Kevin Kaduk from Yahoo! re-joins the show to talk about the Hot Stove...or as Nick calls it, the hot plate. There hasn’t been much in the way of baseball moves this off season, so we talk about what a baseball blogger does when there is no baseball about which to blog.

In other words, how off is the off-season?

Fortunately for us, there was a lot of actual baseball happenings this week, so we discuss the Hall of Fame list and talk about who should get in, who will get in, and how many times Rickey Henderson will refer to himself in the third person during his, what will undoubtedly be, epic acceptance speech. We don’t actually discuss the last one, but Rickey thinks we should. And his speech will be epic.

We get into the “first-ballot” Hall of Fame moniker and ask ‘Duk about his thoughts on the matter. If you are a Hall of Famer, shouldn’t you be in the Hall? Why does it take some guys 14 years to get in?  Basically it seems like there are two Hall of Fames...one for “first-ballot” guys and one for everyone else. So if you don’t get in on your second, third, fourth, tenth ballot...does it cheapen the honor to get in because there really wasn’t anyone else good that year?

We also discuss the idea of changing the criteria for voting for the Hall of Fame, especially with the shift to new media. Currently you have to be a member of the BWAA for 10 years. Should that be relaxed with the addition of blogs and new media, or should that be as stringent as ever? Maybe if they relax it enough we can vote! We are called On the DL afterall.

We shift to the Turnkey S & E report that talks about teams’ brand loyalty with their fans, and wonder why there are so many football teams in the top 10 but only two baseball teams. ‘Duk has some interesting thoughts on that, and how the game perceives itself.

We talk MVP/MOP and wonder how you can define value. How can someone who doesn’t make the playoffs be the most valuable? His team still would have missed the playoffs without him. Should it be Most Outstanding or Player of the Year? Should the MVP be named after a player like the Cy Young Award is? And who would that player be?

We then get into the Winter Meetings. Who will be moved? Who will make any money? Will the Obama Tax Plan and lack of money anywhere in this country change the way contracts are constructed? Will the top-level free agents be hurt by the economy or is a 95-mph fastball recession proof? And what makes someone a Type A/B Free Agent? Is it really just based on one year’s performance?  We go pretty in depth with this Hot Stove.

Last, does what happen in Vegas stay in Vegas, or is it all going to end up on Big League Stew? How will ‘Duk go about covering such a strange event...and does any business really even happen, or just enough for all these executives to justify getting away from their families for a few days in the off-season?

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