For those of you not familiar with StubHub the site allows fans to not only buy tickets, but also sell tickets to any of the MLB team games.

But for the past few years, the cheapest unwanted Yankee tickets have been reselling on StubHub at just a few dollars apiece, and sources say the team isn’t happy.

For instance, right now there are 7,184 tickets listed on StubHub for next Monday night’s game against the Baltimore Orioles, with prices starting at just $3 — less than the price of a beer.

If fans went to the Stadium box office or to Yankees.com, the team’s official site, those seats would cost $15.20 apiece.

The Yankees are threatening to end their participation in the MLB agreement with StubHub if the website doesn’t incorporate a minimum floor price on the Yankees tickets being sold. It sounds strange, given that the tickets wouldn’t be for sale that low if the market demand was higher, which is just a basic economic principle. However the Yankees real issue is that they are selling tickets on their website for $15 a pop, the same site where they currently have a link to StubHub as part of the MLB agreement where fans can get those same tickets for only a quarter of the price.

The Rays are expected to sign designated hitter Hideki Matsui, Jack Curry of the YES Network reports (Twitter links). Matsui, who turns 38 in June, could sign a minor league contract with the Rays before long.

Matsui spent last year with the Athletics and posted a .251/.321/.375 line with 12 home runs and 28 doubles in 585 plate appearances. However, he finished strong, posting a .295/.353/.425 line in the second half. Matsui, a Wasserman Media Group client, has been preparing for the 2012 season in the New York area, according to Curry.

“Daisuke feels really good,” manager Bobby Valentine said. “He’s ready to start dealing with competition rather than rehabilitation.”

Valentine said that Matsuzaka will still face controlled competition, meaning that he won’t be allowed to throw 30 pitches in an inning. However, the outing will start a progression of approximately five starts after which Matsuzaka could be ready or nearly ready to return to the big leagues. The right-hander will face a 30-day rehab clock, meaning that he could be pitching again in the majors by the end of May, less than a year after his surgery.

Matsuzaka is 49-30 with a 4.25 ERA in five seasons with the Sox. Last year, he was 3-3 with a 5.30 ERA in eight games before blowing out his elbow.

The New York Yankees were part of a major trade with the Seattle Mariners…possibly forgetting how big trades with the Mariners have worked out in the past. The 1988 move that sent Jay Buhner and two minor league infielders to Seattle in exchange for Ken Phelps was one of their worst moves in the modern era.

Some Yankee fans believe sending Jesus Montero west in exchange for Michael Pineda was their worst roster decision of the last decade. Most believe it is even worse than that.

Then there was the two-ring circus of first basemen, both signing contracts in excess of $200 million. Teams simply don’t shell out that kind of money without some fairly major expectations.

The first player on the list, though, is one of whom almost nothing is expected.

Manny Ramirez Looks to Resurrect Career at Age 40

Manny Ramirez is a great cautionary tale for young players. Breaking the rules resulted in a rather expedient fall from grace for Ramirez, culminating in a 100-game suspension last season after failing a second test for performance enhancing drugs.
Then again, Ramirez built an amazing career on the back of questionable supplement practices. That is a lesson Major League Baseball hopes the youth of the sport won’t embrace.

Ramirez appeared in just five games for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2011, batting .059 in 17 at bats. Instead of serving his suspension he opted to leave baseball. The once-potent power hitter looked as though he was out of the game.

Things managed to get worse for Ramirez last September. He was arrested on a domestic violence charge.

“I made some mistakes and I want to show my children I can correct them. I was about to lose my family,” Ramirez said. “My wife brought me to church. She changed my environment and I found a lot of good people out there.”

It appears he has turned his personal life around, but fans in Oakland will have to wait until he serves 50-games of his suspension to see if his baseball fortunes have followed suit.

Michael Pineda Expected to Break the Curse of the Bone

Jay Buhner, affectionately known as “Bone” in Seattle, hit 310 home runs in his career. He played 13 solid seasons in Seattle and was part of a Mariner team that rallied to oust the Yankees from the 1995 playoffs.
Ken Phelps hit 17 home-runs before being sent to Oakland the following year. It is a trade that has been ridiculed by fans, and even managed to make an episode of Seinfeld.

The Yankees expect the young, hard-throwing Pineda to erase those memories.

In 2011, Pineda finished the season with a 3.74 ERA while playing his home games in the pitcher-friendly Safeco Field. He finished the season with a 9-10 record, but it is difficult to blame him for the terrible Mariners offense.

However, Pineda also saw the low ERA that landed him in the All Star game slowly creep up throughout the season. His April ERA of 2.01 gave way to a mark of 2.65 by the end of June. The mark jumped almost an entire point in July and continued to creep up in August and September.

The Yankees are banking on it just being fatigue from a young pitcher. The Mariners were all-too-willing to ship him off in exchange for a promising young bat. It could be that they needed a power hitter more than pitching at the moment, but they may have also seen something in Pineda that made him expendable.

Time will tell, but if he isn’t able to win 15 games in New York and keep his ERA below 3.25, the loyalists will get restless.

Pineda just needs to remind the Yankees that they got even when they acquired Tino Martinez and Jeff Nelson for Russ Davis and Sterling Hitchcock.

Jesus Montero Expected to Go Deep…a LOT

The Mariners haven’t had a productive power hitter since…well…have they had one since Buhner retired in 2001? Montero provides power at the plate and behind it, likely addressing two needs in their lineup.

Seattle is far from being a contender in 2012, but they are working on bringing the pieces together. The team will simply expect Montero to show he can hit with power and improve as a professional baseball player. The real expectations will come in two years when Seattle believes they’ll be able to field a winner again.

Albert Pujols Should Equal Winning a World Series

The Los Angeles Angels have flirted with the playoffs the last two seasons, and with the World Series the year before that. However, they haven’t had the firepower to follow up on their 2002 championship.

Their response was to sign a 32-year-old Pujols to a 10-year contract for $240 million. At least he’s in the American League, where he’ll be able to fill the designated hitter slot.

It’s difficult to picture Pujols playing at an elite level after he turns 40. Rather, the Angels are expecting him to repeat his World Series success in St. Louis in the immediate future. Anything short of a championship in the next three seasons will be seen as a failure.

Prince Fielder is Expected to be Albert Pujols

This could be the most unrealistic expectation of the group, but the Detroit Tigers are paying $214 million over nine seasons for Fielder’s services. They made that level of a commitment because they believe he will bring Pujols-level performance to their team.

Fielder turns 28-years-old in May, making this expectation a bit more palatable. After all, he should still be in his prime when his contract is winding down.

The Tigers made the American League Championship Series last season, falling to the Texas Rangers in six games. A player with Fielder’s talents could have made a difference in that series. The Tigers will expect to get back to the top of the American League this season, and could very well be facing the Angels in the 2012 ALCS.
Then fans will be able to see what a combined $450 million buys.