Sure there are about five weeks left in the 2010 MLB All-Star Game voting but right now if Red Sox Nation wants to see any of it’s players in the starting lineup, we’re going to have get voting.

With the first ballot totals released on Monday afternoon, the only Boston Red Sox player that is even close to the top of the voting is second baseman Dustin Pedroia, who trails Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano by about a 112,000 votes. Heck if it wasn’t for Evan Longoria of the Rays, the entire Yankees infield would the starters as of right now.

Right now, Kevin Youkilis is 5th in the voting at first base, Adrian Beltre is 4th in voting at third base, Victor Martinez is 3rd in the voting at catcher and David Ortiz is 5th in the voting at the DH spot. None of the Red Sox three outfielders on the ballot are in the top 15.

So fans of Red Sox Nation, it’s time to vote Red Sox across the 2010 MLB All-Star Game Ballot.

A full look at the voting totals after the jump.

Here’s the voting totals as of May 24, 2010:

Guys are you stuck on an idea for Valentine’s Day? Ladies does your man like sausages? Is your significant other a Brewers fan? If they are, you just might be in luck for a real one of a kind gift.

MLB Auctions is actually auctioning off Milwaukee’s Racing Sausages.

That’s right, said tubular mounds of meat could be headed your way to deliver your special gift of love to your Valentine. In addition to the five sausages, well actually dudes dressed like sausages, you get two club level seats to a Brewers-Pirates game in April AND a special Miller Park scoreboard message for your sweetie.

The only hitch is you need to be within 45 miles of Milwaukee in mid-February. Hey there’s always a catch right?

The actual value is listed at $850.00 (damn how expensive are those club seats in April? Is that a “premium” game?) with bids starting at $300.00. You can get in on it by visiting brewers.com.

Here’s the statement made to the AP by former St. Louis Cardinals stud and current hitting coach Mark McGwire in which he admits using steroids, including during his record breaking 1998 season.

“Now that I have become the hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, I have the chance to do something that I wish I was able to do five years ago.

I never knew when, but I always knew this day would come. It’s time for me to talk about the past and to confirm what people have suspected. I used steroids during my playing career and I apologize. I remember trying steroids very briefly in the 1989/1990 off season and then after I was injured in 1993, I used steroids again. I used them on occasion throughout the ’90s, including during the 1998 season.

I wish I had never touched steroids. It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era.

During the mid-’90s, I went on the DL seven times and missed 228 games over five years. I experienced a lot of injuries, including a ribcage strain, a torn left heel muscle, a stress fracture of the left heel, and a torn right heel muscle. It was definitely a miserable bunch of years and I told myself that steroids could help me recover faster. I thought they would help me heal and prevent injuries, too.

I’m sure people will wonder if I could have hit all those home runs had I never taken steroids. I had good years when I didn’t take any and I had bad years when I didn’t take any. I had good years when I took steroids and I had bad years when I took steroids. But no matter what, I shouldn’t have done it and for that I’m truly sorry.

Baseball is really different now — it’s been cleaned up. The commissioner and the players’ association implemented testing and they cracked down, and I’m glad they did.

I’m grateful to the Cardinals for bringing me back to baseball. I want to say thank you to Cardinals owner Mr. DeWitt, to my GM, John Mozeliak, and to my manager, Tony La Russa. I can’t wait to put the uniform on again and to be back on the field in front of the great fans in Saint Louis. I’ve always appreciated their support and I intend to earn it again, this time as hitting coach. I’m going to pour myself into this job and do everything I can to help the Cardinals hitters become the best players for years to come.

After all this time, I want to come clean. I was not in a position to do that five years ago in my congressional testimony, but now I feel an obligation to discuss this and to answer questions about it. I’ll do that, and then I just want to help my team.”

It’s scary to think back to this because it was McGwire and Sammy Sosa who put baseball back on the map in 1998 due to the fallout from the 1995 strike. And now of course it’s tainted. But then again that whole era was.

Yes the Cincinnati Reds are the winner of the prized Cuban free agent lefty Aroldis Chapman sweepstakes. A small market team and not a big market team like the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees didn’t acquire him.

Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports first reported the Reds had agreed to a 6 year, $30 million deal with Chapman. It was later confirmed by many media sources and on Monday afternoon, the Reds made it official.

According to John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer, the deal is heavily backloaded with Chapman receiving just $1 million as his salary in 2010. The whole deal is spread out over a 10 year period and won’t tax the Reds budget until 2014.

Chapman will wear No. 54 and Walt Jocketty, the Reds GM, wasn’t sure if Chapman would start the season with the Reds. He explained the Reds involvement during the negotiations.

Jocketty  said the team really got involved in a significant way to sign Chapman just before Christmas. The Reds stayed in touch the whole time and negotiations really started heating up over the last 4 to 5 days.

“You have to make bold moves from time to time,” Jocketty said.

The Red Sox were involved early on in the process having made a $15.5 million offer to Chapman. But according to Alex Speier of WEEI.com, the Red Sox pulled the offer when Chapman switched agents.

On the baseball side of things, it’s good to see a small market team get involved and take a chance. Now if more of those small market teams took a risk like this, we might not see as much parity in baseball like we do now.

The Baseball Writers Association of America has spoken and decided to elect Andre “The Hawk” Dawson was the only player elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Dawson spent eleven years with the Montreal Expos, six with the Chicago Cubs, two with the Boston Red Sox and spent his final two seasons with the Florida Marlins. He hit 438 home runs and had 1,591 RBIs in his career.

He received 420 of 539 votes (77.9%) to gain election. Bert Blyleven fell just five votes short (400) and first timer Roberto Alomar fell eight votes short (397). Alomar’s total was the highest by a first year player not to gain admission to the Hall.

This was the 13th year that Blyleven fell short but he and both Alomar will probably get elected in 2011 as no one who’s received over 70% of the vote hasn’t been elected the following year.

The following players didn’t receive at least 5% of the vote and will be removed from the ballot:

Andres Galarraga, Robin Ventura, Ellis Burks, Eric Karros, Kevin Appier, Pat Hentgen and David Segui. Mike Jackson, Ray Lankford, Shane Reynolds and Todd Zeile.

Voting totals after the jump.

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According to Peter Gammons of the MLB Network via Twitter, the Boston Red Sox and Seattle Mariners free agent third baseman Adrian Beltre have reached a preliminary agreement on a 1 year, $9 million deal with a player option for $5 million in 2011.

Gammons states that Beltre will take a physical before the deal is formally announced.

Obviously the Red Sox will now try to move their current third baseman Mike Lowell, who is recovering from thumb surgery, during spring training once he’s healthy. He is expected to be ready around the start of spring training.

Beltre put up a career year in 2004 with the Los Angeles Dodgers. That year he hit .324 with 48 home runs and 121 RBIs with seven stolen bases. That season landed him a 5 year, $64 million deal with the Mariners.

His best season in Seattle came in 2007 when he hit .267 with 26 home runs, 99 RBIs and 14 stolen bases. He hit .265 with 8 home runs, 44 RBIs and 13 stolen bases in 2009.

He also won two Gold Gloves at third base with the Mariners in 2008 and 2009.

In 16 career games at Fenway Park, Beltre is hitting .179 with no home runs and four RBIS.

Remember folks, the Red Sox will probably have to eat at least $9 million of Lowell’s salary so the third base position will probably cost them $18 million in 2010.

It looks like Mike Lowell will be a member of the Boston Red Sox in 2010.  The question is whether or not he still fits into the plans of general manager Theo Epstein.

According to Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe and Rob Bradford of WEEI.com, Lowell has a torn ligament in his thumb and will need surgery.

Bradford tweets that Lowell has a torn radial collateral ligament in his thumb and will have a recovery period of 6-8 weeks after surgery. So if he has surgery now, he’d be ready to go just after the start of spring training.

It will be interesting to see how the Red Sox proceed from here.

Earlier on Wednesday morning, there were reports that the Boston Red Sox were stepping up their efforts to acquire first baseman Adrian Gonzalez from their old pal Jed Hoyer, GM of the San Diego Padres.

Of course this all came about after the Red Sox signed free agents Mike Cameron and John Lackey.

First up is this from Bill Center of the San Diego Union-Tribune:

At the moment, the Padres and Red Sox are not talking. And Hoyer’s last discussion with Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein last week at the Winter Meetings in Indianapolis did not involve Gonzalez.

But there is speculation in Boston that the Red Sox might try to reopen talks about Gonzalez, who is contracted to the Padres through the end of 2011.

Are the Red Sox desperate enough to make Hoyer a deal he can’t refuse – even if he might be hesitant to have his first major move as the Padres’ general manager a trade that sent the Padres’ most productive and popular player to his former team?

And this from FOXSports.com:

A deal is not close, and might not happen at all, sources said. Jed Hoyer, the Padres’ new general manager — and Red Sox’s former assistant GM — wants a high price for Gonzalez, whose contract is one of the biggest bargains in baseball.

“Jed has been asking for a ton,” one source said.

The Padres would be tempted to move Gonzalez if they could get Buchholz and Ellsbury in the same deal, sources say. However, the Red Sox would be very reluctant to include both, according to another source.

And of course Gordon Edes of ESPN Boston debunked those rumors via his Twitter page on Wednesday afternoon.

Take a deep breath, Boston fans. Adrian Gonzalez won’t be walking through the door anytime soon. Nothing going on on that front.

Red Sox know what it would take to get Gonzalez, and they’re not trading Buchholz and Ellsbury, baseball source tells me. SD asking a ton.

So would you include Ellsbury in a trade for Gonzalez? Conventional wisdom says no but if I’d think about it.

It would be hard to replace what Ellsbury brings to the Red Sox (defense, stolen bases) but when you can get player of the caliber of Gonzalez, you really have to consider it. Buchholz in all of this is a no-brainer.

But if you can make the trade with Buchholz and a few prospects, I think the Red Sox would be better off in the long run.

It’s hard to replace what Ellsbury does for them.

Hoyer will most likely end up trading Gonzalez if the deal is right but why not now while his value is at it’s highest.

Roy Halladay will get a chance to pitch in Toronto in 2010. It just won’t be as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Blue Jays, Philadelphia Phillies and Seattle Mariners finally completed a three team trade on Wednesday that sends Halladay to the Phillies and pitcher Cliff Lee from the Phillies to the Mariners along with a few prospects heading to the Blue Jays.

Here’s how the whole trade breaks down:

Phillies get:

• RHP Roy Halladay (from Toronto)
• RHP Phillippe Aumont (from Seattle)
• OF Tyson Gillies (from Seattle)
• RHP Juan Ramirez (from Seattle)
• $6 million cash (from Toronto)

Mariners get:

• LHP Cliff Lee (from Philadelphia)

Blue Jays get:

• C Travis d’Arnaud (from Philadelphia)
• RHP Kyle Drabek (from Philadelphia)
• OF Michael Taylor (from Philadelphia)

The Blue Jays then flipped Taylor to the Oakland A’s for 1B/3B Brett Wallace.

Halladay waived his no trade clause to go to Philadelphia and also agreed to a 3 year, $60 million contract extension.

In 12 years with the Blue Jays, Halladay was 148-76 with a 3.73 ERA in 313 games (287 starts). In those 287 starts, Halladay has 48 complete games and 15 shutouts.

If the Phillies rotation works out, Halladay will get a chance to pitch at Rogers Centre in Toronto when the Phillies visit there from June 25-27, 2010.

Earlier on Monday we had various media reports that  Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim free agent pitcher John Lackey was in Boston to take a physical with the Red Sox.

Now later on Monday afternoon, it is being reported by SI.com and ESPN.com that the Red Sox and Lackey have agreed to a 5 year deal worth somewhere between $82.5 to $85 million.

There’s been no word from any of the local scribes confirming this is a done deal yet but usually when Jon Heyman is the one to report it, it’s pretty much a done deal.

Once anything official comes out from the Red Sox or any of the local media up here, I’ll let ya’ll know.

Update 12/15: The deal is being held up due to some contract language according to Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe. But it doesn’t appear to be too big of an issue as Lackey’s press conference is scheduled for Wednesday at Fenway Park. It’s being reported too that the deal is for 5 years, $82.5 million which is exactly what AJ Burnett got from the Yankees.