Less than a week after declining his $6 million option for ‘09, the New York Yankees inked reliever Damaso Marte to a three-year, $12 million contract with a $4 million option for 2012.  The deal locks up the 33-year-old left-handed reliever through 2011.

Marte is a nine-year veteran and played with the Seattle Mariners, Chicago White Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates for two different stints before a trade sent him from Pittsburgh to New York.  As a member of the Yankees, Marte struggled at first but turned things around in September.  Between Pittsburgh and New York, Marte was 5-3 with a 4.02 ERA, 1.20 WHIP and five saves in 65 innings of work.

Before last year’s trade, Marte spent half a season with the Yankees but was traded to the Pirates in 2001 for Enrique Wilson.  In 2002, he was traded from the Pirates to the White Sox along with Edwin Yan for Matt Guerrier.  In 2005, the White Sox sent Marte back to Pittsburgh in exchange for Rob Mackowiak.

Last year, Marte was sent along with Xavier Nady to New York in exchange for Jose Tabata, Dan McCutchen, Jeff Karstens and Ross Ohlendorf.

The Dominican native is 22-24 with 36 saves in 519 career appearances.  In 472-2/3 innings, Marte has posted a 3.29 ERA and 1.25 WHIP and notched 508 strikeouts.

The official announcement came on Wednesday but the deal came as no surprise:  The Oakland Athletics acquired outfielder Matt Holliday from the Colorado Rockies in exchange for pitchers Greg Smith and Huston Street and outfielder Carlos Gonzalez.

Holliday, the 2007 National League MVP runner-up and three-time All-Star, finished third in the NL with a .321 batting average last year.  He has the fifth best average in the Majors (.319) over the last five years and hit over .300 for the past four seasons.  Holliday, 28, contributed 25 homers, 88 RBI and 28 steals last year.

While he doesn’t expect his team to go from 75 to 95 wins, A’s GM Billy Beane referred to Holliday as an “MVP-caliber” player and feels the addition meets the team’s immediate offensive needs — the club’s top offseason priority — and long-term plans.  Beane explained that having the option of re-signing Holliday or being compensated with two first-round draft picks if they cannot fits the team’s overall long-term game plan.

To acquire Holliday, the club had to give up three talented young players in Gonzalez, Street and Smith.  Beane explained all three were dealt from areas the team felt that they were in a “position of strength” at.

“We had a redundancy with young outfield talent,” said Beane when asked about Gonzalez.

Gonzalez, 23, hit .242 with four home runs and 26 RBI in 85 games with the A’s in 2008.  Beane said the trade of Gonzalez to Colorado opens the door to move Ryan Sweeney to center field.  The deal will likely provide more playing time for Travis Buck.

“We felt that young pitching was a strength of the organization,” Beane continued.  “In Huston’s case, the emergence of [Brad] Ziegler and [Joey] Devine made him available.”

Smith made 32 starts in his rookie season.  He was 7-16 with a 4.16 ERA and 1.35 WHIP.  In 190-1/3 innings, the 24-year-old lefty struck out 111 and opponents hit .242 against him.

Street saved 18 games for the A’s in 2008 and posted a 7-5 record.  He converted just 72% of his save opportunities and was removed as the team’s closer in the second half of the season.  The 25-year-old former first-round pick made 63 appearances and posted a 3.73 ERA with a 1.21 WHIP.

Joe Maddon won the American League Manager of the Year after his Tampa Bay Rays went from baseball’s worst to AL East division winners.  In the National League, Lou Piniella was honored as the Manager of the Year in the NL after guiding the Cubs to the league’s best record and an NL Central crown.

Maddon who succeeded Piniella in Tampa Bay in 2006 was a landslide winner based on balloting results.  He received all but one first-place votes with Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire receiving the only other first-place vote.

Piniella received nearly half of all first-place votes in the National League balloting and appeared on 27 of the 32 ballots cast by the Baseball Writers Association of America.  It was the third Manager of the Year award for Piniella who won twice as the manager of the Seattle Mariners in 1995 and 2001 in the American League.  Piniella finished ahead of Charlie Manuel of the Philadelphia Phillies who finished second for the second year in a row and guided his Phillies to the World Series.

More details on the January 1, 2009 launch of the MLB Network were revealed today during a conference call to introduce the four new on-air talent additions joining Matt Vasgersian who last week was named studio host and anchor of MLB Tonight, the Network’s live, nightly studio show that will be the signature program of the new network and Hot Stove, the Network’s live, nightly off-season studio show. 

Baseball veterans Al Leiter and Harold Reynolds were named as studio analysts and Trenni Kusnierek and Hazel Mae were added as reporters.  All of the on-air talent additions will be featured on both MLB Tonight and Hot Stove.  During the season, the Network plans to air live, nightly coverage for six to seven hours per night.

In addition to the announcement of the on-air talent, more details were revealed in regards to what the 50 million homes — the largest network debut in cable history — can expect when the MLB Network launches at the beginning of the year.

The Network plans to broadcast 16 World Baseball Classic games, some Spring Training games and a series called “30 Clubs in 30 Days” where the Network plans to provide coverage of each team from their Spring Training location.  The Network also plans to provide unique programming utilizing Major League Baseball’s archives and their nightly studio show, Hot Stove.

During the season, in addition to the six-plus hours of nightly, live studio coverage provided by MLB Tonight, the Network plans to telecast 26 regular season games as a Game of the Week although that day has yet to be determined.

Beyond ‘09, the Network has considered the possibility of coverage of the Arizona Fall League, the Caribbean World Series and other international baseball action according to Tony Petitti, President and Chief Executive Officer of MLB Network.

MLB Tonight will air live beginning at 6 p.m. Eastern until the final MLB game of the night ends between Monday and Saturday.  The show, based out of MLB Network’s headquarters in Secaucus, New Jersey, will feature live look-ins of games in progress, updates, highlights, reporting and analysis.

More information on on-air talent additions from Press Release:

Leiter plans to continue his relationship with the YES Network where he spent his last three years as the color commentator for the New York Yankees.  Prior to YES, Leiter worked as a postseason game analyst with FOX Sports and did work for ESPN.  He played 19 years in the Majors with four different teams and was the first pitcher to earn a victory against all 30 Major League teams.

Reynolds was a color commentator for MLB.com in ‘07 and ‘08 and did studio work for SportsNet New York and was a game analyst for TBS for its Sunday baseball telecasts as well as the 2008 MLB Postseason.  Before that, Reynolds spent 11 years with ESPN.  During his playing days, Reynolds was a two-time All-Star and won three Gold Gloves during a 12-year career.

Kusnierek worked as a member of the Brewers broadcast team in ‘08 on FSN Wisconsin after spending five years in Pittsburgh as a sports anchor/reporter with FSN Pittsburgh.  She is a native of Milwaukee and has covered the Super Bowl, two BCS National Championship Games, two MLB All-Star Games and two U.S. Golf Opens.  Kusnierek also spent two years at WDJT-TV 58 in Milwaukee and nine months in the sports department at WQOW-TV in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Mae was the lead anchor for SportsDesk on the New England Sports Network (NESN) from 2004 to 2008.  At NESN, she also served as the host of the Boston Red Sox week-in-review program and the Ultimate Red Sox show.  Prior to NESN, Mae anchored the morning edition of Sportsnetnews on Rogers Sportsnet in Canada and hosted the JZone, a weekly Toronto Blue Jays magazine show.