Making Money With Options

Yesterday we learned that talks between the Astros and Yankees about Jeff Keppinger didn't get very far. The 30-year-old utility player appeared to be a fine fit for a team in need of bench help, but New York could instead turn to rookie Eduardo Nunez to fill the role. That, however, seems like a Plan B more than anything right now.

If the Yankees want to sift through other options on the open market they'll find that there isn't much left to choose from. Former Yankee prospect  Cristian Guzman is still available after posting a less-than-stellar .648 OPS with the Nationals and Rangers. Despite a solid body of work throughout his career, Julio Lugo disappointed in Baltimore last season, hitting .249/.298/.282 in 93 games. Both players offer average defense at shortstop (-0.2 and -0.4 career UZR/150, respectively) but Lugo has more experience playing second base. Those two are essentially the cream of the free agent utility infielder crop.

The Yankees have had trouble signing bench players in recent years in part because no free agent in their right mind would join the Yanks only to sit on the bench behind their impressive cast of regulars. They've had to trade for bench help as a result, grabbing the likes of Wilson Betemit, Jerry Hairston Jr., Eric Hinske, and Austin Kearns at the deadline in recent years. John Hickey of Sportspress Northwest writes that the Mariners need to make a deal if they hope to free up spending cash this winter, so perhaps a deal involving Jack Wilson and the $5MM left on his contract deal could make sense for both sides. 

GM Brian Cashman has started each of the last two seasons with young gloveman Ramiro Pena on his bench, so the team could go with him again if they feel Nunez needs more minor league seasoning. The Yankees have money to spend after missing out on Cliff Lee, but quality reserve players are tough to find these days. Overpaying for bench players is a good way to waste money, so don't be surprised if New York starts the season with Pena before making yet another in-season trade. What do MLBTR's readers think the Yankees will do with their bench during before Spring Training?

Mike Axisa contributed to this post.

Facebook has backtracked on controversial plans to allow users to share their address and cellphone number with advertisers, after facing vocal criticism from privacy advocates. Announced on Friday, Facebook billed the option as a way to “easily share your address and mobile phone with a shopping site to streamline the checkout process, or sign up for up-to-the-minute alerts on special deals directly to your mobile phone”; however, while the standard privacy tools were offered, many believed the social networking site had a greater responsibility to notify users when they were giving out the data.

“Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to this data. We agree, and we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so. We’ll be working to launch these updates as soon as possible, and will be temporarily disabling this feature until those changes are ready. We look forward to re-enabling this improved feature in the next few weeks” Facebook statement

As a result, Facebook has “temporarily” disabled the address and phone number sharing feature, though it will not be gone for good. Instead, the company will be working on new ways to indicate to users when their data is being made available, with a mind to reinstating the functionality “in the next few weeks.”

For the social networking site – which makes its money through advertising – anything that allows its sponsors better or easier access to users is a benefit, and it’s unsurprising that, despite the privacy set-back, it intends to push ahead with options to make personal data more available. Whether the responsibility for educating users about the potential harm in sharing that information is the site’s will remain a much-argued question.

Source:http://removeripoffreports.net/

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