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Baseball Notebook: Hoffman signs a deal with Brewers
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Published: October 8, 2009
■ Brewers: Milwaukee has announced an $8 million, one-year contract with Trevor Hoffman, the career saves leader, with a mutual option for 2011.
Hoffman, who will turn 42 next week, signed with the Brewers before the start of the year after spending 16 seasons in San Diego. He converted 37 of 41 save chances to give him 591 saves for his career and finished the season with a 1.83 ERA, his lowest since 1998.
The option year could be worth up to $8.5 million, depending on how many games Hoffman finishes. It has a $500,000 buyout that would increase to $1 million if he closes 40 games.
■ Yankees: Unable to regularly fill their premium seats this season, with some priced as high as $2,500, the Yankees are cutting the price of some seats and rebranding them.
Next season, the team says in its new premium-seating brochure, about 25 percent of the seats in the Legends Suite that hug the field from the outfield to the dugout on both sides of the field will be called the Champions Suite. The seats will cost between $300 and $500, if bought as part of full and 41-game season-ticket plans, or an extra $25 as part of a 20-game package. The 507 seats have cost $500 and $650 since the end of April, when they were reduced from an opening-day range of $500 to $1,000,
■ Attendance drops: Major League Baseball's average attendance dropped 6.7 percent this year, with the 30 teams combining to average 30,350, the commissioner's office said yesterday.
Part of the drop was caused by smaller capacities at two new ballparks in New York. Major-league teams averaged 32,528 fans a game last season and a record 32,785 in 2007.
This year's total attendance of 73.4 million was baseball's fifth-highest total, and Philadelphia (3.6 million) and Boston (3.06 million) set franchise records.
The Phillies sold out 73 home games, including their final 42. The Red Sox have sold out 550 consecutive home games since May 2003.
■ Nationals: Shortstop Cristian Guzman is scheduled to have arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder today. A sore shoulder limited him to pinch-hitting duties late in the season, and he had only eight at-bats over the final 11 games. He hit .284 with six homers and 52 RBIs and made a team-high 20 errors.
The Nationals also announced that minor-league catcher Derek Norris broke the hamate bone in his left hand and will have surgery today. Norris was the franchise's minor-league player of the year after hitting .286 with 23 homers and 84 RBIs at Class-A Hagerstown.
■ Series odds: Oddsmakers in Las Vegas have picked the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals as favorites to meet in the World Series, with New York an overwhelming favorite to win its first title since 2000.
Oddsmaker Tony Sinisi of Las Vegas Sports Consultants says that the Yankees are 3-2 favorites despite having to beat three teams for the championship and that bettors picking a winner other than the Yankees might as well choose randomly.
St. Louis is considered the National League favorite at 9-2 for the series, but not by much ahead of Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
The Minnesota Twins area at 25-1 to win it all and bigger underdogs than they were before the season started.
■ Indians: General manager Mark Shapiro is narrowing his search for the next manager.
Shapiro says he is getting closer to a list of "eight to 10" candidates to replace Eric Wedge, who was fired last week. He hopes to have a new manager in place by the end of the World Series, but said that if a candidate was on a team currently in the playoffs, that timetable could be delayed.
■ A's: Oakland has squashed speculation that assistant general manager David Forst is in the mix to become the next general manager of the San Diego Padres
The A's said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press that Forst has not interviewed for the job, nor has anyone asked for permission to interview him.
The Padres fired Kevin Towers last weekend, ending his 14-year run as GM.
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