What's Making Me Talk: Heated Stove and a Few Good MVPs

The Stove is Heating Up

Oh that lovely hot stove. The Holliday trade might have turned on the gas, but we are still waiting for something to ignite the flurry.

Coco Crisp and Jeremy Affeldt aren't exactly what I had in mind.

Still, we have some very important moves all around.

Start with the earlier moves.

Did anyone else see Ryan Dempster leaving Chicago? He walks to the freaking stadium everyday! He didn't get that bad of a payday either.

The Yankees have retained the services of Damaso Marte. Left-handers look to be at a premium this year, so a good move for the Yankees.

Continuing on the always busy Yankee-front, they made the move to get Nick Swisher and Tex.

No, not that Tex. Mark Teixeira is still searching for a team, its Kanekoa Texeira on his way to New York. It’s a different spelling and probably different pronunciation.

Swisher is the cog of this deal though. It remains to be seen where he will play, but I'm wondering how Swisher will fit into that clubhouse. He's a wacky guy that likes to grow out his hair; how's he going to take the Yankee's code?

The big fish to fry for the Yankees though is still CC Sabathia. I'm going to side with Brewers' GM Doug Melvin when he speaks out against the Yankees immediate jump to $140 million.

Why?!

Seriously, it just shows you the arrogance of the New York Yankees. Why would you immediately jump to that price? What if the highest a team is willing to go is $110 or $120 million?

It’s just arrogance and un-sound decision making if you ask me.

The first free agent to sign with another team will not be Sabathia though. That distinction belongs to left-handed reliever Jeremy Affeldt, who became a member of the San Francisco Giants.

My beloved Cleveland Indians were said to be interested in the lefty, which made me kind of shifty, but a lot of outlets think Affeldt is underrated.

Actually, these past two years, he's quietly been effective for Colorado and Cincinnati. He has yet to turn 30 and it actually might be a nice deal for the Giants.

I still wouldn't want him as an American League team.

And finally, Coco Crisp is on his way to Kansas City.

He isn't as young as the Royals were looking for, but he can patrol center. This is a solid pick up for Kansas City, but certainly Mike Jacobs and Crisp won't be pushing them much further in the A.L. Central.

Ramon Ramirez isn't a bad return for the Red Sox either. He was a nice little piece to that Royals’ bullpen.

Wakamatsu the Man in Seattle

Congratulations go out to Don Wakamatsu, who will be the new manager of the Seattle Mariners.

This is a bit of history here as Wakamatsu is the first Asian-American to be a manager in MLB history.

Hopefully, he's a bit of a stable figure for Seattle's clubhouse, which has seen three manager's in the past two years. Seattle never really carried that success of 2007 over to 2008, despite making important additions like Erik Bedard.

Perhaps Mike Hargrove's voice was missed more than you would think after the Mariners continued to play well even after his retirement.

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