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.

Mets close to re-signing Tatis  —  Omar Minaya is deep into negotiations with Fernando Tatis for a return engagement, and could have a deal complete within a matter of days, according to a baseball source.  —  That development would seem to eliminate the possibility of Carlos Delgado returning …

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 …

PECOTA projections say Yanks will miss playoffs this season  —  Happy PECOTA day which, as one Stewie noted on Twitter today, is like “Christmas, Mardi Gras and Groundhog Day all rolled into one for baseball nerds.”  —  Yes, Apple's iPad and SOTU were so yesterday.

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.

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?

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 …

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:

Twins Notes: Liriano, Neshek, Winfree, and McLemore  — Earlier this month Ron Gardenhire passed along a report he received from the Dominican Republic saying that Francisco Liriano was “throwing the living fire out of the ball” with his fastball around 92-94 miles per hour and a “filthy” slider.

Rockies make aggressive move for Cabrera  —  The Rockies don't want just a utilityman.  They want a player who has experience, who can play multiple positions.  They believe that player could be Orlando Cabrera.  After focusing on Melvin Mora, the Rockies have shifted toward Cabrera …