Who do you think the contenders are in their division?

Twins haven't done anything except sign a Japanese infielder. Those don't have too good a track record. Pavano is talking to like 15 teams. Nobody knows what to get from Liriano year to year. The rest of their starters are meh, and they could have some defections in the pen. Nathan is coming off major injury. Morneau could have lingering concussion effects.

Tigers have 1 good starting pitcher and a bunch of question marks. Their non- Cabrera infield is suspect. They did sign Vmart, who is pretty good but a terrible catcher. They have huge holes in left, right, and 2B.

KC and Cleveland are still crappy.

Anyone can win this division, as it is not as strong as it was even a few years ago.

But again, we are barely into the winter meetings so arguing about it now is ridiculous.

37.5 for 3 years? That comes out to 12.5 a year. That's a great deal for the Sox when you consider the reports that he wanted 15 million a year and when you see what Dunn is getting at the back of his deal when he'll be Konerko's current age.

The deal is a Reinsdorf dream, backloaded AND with deferred money. 6.5 million in the last year of the deal with 1 million per year over the next six years after.

I'm not sophisticated enough to make the calculation but I would bet a money man could figure the value of this contract is closer to 10 million per year.

Paulie bent over backwards to make this deal happen as I believe he could have gotten more per year with possibly more years on the open market. This is the second time he has done this for the Sox as I believe he was offered a better contract by the Angels in 2005.

He obviously wants to be here. I didn't think that was true from what he said on the last day of the season and soon after.

What is the bullpen made up of right now?

Thornton
Sale
Santos

It looks like they will have to move either Quentin or a pitcher for some relief help.

That Jackson trade really sucks right now, as I expected. That extra 8 million would solve a lot of problems.

The deal is a Reinsdorf dream, backloaded AND with deferred money. 6.5 million in the last year of the deal with 1 million per year over the next six years after.

I'm not sophisticated enough to make the calculation but I would bet a money man could figure the value of this contract is closer to 10 million per year.

Paulie bent over backwards to make this deal happen as I believe he could have gotten more per year with possibly more years on the open market. This is the second time he has done this for the Sox as I believe he was offered a better contract by the Angels in 2005.

He obviously wants to be here. I didn't think that was true from what he said on the last day of the season and soon after.

Assuming his salary is payable at the beginning of every month starting January 1, 2011 and assuming an annual effective interest rate of 5% we could calculate what he is getting over the next three years by solving for X.

a(12)[n] represents a monthly annuity-due factor payable for n years
V^n represents the present value factor (1\1.05) raised to the nth-power

X a(12)[3] = 1.04167a(12)[1] + 1.04167Va(12)[1] + .54167V^2a(12)[1] + .08333V^3a(12)[6]

Solving for X gives us 1.017236 million per month or 12.2068 million per year for 3 years.