The hot stove season is ON!  Regrettably, the exclusive negotiating window available to teams to re-sign their own free agents has passed, and it has not included new contracts for Frank Thomas and/or Jay Payton, the A's two free agents of note.  One hopes this is just a procedural matter, but the rest of the league will get the chance to at least kick the tires on these two (please kick Frank's gently).

The Chicago Cubs did take advantage of their exclusive negotiating window, signing Kerry Wood to a one-year, $1.75M deal.  Oh, and they also gave Aramis Ramirez a 5-year, $73M contract to remain in the Windy City.  Perhaps the 99th time is the charm?

It's great news for A's fans, in my opinion.  The Angels are bitterly disappointed that he's gone, and for him to be off the market before they got a chance means that if the Angels want a bat, they will need to either:

1.  Get into a bidding war for Alfonso Soriano (coveted by the Cubs and the Phillies), who never met a slider he didn't like, or;
   
2.  Sign Carlos Lee, who never met a bag of White Castle Sliders he didn't like, or;
   
3.  Trade from their deep farm system to acquire a bat.  Only two possibilities here:  the Angels pitching staff and/or farm system is weakened, or Bill Stonewall lives up to his name.

The Orioles have traded for Jaret Wright, and I for one think they were wise to do so.  I floated this idea a week and a half ago in a DLD, and it seemed to be met with interest.  It's a low risk, high reward deal, because the Yankees will be picking up $4M of his $7M salary anyway (the same amount they would have paid to buy out his contract).  The Orioles only needed to give up reliever Chris Britton, so we probably could have gotten him for Calero, or maybe Gaudin.  I think he would have been a stronger option as our fifth starter than our current menage of has-beens and not-yets.  

There's very little thus far in the way of new local articles today.  That said, Ray Ratto is trying to bring sexy back, which is sort of like Darwin bringing creationism back:

This is, you see, a moderately sexy job that will be filled by a profoundly non-sexy name because sexy costs more, and Beane believes that his manager doesn't need to be sexy as much as he needs to handle a bullpen and keep the players from wishing he got lost on the way to the park.

Plus, non-sexy is cheaper, if we hadn't mentioned it.

One last bit of hot-stove related news--it turns out that Barry Bonds won't be going to Texas after all, as Tom Hicks apparently needed to respond to an alarmed fan base.

Hopefully the GM meetings this week will light the pilot for the A's hot stove.  And snuff Ratto's desire to talk about sexiness.  He ought to know that talking sexy is Kyli's domain, anyway.  Until then, go forth and dump links.