Yankees give last $2M to versatile veteran OF  —  Once the Yankees determined Johnny Damon was unlikely to return as their left fielder, club officials considered a group of free agents they believed would accept the $2 million allocated for their fourth-outfielder role.

Ranking the top prospects (Nos. 1-25) … Welcome to the third annual ESPN.com ranking of the top 100 prospects in baseball.  The No. 1 prospect for 2008, Evan Longoria, ended up winning the American League Rookie of the Year Award, and last year's No. 1 prospect, Matt Wieters …

Mets close to deal with Tatis; Delgado likely done  —  Fernando Tatis is close to a deal with the New York Mets, which would likely close the door on Carlos Delgado returning to the team.  —  Delgado's inability to play first base in Puerto Rican winter ball hurt him.

Yankees picked to finish third, miss playoffs  —  PECOTA — or “Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm” for those of you who don't like clever acronyms — is the statistical projection system owned and operated by the good people at Baseball Prospectus.

Chien-Ming Wang considering signing before spring training  —  Chien-Ming Wang is reconsidering his plan not to return from shoulder surgery until a couple of months into the season, the former Yankee's agent told ESPN.com Thursday.  —  Wang  —  Alan Nero said that “four or five teams” …

Brewers To Sign Jim Edmonds  —  The Brewers have agreed to sign Jim Edmonds to a minor league deal that will pay the outfielder $850K if he makes the team and up to $1.65MM more in incentives.  Edmonds will come to Spring Training with a chance to make the club as an extra outfielder.

Yankees To Hire Kevin Towers  —  The Yankees will announce the hiring of former Padres GM Kevin Towers before spring, tweets Bob Nightengale of USA Today.  ESPN's Buster Olney had been predicting this since October.  —  Towers planned to meet with the Yankees, Mets, Mariners …

Teammate thinks Mike Bacsik grooved the pitch for Bonds' 756th  —  It's a question that has long been asked around baseball circles: Did Mike Bacsik  —  756th home run so that he could one day be the answer to a trivia question and maybe attain some sort of fame?

Durham or Kansas City?  —  I like tormenting Matt Klaasen, and as such, I'm going to expand on a question I asked him earlier: is the Durham Bulls' lineup better than the Kansas City Royals' lineup?  —  If the season started tomorrow, Kansas City would have something that resembles this:

Dodger Thoughts moves to ESPN.com/LA next week  —  On Monday, it will have been 365 days since Baseball Toaster closed and Dodger Thoughts moved to the Los Angeles Times.  The past year has been an interesting one — in some ways fun and rewarding, in other ways extremely humbling.

Dodgers sign Perez, Koronka to Minors deals  —  Pair along with Lindblom, Mitchell invited to Spring Training  —  LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers have signed outfielder Timo Perez and left-handed starting pitcher John Koronka to Minor League contracts with Major League Spring Training invites …

Gammons on The Big Show: Sox were ‘scared to death’ of Bay's knees  —  Hall of Fame writer Peter Gammons of the MLB Network said that the Red Sox reduced their offer to Jason Bay from four years to two years because they “were scared to death of his knees” after a physical revealed the possibility of surgery.