Item One: Cliff Lee wins the AL Cy Young.
Cliff Lee is certainly deserving, though perhaps a touch less than Roy Halladay given their slate of batters faced. The voters, predictably, didn't see it that way, giving Lee the edge 24-4 in first place votes. Fine, whatever. Here's the inexcusable part though, three voters didn't even put Roy Halladay on their ballot! Uncredible.
Item Two: Marlins keep dumping payroll.
The Marlins traded arbitration-eligible Kevin Gregg to the Cubs for minor-leaguer Jose Ceda. Gregg is a decent enough relief pitcher, offering up some durability and strikeouts with a mediocre walk rate and a so-so groundball ratio. Ceda is a 21-year-old righty who has split time in the rotation and bullpen and made it up to AA last year in relief.
Item Three: Fucking Kenny Williams!
Nick Swisher and Kanekoa Texeira are headed to the Yankees in exchange for Jeff Marquez, Jhonny Nunez and ***********. This is selling low on Nick Swisher who has three years and 22 million left on his contract with a 2012 option at an additional 9.25M. He had a terrible season but it was almost entirely due to his incredibly bad .247 BABIP. His line drive rate was 19.3%, about the same as in previous years and his core numbers show little change from 2006-7. He saw over 4.5 pitches per PA.