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So it turned out to be the New York Yankees who signed Masahiro Tanaka. It took a seven year contract for $155 million to get the deal finalized. Then of course there’s the $20 million posting fee that the Yankees now have to pay to Tanaka’s Japanese league team the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. It had been reported that Tanaka had narrowed his choices to the Yankees or the Chicago Cubs. There was actually a report that another team had offered Tanaka more money than the Yankees did but they never said if that team was the Cubs. A lot of scouts have been saying that Tanaka is a #2 rotation type of pitcher but the Yankees paid an awful lot of money for a guy to be a #2 starter. Of course we won’t know anything until the regular season starts and we see how Tanaka matches up against major league hitters. After the Tanaka signing it was being reported that Matt Garza had signed a four year, $52 million dollar deal with the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers came out and said they hadn’t signed Garza and he needed to pass a physical before they could agree on a deal. We’ll see if the Brewers end up with Garza or if it turns into a Grant Balfour type of situation. Balfour by the way agreed this week to a two year deal with the Tampa Bay Rays for $12 million dollars. Now we start to look and see where pitchers like Ervin Santana and Ubaldo Jimenez end up signing as we get closer to the start of spring training.

The NBA announced the starters for the All Star game. The Eastern conference starters are LeBron James and Dwayne Wade of the Miami Heat. Paul George of the Indiana Pacers. Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks and Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Western conference starters are Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers. Kevin Love of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Stephen Curry of the Golden State warriors and Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. This is the fan voting and these are the players voted to start by the fans. Bryant is injured and probably won’t play; so he’ll be replaced as a starter. You also have to wonder if wade will be ready to go by the All Star game as he has missed the last four Heat games with a knee injury. With every All Star game where the starters are selected by fan voting there was some complaints about the starters. For me I think the biggest omission from the starting line up is LaMarcus Aldridge of the Portland Trailblazers. While I’m sure Aldridge will make the All Star team it would’ve been nice to see him get the fans votes to start the game. Aldridge is an M.V.P. candidate and the Trailblazers are 32 – 11; two games behind the Thunder in the Northwest division. I’m sure you have your own snubs. Who do you think should start the All Star game?

It’s the NFL’s week off before the Super Bowl and this season they’re playing the Pro Bowl on the week off. They had a draft to pick the teams and I tried to watch it and just couldn’t. It’s an idea they stole from the NHL where two captains pick the teams. In this case it was Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders picking the Pro Bowl teams. While the NHL has stream lined their draft and it runs quickly and smoothly the NFL’s was a lot of fluff and way, way too much time between draft picks. I hope the NFL noticed the issues with this set up and can get it corrected by the time they do this next season. I doubt it will make any difference at all in the Pro Bowl itself as the game isn’t taken seriously by the players. Oddly the Pro Bowl still does very good ratings. While I’ll flip over to the game from time to time, but can never watch the entire game. Do you watch the Pro Bowl?

So how was your week?

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