Thursday: Hambone's First Pitch Hackin'

During yesterday's broadcast, after Josh Hamilton took the first pitch of one of his 4 at bats, Josh Lewin said:

"Josh is doing such a good job laying off those first pitches now."

Of course, this prompted me to check. Since returning from his mini-injury sustained by crashing into the wall in the Angels series at RBiA, here is how The Hambino has handled first pitches:

5/22 at Houston: Swung at 2 of 5 first pitches
5/23 at Houston: Swung at 4 of 4 first pitches
5/24 at Houston: Swung at 2 of 4 first pitches
SERIES TOTAL: Swung at 8 of 13 first pitches

5/25 vs. New York: Swung at 1 of 3 first pitches
5/26 vs. New York: Swung at 1 of 4 first pitches
5/27 vs. New York: Swung at 2 of 4 first pitches
SERIES TOTAL: Swung at 4 of 11 first pitches

Conclusion: In Houston, not a "good job". In New York, a "good job". Overall: still has a ways to go.

Something worth noting: when Josh actually puts the ball in play by swinging at the first pitch, he's hitting .350/.350/.714. This certainly suggests that, to a certain degree, swinging at the first pitch isn't alltogether a terrible idea.

What about all the other times that he swings and doesn't put the ball into play? He's already put himself down in the count at 0-1. In 77 plate appearances starting with an 0-1 count in 2009, Josh is hitting a paltry .225/.286/.380. (I realize that and 0-1 count doesn't imply that he swung at the first pitch, but I believe it is a reasonable approximation; if anyone has the data specifically for 0-1 counts after a swing, please let me know!)

The times when he hasn't swung at the first pitch and it has been called a ball (in other words, when he starts with a 1-0 count), Hamilton has hit .256/.333/.512 in 45 plate appearances.

It appears that being a little more patient can't hurt . . .

Thursday: Deep Thoughts . . . .

I don't really have a theme in mind for today's post. What I've mostly done is taken a few things that I've been thinking about this week and posted them all in one article.

1) According to Bill James Online, Ian Kinsler is the hottest hitter in baseball right now with a temperature of 104 degrees (for an explanation of temperatures, go here). Certainly not much of a surprise given his offensive play as of late, but to see that (according to this "temperature" system) he is the hottest hitter in the game, that's pretty cool. Following Kinsler are Victor Martinez, Ryan Braun, Matt Kemp, and Kevin Youkilis.

2) Jamey Newberg, in one of his patented newsletters, remarked about Kinsler in his recap of the Rangers 5-4 win over the Blue Jays: the game included "Ian Kinsler’s first opposite field home run since birth." Not knowing whether this was actual fact or a metaphor to articulate Kinsler's propensity for the left side of the diamond, I decided to check it out. Of course, Newberg is correct. Here is the career data for the location of Kinsler's home runs (chronologically from left to right, from 2006 to 2009):

Homers to Left: 12+19+16+4 = 51 total
Homers to Center: 2+1+2+0 = 5 total
Homers to Right: 0+0+0+1 = 1 total

(source: billjamesonline.com)

3) While it's a little bit too early to start playing the Pythagorean W-L game, the Rangers have scored exactly as many runs as they have allowed: 85. This gives them a Pythagorean record of .500 (which doesn't truly translate into a record if the team has played 13 games). Given the trouble that the Rangers have had on the mound thus far, to know that the team breaks even is a nice thought. Their 85 runs scored is 4th in the bigs, and their 84 runs allowed is 4th from the bottom. Symmetry seems to be the name of the game here, since the Rangers finished 1st in runs scored last year, and last in runs allowed.

4) Until I played around with baseball-reference.com this week, I had no idea how little players put the ball into play on a 3-0 count over their careers. I was looking at Marlon Byrd's page and saw that, over his 2,406 career PA and 111 PA with a 3-0 count, he's only put 1 ball in play. Less than 1%. I imagined the number being low, but not that low.

Perhaps, I thought, it's only because Byrd isn't a tremendous power hitter and doesn't get the green light on 3-0 from the dugout very often, and when he does swing he takes a big rip which is less likely to make good contact. A look at some of the other Rangers (which have decent, but not prolific power), as well as some prolific power hitters around baseball somewhat supports this theory (despite the lack of thorough research and my small sample size). My primary point, however, is that hitters (especially the listed bona fide power hitters below the list of Rangers) make contact on 3-0 a lot less than I thought.

Michael Young: 2 balls put into play in 60 3-0 counts (0 HR)
Ian Kinsler: 3 balls put into play in 30 3-0 counts (1 HR)
Hank Blalock: 4 balls put into play in 75 3-0 counts (o HR)

*******************************************************
Matt Holliday: 10 balls put into play in 61 3-0 counts (0 HR)
Ryan Howard: 12 balls put into play in 137 3-0 counts (1 HR)
Alex Rodriguez: 12 balls put into play in 271 3-0 counts (1 HR)

5) The Rangers are ranked 27th in walks taken in the majors. In 2008 they finished with the 6th highest walk total. The main culprits:

**Marlon Byrd has walked 0 times this year in 36 PA. Of course, no one cares when you are hitting .361/.361/.667. When this hot streak dies down, however, let's hope that Byrd remembers how to be selective (a great asset of his last year when he walked in roughly 10% of his PAs en route to a .380 OBP).

**Josh Hamilton has walked 3 times in 57 PA, but his struggles as a result of his lack of selectivity have been well documented.

**Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who took a big step forward in the walks category in 2008 (despite his lack of power), has only 1 walk in 39 PA

**Chris Davis, never one to take advantage of many free passes, is characteristically low in the BB column with 2 in 46 PA, and leads the league with 21 strikeouts. So he's been striking out (roughly) once every two times he steps up. Yikes.

6) Hank Blalock's middle name is Joe. Not Joseph, Joe. Weird.

Thursday: Andruw Jones and the Rangers of the Lost Spark

I had another post planned for today, but in light of some recent roster moves I thought this might be more fun. Please excuse the pun in the title, I couldn't help myself.

Roster Move in Question: Keeping Andruw Jones

For those interested, all of us here at HWC have already written about some aspect of this situation:

John Paul: On Andruw Jones
Jon: Andruw Jones, Fourth Outfielder?
Thomas: The Departed

Additionally, Fan Graphs has a nice breakdown of the Ranger outfield which focuses on Jones and Murphy.

For now, let's examine why the Rangers could have done this:

Possible Reason the Rangers Think Andruw Jones is a Good Idea #1: If he reverts to form, he will be a valuable addition to the team

In my previous article here at HWC, I predicted that Jones (with regular playing time) will post a .249/.333/.468 line this year. Not too shabby, I suppose, until you consider the current logjam in the Rangers outfield (shown with their Bill James 2009 projections):

Josh Hamilton (.310/.384/.556)
David Murphy (.277/.335/.456)
Nelson Cruz (.278/.352/.535)
Marlon Byrd (.283/.357/.430)

Not to mention the possibilities at designated hitter:

Hank Blalock (.282/.346/.476)
Chris Davis (.302/.352/.599)
Max Ramirez (.308/.390/.548)

I don't think that anyone can make a case that bringing in a wild card like Jones is going to be an improvement over any of those guys. And that is exactly what is going to happen: when Jones is in the lineup, someone on that list is going to be sitting. Even if Jones were to return to form, he's no more valuable than anyone the Rangers already have (read: anyone he would be stealing playing time from).

Possible Reason the Rangers Think Andruw Jones is a Good Idea #2: He can be valuable off the bench

First of all, if the Rangers wanted a versatile outfielder who can pinch-hit and fill in when necessary, they shouldn't have released Frank Catalanotto. While Jones is certainly superior defensively, his strikeout rate makes him a recipe for disaster at pinch hitter. What team wants a regular pinch hitter to be someone who strikes out in excess of once every 5 trips to the plate?

Possible Reason the Rangers Think Andruw Jones is a Good Idea #3: He's being showcased for a trade down the line

If Jones does revert to his old form, it is certainly possible that he could be valuable to a contending team short on outfielders at the trade deadline. The problem? To convince teams that he has found his old form, he needs to receive significant playing time. Return to Possible Reason #1.

Possible Reason the Rangers Think Andruw Jones is a Good Idea #4: He's just an insurance policy

After entertaining some of these situations, this is the only one that makes sense and is the only possible reason that doesn't trigger a vomit reflex. If this scenario is true, it may be due to the Rangers' paranoia about another dismal start to the season in April (see: 2007 and 2008). For instance, if Nelson Cruz reverts to his Quadruple-A hitter form like he did in April 2007, then Jones slides into the 4th outfielder role.

He could also be an insurance policy against injury. Murphy, Cruz, and Byrd all spent time on the disabled list last season. While this idea certainly looks good on paper, Jones isn't just going to sit until someone slumps or someone gets hurt. He's likely to be worked into the lineup semi-regularly. Return to Possible Reason #1.

Tuesday: Home/Road Splits (Hitters)

It is well known that Rangers Ballpark in Arlington is a "hitter's park." I was curious as to which Ranger hitters benefited the most from the Ballpark in 2008:


Those who benefited the most were Milton Bradley, Josh Hamilton, and Hank Blalock. What do all of these guys have in common? They are all sluggers who log most of their ABs hitting left-handed:

**Milton Bradley ripped a .358/.466/.679 line at home, but still hit a solid .290/.410/.462 on the road.

**Josh Hamilton punished visiting pitchers at a .345/.408/.611 mark, but was a much meeker .263/.331/.448 on the road.

**Hank Blalock did his best Hamilton impression of .343/.415/.610 at home, but hit an abysmal .248/.282/.438 away from the right field jet stream.


Michael Young also enjoyed a moderate advantage, but not much to brag about. In the same line of thought as above, Young is a right handed hitter who pushes the ball consistently to right field. In fact, Young put the ball into play 228 times to right field, 178 to center, and 136 to left (according to billjamesonline.com):

**Young looked like his old self at home, logging a .305/.362/.441 line; his splits away from the Ballpark are an uninspiring .264/.317/.364.


Using this trend, i.e. that left-handed power hitters on the Rangers in 2008 seem to have reaped the benefits of the Ballpark more than anyone else, I figured that Chris Davis would surely have joined in the fun. It turns out that Davis was mostly the same hitter no matter where he played: he hit .293/.333/.541 in Arlington and .275/.329/.558 elsewhere. He actually slugged more on the road . . .


There were only two (regular, or semi-regular) players who turned in notably better performances outside Arlington:

Gerald Laird turned in a .258/.322/.379 at home but improved to a more respectable .299/.337/.422 on the road.

Frank Catalanotto mustered a weak .254/.319/.365 in the Texas heat, but was a productive .295/.365/.434 in more mild climates.

Around the Horn: Sunday (afternoon)

“The highlight of my career? In '67 with St. Louis, I walked with the bases loaded to drive in the winning run in an inter-squad game in spring training.”--Bob Uecker

This made me smile (regardless of the fact that Uecker didn't play for St. Louis in 1967) and brought to mind all of the positive memories we all have of Spring Training. Baseball Time in Arlington's post on Spring optimism, based on Josh Hamilton's "win 90 games" comment, reminds me of the fresh start associated with the beginning of each school semester or perhaps the start of every new year. No problem seems insurmountable, no deed seems undoable. For a baseball team, phrases like "if we can stay healthy" and "stay focused the whole season" are tossed around with careless excitement. All the Rangers, especially Hamilton, seem to be optimistic about the upcoming season. Here's to hoping their optimism is closer to reality than most people (myself included) seem to think . . .

Jeff Wilson writes about Elvis Andrus (and has a Spring Training update here). Apparently, Andrus is pretty well-spoken and handles the media well:

"When you have teammates like I do, they are superstars you want to follow and want to be in the future. I know it's going to be crazy, but I'm trying to keep it cool and trying to be myself and not change or do anything different."

So far he's not missing the forest for the trees. Great. Let's hope that he plays well enough to stay in the big league forest all season. I think he will be an exciting, if not frustrating, player to watch.

TR Sullivan forecasts answers to some early questions that have been lobbed the Rangers way. No real surprises here. In a different article, he also notes that Jason Jennings could start the season at AA or AAA. This would be a great move for the Rangers and would prevent learning the hard way about Jennings like they did last year:

(screenshot from espn.com)

Scott Lucas of The Ranger Rundown notes that the franchise is 197 games under .500 since the move to Arlington . . .

And that is about it for today. 11 days until Spring Training!

Around the Horn: Friday (Evening)

I went to the Fort Worth Star Telegram's website today, and was greeted by this headline: "After bad winter, Texas Rangers ready to report to Spring Training." At first I disagreed. The Sheets deal fell through, sure, and there haven't been many thrills, but I wouldn't call it bad. Then I realized (thanks to Joe Siegler of rangerfans.com) that the Rangers have not signed a single free agent to a major league contract this offseason. Needless to say, I conceded my mental argument to the Star Telegram.

Breaking news from TR Sullivan: "Staying healthy is key to Texas staff." All kidding aside, he does point out the 14 different Rangers pitchers went on the DL in 2008 (not to mention cases like Hurley and Benoit).

Josh Hamilton thinks the Rangers can win 90 games. Good to hear that someone is more optimistic than Baseball Prospectus.

Hamilton also could "care less" about what position he plays. An interesting, but understandingly different, contrast to the Michael Young fiasco. Good to hear that he's not threatened or miffed by the Andruw Jones signing. Then again, who would be threatened by a guy who hit .158 and .222 the last two years?

The Rangers have released their Spring Training broadcast schedule. 5 games are going to be televised, along with 18 on the radio. An additional 8 will be broadcast online by MLB Gameday Audio.

Jeff Wilson has a report from Day One and Day Two of Spring Training.

FoxSports.com reports that Ben Sheets is shooting to be back by August. Of particular interest is this quote by Sheets:

"I think (the Rangers) have a good team. I was excited by the prospect of being near home," said Sheets, who is a native of Baton Rouge, La., and owns a home in Dallas . . . I can't say I ever felt great about doing that deal. But I felt for both sides it might have worked. They didn't feel the risk was worth it. They've got a right to feel that way. I wasn't mad either way."

He goes on to add:

"I'd be a good fit for teams making a run at it."

It will be interesting to see whether the Rangers "make a run" at Sheets upon his return, whether or not they are "making a run" at a playoff spot. I would think that Sheets pitching for the Rangers for two months would be a nice trial period for Sheets in Texas and allow him to get accustomed to the Ballpark and the team before next season.

13 days until Spring Training!

Around the Horn: Thursday (Night)

Rototimes.com gives a fantasy-oriented preview of the 2009 Rangers. Its the usual scouting report for the team: stellar hitting, abysmal pitching. The notes about the individual players make are interesting to read, however, and are backed by interesting stats and analysis.

Baseball Time in Arlington breaks down the five best and the five worst rightfielders in Texas Rangers history. The "best" list includes the usual names that you might expect; what I found most interesting were those fortunate enough to make the "worst" list.

Mike Hindman dissects Elvis Andrus and discusses other Rangers prospects to skip several minor league levels to get to the bigs. He concludes that the Rangers haven't been so successful at this game: Laynce Nix and Benji Gil being the most recent (Gil actually remained in the majors until 2003, and was spotted in the Mets system as late as 2005). This excerpt from the article shows what kind of season Andrus is likely to have, based on his performance last year in AAA:

"As the league's youngest player, Andrus hit .260 / .302 / .310 in April. He improved to .278 / .343 / .322 in May, upped it to .309 / .385 / .397 in June and peaked in July with a .333 / .382 / .423 line before regressing just a bit with a still very fine August (.303 / .351 / .393). Yes, he made 32 errors last year, but more than half (17) came in the first two months of the season and he made just three errors in August."

There is talk of the team's desire to sign Josh Hamilton to a long term contract during Spring Training. This is a no-brainer. Do it. My desire to get this deal wrapped up quickly stems not only from Hamilton's value as a baseball player, but also from the fact that I recently received a Hamilton jersey as a gift.

And Jim Reeves gives an appropriate response to Tom Hicks.

14 days until Spring Training!

Around the Horn: Weekend Edition

It would be nice if the biggest Rangers news of the weekend involved a player actually on the roster . . . but I will save that for a different post.

TR Sullivan reports that the Rangers have signed Andruw Jones. I'm questioning the motives of the Rangers a little bit here. Jones used to be a fine defensive centerfielder, and a Sammy Sosa-like power hitter. With the current logjam the Rangers have in the outfield with Murphy, Hamilton, Byrd, Cruz, Boggs, Catalanotto, and eventually Borbon, it is difficult to see how adding an aging centerfielder on a quest to resurrrect his career is going to help the Rangers. It seems even more detrimental when considering who he is going to be stealing at-bats from. Murphy? Cruz? Boggs? Possibly Borbon? The Rangers will benefit much more from any of these players taking the field more often than Jones. It is a low risk financially, but given the Rangers interest in acquiring a heavy right-handed bat in the middle of the lineup, I think that a decent performance by Jones will inevitably mark the end of the road for Blalock or Murphy.

Moving on to signings that have been completed, the Rangers signed veteran reliever Brendan Donnelly to a minor league contract. If, like me, you weren't terribly familiar with Donnelly before this move, you can find his stats here. I have to say that I was impressed with Donnelly's numbers: a career ERA of 3.12 and only one season over 3.94 (last season was a bit disastrous for him at 8.56, which helps explain why he is still available). Reading some of the comments posted on different websites, some reactions are of the sort: "Why do we keep signing all of these washed-up has-beens?" I have several responses to this:

1) They are cheap.
2) They are low risk.
3) They are pretty much all that is available.
4) They provide an injury insurance policy (see: Joaquin Benoit, Eric Hurley).
5) The Rangers don't want to rush any of the young arms in the minors before they are ready.
6) As Adam Morris of LoneStarBall stated in this post, "[The] interesting thing about bullpens is that most of the ones that end up doing really well have some guys pop up out of nowhere. Really, that's what makes bullpens so unique...you can often times dig up a guy as an NRI or as a fringe prospect who can have some things click in the pen and become a quality reliever."

The most important issue here, I think, is that the Rangers are settting their sights on 2010. The signing of guys like Donnelly, Derrick Turnbow, and Eddie Guardado ensures that guys like Neftali Feliz are not Edinson Volquez-ed and rushed up here too quickly. I think signing guys like Guardado, Turnbow, and Donnelly are different than say, Jamey Wright, because Wright was never actually all that good, ever. These guys have a number of productive seasons under their belt. And, you never know, they just may have some gas left in the tank.

Also, Jason Parks of Baseball Time in Arlington posted an in-depth scouting report on Julio Borbon. For those who are not terribly familiar with scouting or with Borbon, this is a good read.

The Strategy of Ron Washington

Scott Lucas at Ranger Rundown disagrees with the following comment by Ron Washington in regards to Josh Hamilton's spot in the batting order:

"The No. 4 guys gets off-speed stuff, look back and Milton handled more off-speed stuff than fastballs. Hamilton handled more fastballs than breaking balls because they didn't want to put Hamilton on base and let Milton hurt them."

Now, even Lucas himself notes that multiple studies have shown batting order to be mostly negligible. All the same, using fastball percentage data from FanGraphs.com, Lucas does "look back" to find not only does he disagree with Washington, but Washington is in fact wrong. Last year, Hamilton (usually hitting third) saw 53.4% fastballs, while Bradley (usually hitting fourth) saw 65.9%.

This provides more evidence that Washington relies more on his conventional wisdom and common sense to decide things of this nature rather than relying on statistical fact. I often have similar disagreements with Washington's strategic moves, particularly with his use of the intentional walk and sacrifice bunt. Even Baseball Prospectus 2008 notes that "Washington only made things worse [in 2007] by trying to bring small ball to a park designed for big ball."

Makes me wonder if the occasional small ball that Washington played last year held us down offensively, even though our offense scored 901 runs.

Around the Horn: Wednesday

The first Spring Training game is in three weeks and one day . . .

Chris Davis, Taylor Teagarden, Maz Ramirez, Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, Matt Harrison, and Joaquin Arias made USA Today Sports Weekly's Top 100 Names You Need to Know list in that order. Arias? Here is what they had to say:

"86. Joaquin Arias, SS, Rangers: Arias, 24, had shoulder surgery in 2007 that limited his arm strength in 2008, and the emergence (and apparent anointing) of Elvis Andrus as the shortstop of the present and future casts Arias' role in doubt. Assuming Andrus pans out, Arias will have upside, possibly as a super-utility player."

I think its a bit odd to have a "super-utility" player in your Top 100 list, but at least the description is accurate. Recall how we required Arias: he was the player to be named later in the Alex Rodriguez for Alfonso Soriano deal. Follow the link and read the list of other players the Rangers could have chosen from . . . most notably the only other infielder. I know we have Kinsler, but wouldn't it be nice to have this guy instead of Arias?

It turns out that Josh Hamilton is staying put in centerfield for at least this season. Appropriately, it appears that Nolan Ryan's announcement was a bit too fast. I imagine a lot of it has to do with the development of centerfield prospect Julio Borbon. Judging from this non-move, I would imagine we will not be seeing Borbon until late September at the very least, and possibly not until next year alltogether.

To conclude and follow up on two points I made yesterday (thanks to those who posted updated comments):

It is confirmed that Eddie Guardado has signed with the Rangers on a minor league one-year deal. He will most likely be rounding out the bullpen. I would love to write about how I agree with this situation, but Joey Matschulat at Baseball Time in Arlington has done a much better job than I would have breaking down Everyday Eddie's return, including a month-by-month look at his 2008 statistics and probable reasons for his semi-meltdown late in the year. Also, Adam Morris at LoneStarBall provides his outlook on the 2009 bullpen.

It has been formally announced that 105.3 The Fan, an FM affiliate of KRLD, is going to be broadcasting weekday games, and KRLD is going to be broadcasting weekend games. Additionally, 105.3 is going to air 18 spring training games this year.

Around the Horn: Monday

What a game last night. A 100 yard pick-six at the end of the first half, Larry Fitzgerald watching himself score on the JumboTron, the holding call in the endzone for a safety after Rothlisberger seemingly navigated his team out of danger, Santonio Holmes letting the game winning pass slip through his hands and then making a remarkable touchdown catch on the very next play to put the Steelers up for good.

And if this was a football blog, I would write more about this. Instead, we have more riveting offseason Rangers talk:

Jim Reeves writes about Nolan Ryan's talk of moving Josh Hamilton to right field, noting that it is probably the right move. Later in the article Ryan discussed his love for David Murphy, and comments that:

"David Murphy you’ve got to keep on your ballclub and you have to get him in the lineup every chance you get," Ryan said. "If you watch him, and he has four at-bats in a night, in three of the four he’ll be 3-2 [in the count].

First off, don't get me wrong. I like Murphy. He's a scrappy, gritty outfielder reminiscent of Rusty Greer. But if what Ryan says were true, wouldn't Murphy's OBP have been higher than .321 last season? He only walked 31 times in 454 plate appearances. Baseball-Reference does not have his 2008 pitches per plate appearance posted yet, but if I had to wager I would imagine the data does not support Ryan's claim. [If you can find his 2008 PPA, post it in the comments section with a link and I will update the post.]

In conclusion, Murphy is gritty (which is perhaps why Ryan has taken such a liking to him), but I sure wish he would grind out a few more walks and OBP points.

Over at Baseball Time in Arlington, Joey Matschulat busts out some defensive data supporting Hamilton's alleged move to right field.

On his blog, TR Sullivan breaks down the Rangers bullpen options. He includes possibilities for each bullpen role as well as a list of free agents that may (or may not be) able to help.

Around the Horn: Super Bowl Sunday

Anthony Andro at the Star-Telegram takes an interesting look at every farm system that Baseball America has ranked #1. Fortunately for the Rangers, he notes that all but three of the corresponding big league teams have made the playoffs in subsequent years. The article includes a breakdown of each of the playoff bound teams and the contributions of their respective farm systems. Of particular interest to me were his notes on the Atlanta Braves 1990s dynasty, the Rangers of the late 1990s, and last year's upstart Tampa Bay Rays.

In the same paper, Jim Reeves talks about Nolan Ryan's desire to move Josh Hamilton to right field. Ryan claims that Hamilton is "too big" to be a centerfielder, and that Cruz or Byrd will likely replace him in center. First of all, I don't think is a bad idea given Hamilton's health and conditioning concerns. But the fact that Hamilton is "too big" and Nelson Cruz is just right confuses me (I tried to find a reliable source for their heights and weights, but Baseball Reference and Bill James have conflicting reports). Personally, if its between Hamilton and Cruz in center, I would go with Hamilton. If Hamilton does indeed go to right, I hope Byrd gets the nod there over Cruz (at least defensively).

Another issue this raises is what to do about Cruz. His cannon of an arm is better utilized in center or in right. With Hamilton allegedly moving, would Cruz be more likely to play in left, in center, or in a 4th outfielder role?

In non-Rangers news, there is talk that the Braves may bring back the recently released Andruw Jones, who is available for the $400,000 minimum.

Also, the Brewers have signed Trevor Hoffman, and the Red Sox have signed Kevin Youkilis to a long term deal.