Just putting together a long post filled with a lot of different tidbits.  Afterall, the SuperBowl is tomorrow, so there isn’t much about baseball out there… but I think I managed to find a few interesting pieces.

First, the San Francisco Giants are holding their Fan-Fest today, but sometime over the next two weeks the Giants will take their star pitcher before an arbitration board to settle this years salary.  This Henry Schulman piece shares Lincecum’s view on the process.  He seems prepared for what the team could throw at him, but perhaps not  how aggressively it will be done.  After all, most of us can take criticism well when its being said by someone is worried about hurting our feelings- not so well, when said by someone who wants to undermine our position.

In the meantime, Lincecum will appear at today’s FanFest. And in the end, even if he loses, he certainly shouldn’t complain.  Not many players get to arbitration in their second year, and even if he “loses” the arbitration case, he gets a 12-fold increase in hi pay.

Bob Klapisch writes about Yankees manager Joe Girardi and what it will take for the Yankee manager to guide his team back to the Wolrd Series.  Is a tough job, no doubt, with few teams of recent years even making it back to the playoffs.   Joe Torre gave a great speach at the start of spring training in those late ’90s years- can Girardi compete?  Really nice insight from Klap.

Kevin Millar signed with the Cubs yesterday.  Why did the Cubs make that move for a fairly older player, who was only mediocre in his prime?  This short piece tells you why.

Lastly, Bill Shaiken writes a highly speculative blog post about how Manny Ramirez may be done with his career after this coming season.  I say its speculative because A. it implies no team would want him, and B. It implies that Manny wouldn’t play for less than $20 million a year.  Scott Boras is Manny’s agent, and hopefully, Boras is learning not to through bottom line figure out there repeatedly, from his experience with Johnny Damon.  Perhaps Manny has made enough money and will be happy to go home, but if he still wants to play, and no longer needs to be among the highest paid players, he certainly can find a job.