As baseball leads up to the winter meetings Dec. 9-12 in Orlando, teams have begun to make some trades and other moves.
The latest free-agent signings were RHP Dan Haren to a 1-year contract with the Dodgers and the Cardinals' confirmation that their signing of SS Jhonny Peralta is official.
The Padres made two trades that might not amount to more than rearranging the furniture.
They sent RHP Brad Brach from the middle of their bullpen to the Orioles for RHP Devin Jones, who was 5-7 with a 5.64 ERA mostly in Double-A this year. Brach has appeared in 109 major league games over the last three seasons.
San Diego also traded OF Jaff Decker and RHP Miles Mikolas to the Pirates for Double-A OF Alex Dickerson. I've seen Decker and Mikolas play in Double-A. A former first-round draft pick, Decker has totaled just 71 home runs and a .268 average in the minors. Mikolas, who appears to throw fairly hard, spent some time in the majors in 2012 and recorded 26 saves for Triple-A Tucson this season. Dickerson was the Double-A Eastern League's rookie of the year with a .288 average, 17 homers and 68 RBI at Altoona.
As part of adding two players to its 40-man roster, Pittsburgh designated 1B/OF Garrett Jones for assignment. Another player battling Decker for playing time will be OF Andrew Lambo, who slammed 32 homers between Double-A and Triple-A and also will be tried at first base in 2014.
The Nationals traded LHP Fernando Abad to the Athletics for OF John Wooten. Abad has a 1-14 major league career record, with a 4.56 ERA. Wooten batted .257 with 20 homers at low Class A Beloit.
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Both of my fantasy football teams won by more than doubling my opponents' score. In the scoring plus yardage league, I'm just 5-7 and in a three-way tie for sixth lace two games out of fourth. That league's regular season ends after next week, so I can only move down. In the scoring-only league, I'm 7-5 and tied for third, two games out of first with five to play. Our playoffs coincide with the final three weeks of NFL playoffs.
In the Pittsburgh office pool, I was 7-8, still 16 games off the lead and seven games out of the money. I might need two unbelievable weeks to qualify for one of the top three spots in a year when my performance has been very believable.
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My fantasy hockey team gave up most of the goaltending points I'd picked up over the weekend. I had two goalies playing Monday, but not especially well. Neither James Reimer nor Steve Mason won. My skaters came out plus-1 but didn't do much except for playing enough to build up my ATOI to take over second place in the category. I'm still about 10 points out of second in the 10-team league.
Oh, I also turned down a trade that would have sent Corey Perry from my team to the one in second place for an inferior forward and a goalie not as good as the ones on my current roster.
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In basketball, I did sweep all eight categories last week, which ended Sunday, to move up to eighth in another 10-team league. If I win this week by at least a 5-3 margin, I would improve to seventh. That's where I stand after the first day. Carmelo Anthony had a big scoring day, and George Hill was good in just about everything. One of my centers, Dallas' Samuel Dalembert, is nursing bruised ribs. He didn't start, played just 18 minutes and manged 2 points, 3 rebounds and 2 blocks. I had to watch him and the Mavericks lose to Denver.
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