Baseball Hot Stove Is Officially Turned On

You want to know how long the baseball season is? There are less than 100 days from the end of the regular season to the start of Spring Training. That's not a lot of time to cram in rest, relaxation and wheeling and dealing on the Hot Stove. With the GM meetings in Chicago this week leading up to the Baseball Winter Meetings in the tropical island location of Indianapolis (I believe it's off the coast of Greece) the second week of December, the baseball off-season has officially warmed up. Get your mitts on and get ready for weeks of stove-related puns (and baseball information). First things first. Who is available and for how much? Elias Sports Bureau is charged with assigning all free agents a level of compensation if not re-signed by their 2009 team. Type A free agents are among the top 20 percent at their position, Type B covers the group from 21 to 40 percent and then the rest of the group goes unclassified, which means their previous team gets no compensation if ...