The New York Yankees have re-signed veteran catcher Jorge Posada to a 4-year, $52 million deal. Hey, they’re the Yankees; they can afford to do that sort of thing.
The 36-year-old Posada is coming off a career year in which he hit .338/.426/.543. Perhaps more impressively, he has caught at least 130 games in each of the past eight seasons. Put those two together, and the chances of Posada’s coming anywhere near his 2007 levels again fall somewhere between slim and none.
Here’s your list of catchers since 1961 who logged at least 300 plate appearances in their age 36 season and …read more

Rich at Baseball Analysts has laid out a position-by-position look at the 2007-2008 free agent class. He’s done the hitters today and he’ll touch on the pitchers in a separate article.
There are a few bonafide studs available — Jorge Posada, Ivan Rodriguez, Alex Rodriguez, Bob Abreu, Mike Cameron, Adam Dunn, Torii Hunter, Andruw Jones — as well as a bunch of guys who are potentially useful. And of course, we’re all waiting to find out where Julio Franco ends up next year. My money is on the Lido deck, playing shuffleboard.

Somehow I got out of the habit of doing these. With the pennant races heating up, I reckon it’s time to bust out the previews again:
American League

Mariners at Orioles, 4:05 p.m. PT — How are the Mariners doing it? Ichiro Suzuki, Adrian Beltre, and Jose Guillen all are having decent (not great) seasons on offense. The starting pitching has been okay. The relief pitching has been pretty darned good. They score about as many runs as they give up, and yet, they’re a game out of the AL wild card. Felix Hernandez starts tonight, which is always a good reason …read more