[jaa36]

We resigned three players to three-year deals off our arbitration list: center fielder Pedro Parra at $6.3M/year, third baseman Luis Molina for $3.2M/year, and reliever Manuel Ruiz for $1.4M/year. Outfielder John McCants was still asking a boatload and we'll continue to go year-to-year with him at $6.5M this year. We got popularity bumps for all four of them. We also resigned infielder Alvin Clark, utility man Duncan Clark, and outfielder Manuel Cruz at their arbitration estimates.

For personnel, our new head scout is Gabriel Nunez, who excels at scouting the minors and amateurs. He's 63 and has a long and not terribly illustrious career, though has brought three small-market teams to the playoffs in Nashville, Minneapolis, and Pittsburgh. Our new hitting coach is Shawn Green, who most recently served as the hitting coach in Jacksonville.

We have only $14M to play with on the free agent market, so we won't be players for any of the big fish, unless any of them slide to February or March. Arturo Montoya is available this year but asking $20M/year.