The New York Yankees found enough cash last off-season to get Mark Teixeira(notes), CC Sabathia(notes), and A.J. Burnett(notes) off the free-agent marketplace, putting them in a pretty good position to be the powerhouse they were in 2009 on the way to a championship. But the team is supposedly not taking the same course this winter.

There are really only three highly valuable free agents this off-season -- Jason Bay(notes), Matt Holliday(notes), and John Lackey(notes) - and the Yankees aren't expected to go after any of them, according to the New York Post.

It looks like the Yankees are closing up the wallet a little and letting a whole lot of money flow in right now instead of out.

The team may be at the point of no return on expenditures, anyway. The Yanks will spend $100 million next season Alex Rodriguez(notes), Sabathia, Teixeira and Derek Jeter(notes) alone and have another $70 million already committed to 13 other players from Kei Igawa(notes) to Juan Miranda(notes).

Holliday's agent, Scott Boras, apparently wants him to be paid around the same as Teixeira (eight years, $181 million), Lackey is expected to get around $100 million for five years, and Bay could get around $90 million for five years.

Source: New York Post

Godzilla crushed a city last night. It was New York Yankees designated hitter Hideki Matsui's(notes) six RBIs pounding at the walls of every Philadelphia Phillies fan home and favorite bar. But this could be Matsui's last call as a Yank. His four-year contract has now ended (as has Johnny Damon's)(notes) and the talk has been for some time that the team won't bring back both, according to the New York Daily News.

General manager Brian Cashman has apparently been saying that he'd like the team to get younger and more athletic and more versatile (and you'd hope cheaper), so paying Matsui a load of dough to DH doesn't seem to fit that mold. Damon is at least out in the field.

Catcher Jorge Posada(notes) will turn 39 next season so he may want to DH some. Alex Rodriguez(notes) may be getting some hip surgery this off-season so this team isn't getting any younger. Though they sure looked like a bunch of 6-year-olds bouncing up and down after the last out last night.

So Yankees fans may want to spend a little extra time cheering for the Series MVP Matsui when he floats by during the parade. Word has it he could be moving to the Great Northwest to play for the Seattle Mariners.

Source: New York Daily News

The Philadelphia Phillies are obviously feeling pretty down today, but there are plenty of signs of hope for the former world champs and one of them is pitcher Cliff Lee(notes), who was an unstoppable force in the postseason.

And the Phils have him for the relatively cheap price of $9 million next year. But there have apparently been discussions within the organization of trying to get a long-term extension done this off-season, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"Clearly, it's on our minds, but we haven't made a decision if we will yet," general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said before Game 6.

While Lee was incredible in the postseason and pretty dang good in the regular season since joining the Phils, going 7-4 with a 3.39 ERA, one never knows what will happen so there are some in the organization who apparently want to wait and be sure Lee doesn't turn into the next Cole Hamels(notes), who was the MVP of last year's NLCS and World Series and then a disappointment during the regular season this year and even bigger one in the postseason.

Lee will likely want some kind of similar deal to the one his best friend and former teammate with the Cleveland Indians, CC Sabathia(notes), got last off-season from the New York Yankees: seven years for $161 million.

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

Former New York Yankees first baseman Don Mattingly really, really wants to be a manager in the big leagues, but he apparently doesn't want to do it for the Washington Nationals. Rumor has it that Mattingly turned down an offer to interview with the team and help turn it around, according to MLB.com.

There is apparently some belief that this indicates that Mattingly and his current employer, the Los Angeles Dodgers, are formalizing some kind of plan for hitting coach Mattingly to take over for Joe Torre when Torre finally decides to call it quits.

Meanwhile, the Nats apparently want to name a new manager within the week. Interim manager Jim Riggleman is a possibility as well as former Seattle Mariners and Arizona Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin.

Whatever happens, the coaches have all been promised jobs within the organization for next year.

Source: MLB.com

The Atlanta Braves are denying it, according to MLB.com, but the word on the street is that the team is joining the fray for the services of young gun Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman, according to Sports Illustrated.

Sports Illustrated has it that the two sides are planning to meet up soon enough but GM Frank Wren tells MLB.com that no such plans exist.

Other teams supposedly willing to throw a boatload of cash at the 21-year-old lefty Chapman to get him are the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, Detroit Tigers, Seattle Mariners. New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics, San Francisco Giants, and St. Louis Cardinals. In short, everybody wants him.

Source: Sports IllustratedMLB.com

Philadelphia Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino(notes) is not happy with one of the team's former managers, Larry Bowa. Not happy one little bit. Bowa apparently said that the Phils are sign stealers and the New York Yankees apparently agree with him. That would explain why Jorge Posada(notes) is using seven billion signs even when nobody is on base.

Last night, Victorino let it be known that his team isn't cheating and that Bowa has no idea what he's talking about, according to the New York Post. "I guess he knows something that I don't know about, obviously," Victorino said. "You know, everybody makes excuses. Everybody is going to find a reason. For Bowa to come out and say something like that if he doesn't know what he's talking about, if he doesn't have cold, hard facts, he shouldn't say something like that.

The New York Mets actually had the sneaking suspicion that the team was stealing signs back in 2007 and even using a video camera in center field to do so. The Mets went so far as to ask the league to investigate, which ended up going nowhere.

Plus, if the team was cheating and stealing signs, they sure aren't doing a good job of using the info. As Victorino points out, it didn't exactly help them win Games 3 or 4.

Source: The New York Post

The Philadelphia Phillies are in a tough spot right about now. Down three games to one the New York Yankees in the World Series, it's looking like they may be turning over the World Champion crown soon. Of course, four teams in World Series history have come back from such a deficit to win it: the 1984 Kansas City Royals, the 1968 Detroit Tigers, the 1958 New York Yankees, and the 1925 Pittsburgh Pirates so it is possible.

Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels(notes) apparently doesn't seem to think so. He's reportedly already saying that he can't wait for the whole thing to be over. Hamels has had a tough year being an average pitcher after a stellar 2008 that left him as the MVP of both the National League Championship Series and the World Series. And his postseason has been absolutely lousy, unless you count the birth of his first child, which happened just after his Game 2 NLDS start.

Folks in Philly are apparently unhappy with the comments of Hamels, especially since he could be the guy who starts a seventh game if the Phils make it that far, according to the Kansas City Star. Phillies manager Charlie Manuel simply sees this as a case of a young guy who hasn't dealt with real adversity before.

Oh, and take heart, Phillies fans, those Yankees and Tigers won those Series with the last two games on the road.

Source: Kansas City Star

Everybody wants lefthanded Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman. And why not? The 21-year-old can apparently throw 102 mph pitches. Add the Seattle Mariners to the list of teams that is after Chapman, according to the Seattle Times. A soruce tells the paper that the team is "serious." One would hope so.

The team has apparently asked to meet wtith Chapman and his agent next week. Other teams that are after the young fella include the New York Yankees and Bsoton Red Sox so the M's should expect bidding to go pretty high. Chapman was supposed to throw a bullpen session in Boston yesterday but the weather kept that from happenng.

The Detroit Tigers, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets, and Baltimore Orioles have all also supposedly expressed interest in landing Chapman.

Source: Seattle Times

The New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies have until 10 a.m. Eastern tomorrow to set their rosters for the World Series and the rumor is that both could make some slight alterations.

The Yankees are apparently flip-flopping between adding left-handed hitter Eric Hinske(notes) or a 12th pitcher, according to the New York Post. The pitcher in question is supposedly right-handed reliever Brian Bruney(notes). "You could see us with 12 pitchers and you could see us change our roster," Yanks general manager Brian Cashman coyly told the Post.

Meanwhile, there's a rumor in Philly that reliever Brett Myers(notes) might be back on the roster because the team can use as many pitching arms as it can get.

Source: New York Post

It's been suspected for about a week that the New York Yankees might go with a three-man rotation of C.C. Sabathia(notes), A.J. Burnett(notes), and Andy Pettitte(notes) for the World Series, which would mean Sabathia would get three starts in the Series, but now it's looking like the Philadelphia Phillies may do something similar with ace Cliff Lee(notes), according to Sports Illustrated.

Other than Lee and the one game Pedro Martinez(notes) pitched against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the starting rotation for the Phillies this postseason hasn't been stellar so Manager Charlie Manuel is apparently thinking he'll use Lee in three games and have him go up against CC Sabathia in Games 1, 4, and 7. That would leave Martinez to pitch in Games 2 and possibly 6, and last year's hero but this year's inconsistent postseason starter, Cole Hamels(notes), to pitch Game 3. That leaves a Game 5 and possibly Game 6 hole for Manuel to fill. He isn't saying anything about who he's pitching when so you can expect him to throw Joe Blanton(notes) and likely National League Rookie of the Year J.A. Happ(notes) in there and hope they have stronger outings than they've had already this postseason.

So far Manuel's chess playing has worked out so Phillies fans are hoping he's got one more set of pitching moves up his sleeve.

Source: Sports Illustrated