I woke up this morning to find my truck buried under several inches of snow that fell overnight, along with a warning in my e-mail from the National Weather Service office here in Buffalo to expect another 4-10 inches by tomorrow morning. Ergo, I need a baseball fix. And since you need your weekly summary of player transactions from the past week, it’s a match made in heaven.

As usual, clicking on the first instance of a player’s name will open his stats page on Baseball-Reference.com for your convenience in determining whether you should applaud your team’s moves this week, or organize a mob to descend upon the club offices with pitchforks and torches. Unless you have your browser settings botched beyond repair, the page will open in a new window. Just close it to get back here.

For at least three of the guys mentioned below, I will resist (albeit barely) the temptation to link to the Mitchell Report instead of to their pages on Baseball Reference.

Sunday 12/9 – No transactions were made in the NLC, possibly because all the GMs in the division spent the day at church, praying that none of their players would be named in the Mitchell Report.

Monday 12/10 – Brewers DFA’ed OF Kevin Mench and signed RHP Eric * Gagne to a one-year contract.

Tuesday 12/11 – Brewers outrighted OF Laynce Nix to Class-AAA Nashville, signed C Eric Munson to a one-year contract (thus avoiding arbitration), DFA’ed RHP Matt Wise, and signed RHPs Greg Aquino and Seth McClung and C Mike Rivera to one-year contracts.

Wednesday 12/12 – Busy day:

• The Cardinals signed LHP Ron Flores and C Mark Johnson to minor league contracts with invitations to spring training, re-signed RHP Hugo Castellanos and 3B Rico Washington to minor league contracts with invitations to spring training, tendered one-year contracts to RHP Todd Wellemeyer, C Yadier Molina, and OF Rick * Ankiel, non-tendered IF Aaron Miles, making him a free agent.
• The Pirates signed free agent INF Chris Gomez to a one-year contract, and non-tendered 1B Brad Eldred and RHP Brian Rogers, making them free agents.
• The Brewers tendered one-year contracts to SS J.J. Hardy, RHPs Dave Bush and Claudio Vargas, and LHPs Brian Shouse and Chris Capuano, and non-tendered the aforementioned RHP Matt Wise and OF Kevin Mench, making them free agents.
• The Astros acquired SS Miguel * Tejada from the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for OF Luke Scott, RHP Matt Albers, LHP Troy Patton, RHP Dennis Sarfate and 3B Mike Costanzo; Claimed RHP Ryan Houston (isn’t that special?) off waivers from the Toronto Blue Jays; non-tendered SS Adam Everett, making him a free agent (and he’s gone, the Twins signed him on Thursday).
• The Reds tendered 2008 contracts to 2B Brandon Phillips and RHP Matt Belisle. They also non-tendered SS Jerry Gil and RHP Brad Salmon, making them free agents – and promptly re-signed both to minor league contracts with invitations to spring training.
• The Cubs non-tendered RHP Mark Prior, making him a free agent.

Thursday 12/13 – The Cubs signed LHP Neal Cotts to a one-year contract.

Friday 12/14 – The Astros acquired RHP Jose Valverde from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for INF Chris Burke and RHPs Juan Gutierrez and Chad Qualls. The Brewers lost RHP Greg Aquino, who was claimed off waivers by the Orioles.

Saturday 12/15 – As RHM told us in the post below, the Cardinals traded OF Jim Edmonds to the Padres for 3B David Freese.

And that’s the way it was in the NLC this week.

John K. (HMZ)