Southpaw Shopping: How Cardinals will find the lefty reliever who's just right  —  bST.  LOUIS  • An area the Cardinals must address this winter is the left side of their bullpen, and in public comments made all offseason executives have not been hiding that.

Angels' Dino Ebel expected to be among Dodgers' coaching hires  —  The Dodgers plan to begin filling the vacancies on their major league coaching staff in the next few days and Angels coach Dino Ebel is expected to be among the new hires.  —  The 52-year-old Ebel has spent the past 14 seasons …

Tigers still free-agent shopping as offseason market hits a lull  —  Some people worked during the Thanksgiving break.  Any such list would include the Tigers front office, which, apart from Thursday's break, stayed by the phones, maybe trading conversation with agents or perhaps with an interested trade partner or two.

Evaluating risk factor for top 10 free-agent relievers  —  Relief pitchers threw 17,422 innings in 2018 — that's up from 14,977 just five years ago.  That's an average of 81.5 innings per team, so on just a pure volume level relief pitchers are more important than ever.

Major League Baseball donates $5000 to Cindy Hyde-Smith  —  Over the past week, seven major corporations have asked for Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) to refund their contributions.  Earlier this month, Hyde-Smith told a crowd at a campaign event that she would be willing to attend a “public hanging.”

What a Canó trade might look like; D-Backs stars on the block together?; bullpen market intrigue  —  Dealing a potential ace such as James Paxton was not all that difficult for Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto.  Neither, in a market starved for catching, was moving Mike Zunino.

Report: Braves, Twins, Rangers, and Padres are in on Sonny Gray  —  Yankees right-hander Sonny Gray is reportedly up for grabs this season after a disappointing performance in the Bronx, and there appears to be no shortage of suitors vying for the starter's services.

Baseball's front-office execs with the most to prove this winter  —  As the director of baseball operations and assistant general manager for the Oakland Athletics and then as the general manager for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Farhan Zaidi has been a major figure in assembling the rosters …

USC AD Lynn Swann has a big call to make on coach Clay Helton  —  They fought boldly for their embattled coach, playing as they should have played all season, with fire and purpose and desperation.  —  But is this fight good enough if they didn't win?  —  USC showed up big against unbeaten …

Angels add Shawn Wooten to big league coaching staff  —  The Angels have promoted Shawn Wooten to assistant hitting coach, moving the former member of their 2002 World Series championship team from his role in their farm system.  —  Wooten is the third confirmed member of the coaching staff under ew manager Brad Ausmus.

Diamondbacks seriously considering dealing Paul Goldschmidt  —  The Arizona Diamondbacks' Paul Goldschmidt finished sixth in the National League MVP voting this year, the fourth top-10 MVP placement of his career — he was second in 2013 and 2015 and third in 2016.

MLB rumors: Red Sox's Nathan Eovaldi to the bullpen for ‘Aroldis Chapman money’?  —  One of the best arms on the free-agent market this winter belongs to right-hander Nathan Eovaldi.  —  Yes, Eovaldi has undergone Tommy John surgery twice, with the most recent operation coming in 2016 when he was with the Yankees.