta. He has owned the Boston Red Sox in his career going 5-0 in 8 starts with a 2.56 ERA.

Julio Lugo and Eric Byrnes could be swapping cities.

UPDATE: Apparently this is not a done deal now. Or is it?

After a disappointing 2008 season for Melky Cabrera, the New York Yankees have shipped him off to the Milwaukee Brewers for veteran center fielder Mike Cameron.

The Melk-man hit .249 with 8 home runs and 37 RBIs in 129 games for the Yankees in 2008 while Cameron hit .243 with 25 home runs and 70 RBIs in 120 games.

Cameron also just happens to be a good friend of C.C. Sabathia who the Yankees signed to a mega-deal yesterday.

Cameron has one year left on his contract that will pay him $10 million in 2009. With top prospect Austin Jackson a year away, Cameron will likely be a 1 year stop-gap in center field for the Yankees.

This will be Cameron’s second tour of duty for a New York team. He spent the 2004 and 2005 seasons across town in a New York Mets uniform.

It turns out the New York Mets are really serious about upgrading their bullpen after choking away the past two seasons.

The Mets acquired J.J. Putz from the Seattle Mariners in trade that also involves the Cleveland Indians. Here’s how the trade breaks down for each of the 3 teams.

Mets get:

• pitcher J.J. Putz and reliever Sean Green from the Mariners
• Jeremy Reed from the Indians

Mariners get:

• pitcher Aaron Heilman, outfielder Endy Chavez, first baseman Mike Carp and minor leaguers Maikel Cleto, Ezequiel Carrera, Jason Vargas from the Mets
• outfielder Franklin Gutierrez from the Indians.

Indians get:

• second baseman Luis Valbuena from the Mariners
• pitcher Joe Smith from the Mets

This is a good trade for both the Mets and Mariners. I’m not so sure about the Indians part of the deal though.

Boston Red Sox fans get ready for a big taste of C.C. Sabathia as he has finally decided to sign with the New York Yankees for 7 years, $160 million.

About a month ago, the Yankees had offered Sabathia 6 years, $140 million but Sabathia really wanted to pitch in California. But after 3 days of face-to-face meetings with Brian Cashman, Sabathia finally decided to sign to wear pinstripes for the next 7 years of his life.

It also appears that the Yankees are on the verge of signing former Red Sox and Dodger pitcher Derek Lowe to a 4 year, $66 million deal as well. We can probably exact to see the chips start to fall into place for a lot of the big ticket free agents now that Sabathia has signed his deal.

Mike McDermott of the Providence Journal takes a look at Sabathia’s playoff history and says it’s not pretty.

How does the trade of Gerald Laird affect the plans of the Red Sox?

Looking to solve their catching problems, the Detroit Tigers have acquired Gerald Laird from the Texas Rangers for pitching prospect Guillermo Moscoso and another prospect.

The Boston Red Sox had been looking into a trade with the Rangers for either Laird, Taylor Teagarden, Max Ramirez or Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Now with Laird off the table and Varitek declining arbitration, the Red Sox will have to find someone to be their starting catcher next year. It’s doubtful the Rangers would consider trading any of the other 3 catchers.

The list of free agent catchers doesn’t actually scream at you meaning the Red Sox could look around to other teams for catching help or hope that Scott Boras doesn’t hold them for ransom and they can re-sign Varitek.

The catching help from other teams that is available to the Red Sox are the following players:

Jeff Mathis, Mike Napoli, Brian Schneider, Miguel Montero, John Buck, Ramon Hernandez, Bengie Molina, Carlos Santana, Kelly Shoppach, Victor Martinez, Jesus Flores, Kenji Johjima, Jeff Clement, Yorvit Torrealba.

Out of that group, I could see the Red Sox possibly going after their former catching prospect in Kelly Shoppach, who proved while Victor Martinez was out this year that he could handle the everyday duties behind the plate.

I’m going to do something that most fans of the Boston Red Sox would never do.  I’m going to wax poetic about the career of New York Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina who announced his retirement today after 18 seasons.

Mussina pitched the last 8 years in New York and his first ten seasons in Baltimore after graduating from Stanford.  He becomes the first pitcher to retire after a 20-win season since Sandy Koufax retired in 1967 after winning 20 games for the Los Angeles Dodgers.  It was the only 20 win season of Mussina’s fine career in which he won double digit games in all but his first season. 

Mussina, born in the cradle of Little League Baseball, Williamsport, PA, grew up and still lives in Montoursville, PA and serves on the Little League World Series Board of Directors.  From there he went on to Stanford where was drafted in the first round (20th overall) by Baltimore in the 1990 Draft. Mussina made his major league debut on August 4, 1991 against the White Sox in Chicago and lost 1-0 to Charlie Hough. He finished up the year for a bad Orioles team at 4-5 in 12 starts. 

He spent the next nine full seasons as the back bone of the Orioles staff going 122-81 in his ten seasons in Baltimore before leaving after the 2000 season as a free agent signing with the Yankees for 6 years and $87 million.

In his 8 seasons in New York, Mussina won another 148 games topping it with the 20 wins in his final year but was never able to win a World Series ring. 

Mussina finishes his career an amazing 117 games above .500 at 270-153 with a career ERA of 3.68 and a WHIP of 1.19.  He averaged 17 wins a season against 9 losses over his career and was 7-8 in the post season.  Mussina made five all-star teams and started the game twice, he earned 7 Gold Gloves, led the league once in wins and was one out away from a perfect game at Fenway Park in 2001.

In my book, Mike Mussina is a Hall of Fame pitcher. Every pitcher with a +100 in the won/loss column who is eligible is in the Hall of Fame and Mussina should be there too. He was an outstanding pitcher, a great competitor, you never heard his teammates bitch about him and he was never in the news for doing anything stupid.

Regardless of what uniform the man wore I tip my hat to him and a great career.