Is it February yet?

I’m sweating out a head cold, hopped up on NyQuil that hasn’t put me to sleep yet…so I’m looking around trying to sate my appetite for baseball news.  Forgive me while I replace writing with linking tonight.  🙂

Chad Billingsley forgot he lives in the Northeast, where it often snows in November.

Former Dodgers pitcher Dave Stewart, Billingsley’s agent, spoke by phone with the pitcher before and after the operation.

“He said they had their first snow of the year last night and he came out the front door and just slipped,” Stewart said. “He was bummed at first when they told him it was broken. But after the surgery, he was fine.

“The doctors said it turned out to be much better than they originally thought, because they thought it might have been really bad. After the surgery, Chad felt well enough to watch his favorite college football team, Notre Dame. But the way that went [a one-point loss to Syracuse], I told him he should let the medication set in and go to sleep. He laughed.”

He laughed and muttered, “I’ll get you…I’ll get you all you Orange-loving bastards as soon as I’m out of this cast!”

The time has come for the Yankees to put their foot down and that foot is Hal Steinbrenner.

“We’ve made him [CC Sabathia] an offer. It’s not going to be there forever,” Hal Steinbrenner said Thursday after he was approved as the team’s new controlling owner during a meeting at Major League Baseball headquarters.

New York offered a six-year contract to the pitcher last Friday, the first day teams were allowed to start talking money with free agents. The proposal exceeds Johan Santana’s $137.5 million, six-year contract with the New York Mets both in total and average, a baseball official familiar with the negotiations said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge details.

Greg Genske, Sabathia’s agent, did not return a telephone message seeking comment.

I love that Sabathia and Genske are debating this offer like there’s a better one out there. It must chafe Steinbrenner’s ass that Sabathia didn’t jump all over it and thank the Steinbrenner’s for saving him from Major League unemployment.

I know many, many people who are saddened by the Coco trade.  I’m not really one of them.  I’m as sad as you get when a player you like leaves the team, sure, but I like the trade and I think Coco deserves to be a full-time, starting player somewhere.  I’ll miss the Red Bull-fueled catches out in center but, hey, now the pressure is on Jacoby to get his ass in gear.

If he’s asked, Matsuzaka will, once again, pitch in the World Baseball Classic.  As long as it doesn’t mess with his real season, I’m okay with that.

“I’m getting an opportunity to show everybody exactly what I’m capable of,” said Crisp. “I’m happy for that opportunity.”

And I’m happy for you, Covelli. Godspeed and all that.

I’m in a weird spot where I worry about what will happen during the Hot Stove season and yet I’m lamenting, now, the lack of real Sox-related news.  I’m never happy, you understand.