ORLANDO  http://www.yankeesfanproshop.com/authentic-giancarlo-stanton -jersey , Fla. (AP) ¡ª Jim Small has been promoted to senior vice president of Major League Baseball¡¯s international business and will move back to the New York area after establishing MLB¡¯s Tokyo office and running it for 15 years.The 57-year-old worked in the public relations departments of the Kansas City Royals, Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers and the commissioner¡¯s office, spent two years with Nike, then returned to MLB in August 1998 as a vice president of MLB International.He opened the Tokyo office during the second half of the 2003 season and helped launch the World Baseball Classic in 2006. Small had been vice president of Asia-Pacific.Small replaces Chris Park, who left MLB in December to become chief executive officer of Gen.G, an esports companyCharlie Hill, a 34-year-old who heads MLB¡¯s London office, was promoted Friday to vice president of international strategic development from managing director of Europe, Middle East and Africa.Rodrigo Fernandez Joe DiMaggio Jersey , 40, becomes managing director of Latin America He opened a new office after he was hired as managing director of Mexico in 2016.Sami Kawakami, who has worked for MLB in Tokyo since 2004, becomes managing director of Japan and takes over many of Small¡¯s responsibilities. Kawakami is 38. Nolan Arenado is staying in Denver. Does that mean Bryce Harper is now heading west? MLB will try out new rules in an independent minor league. Might the Angels make a (short) move?"WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections Chicago Cubs recapsChicago Cubs minor leaguesChicago Cubs essaysChicago Cubs game threadsWrigley Field renovationsFull archiveLibrary Bleed Cubbie Blue Community GuidelinesCurrent time in ChicagoBCB Specials & Site InfoWinter 2019 music threadsCubs StoriesScheduleRosterStatsYahoo Cubs newsYahoo Cubs team pageYahoo Cubs reportYahoo Cubs depth chartYahoo Cubs transactionsYahoo Cubs photosOdds Shop About Masthead Community Guidelines StubHub LB newsMLB Bullets loves the mountainsNew,16commentsNolan Arenado is staying in Denver. Does that mean Bryce Harper is now heading west? MLB will try out new rules in an independent minor league. Might the Angels make a (short) move?CSTShareTweetShareShareMLB Bullets loves the mountainsRon Chenoy-USA TODAY SportsGood morning.The Rockies have agreed to an eight-year, $260 million extension with third baseman Nolan Arenado. The deal gives Arenado the highest annual salary for a position player in the game, at least for the next few days. Arenado has an opt-out after three years and a no-trade clause.Matt Snyder has six things to know about the Arenado extension.Zach Kram says the deal is a win for both the Rockies and Arenado.David Schoenfield agrees that both sides are winners. Jay Jaffe runs the numbers on what Arenado is expected to produce and how much money that is worth and thinks this deal is pretty much in the ballpark as to Arenado¡¯s future worth. Will Leitch looks at the fallout from the Arenado deal and who is affected by it going forward, besides Arenado and the Rockies. You¡¯d better believe Kris Bryant is one.Tom Verducci looks at the impact this deal will have on the present and future free agency of baseball¡¯s top players.Emma Baccellieri puts Arenado¡¯s deal in the greater context of players forgoing free agency to sign long-term extensions with their current teams.Speaking of which, the Yankees and Aaron Hicks agreed to a seven-year, $70 million extension. Jay Jaffe has a look at Hicks Mickey Mantle Jersey , why the Yankees would want to offer him that kind of contract and why Hicks accepted it.Mike Oz looks at what the Arenado deal means for free agent outfielder Bryce Harper specifically. Speaking of Harper, the Dodgers are reportedly now making a play for Harper and the Phillies are worried that they¡¯re going to lose him to LA. (And as Jon Paul Morosi wrote, the Dodgers may have been saving money to make a bid for Arenado after this upcoming season. They no longer need to save that money.)Ted Berg argues that the Dodgers should give Harper all the money he wants to play in LA.The Cardinals inked pitcher Mike Mikolas to a four-year, $68 million deal and Dan Szymborski breaks down that pact.The Birdos have also signed catcher Matt Wieters to a minor-league deal.And the bad news in Cards camp is that pitcher Carlos Martinez has been shut down and has his arm in a sling. He¡¯s getting PRP (platelet-rich plasma ) treatments, which is usually a way that players try to avoid surgery. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn¡¯t. R.J. Anderson draws up a path to contention for the Padres.Richard Justice praises the recent trades made by Yankees general manager Brian Cashman.Neil Paine makes an interesting argument about the Indians. The team is the heavy favorite in the AL Central and Paine argues that Cleveland could get away with a little bit of tanking. Basically, the Indians could sell off a player or two for prospects and still be good enough to win the AL Central. That presumably would set them up for a longer run in the division.MLB has announced a new partnership with the independent Atlantic League where the Atlantic League will be used to test out new rules changes. Rumored rules changes coming to the Atlantic League is moving the mound farther away from home plate and implementing our new robot umpire overlords. Smaller rules changes as well such as limiting the number of warmup pitches or new equipment could also be coming to that league. Frankly, this makes so much sense that it¡¯s hard to believe that it wasn¡¯t implemented earlier. True, the relationship between MLB and the independent minor leagues has alway been rather frosty, which may have been a problem in the past.Nate Silver has a proposed rule change that would limit the number of pitchers any team could carry at one time to ten. When I was growing up, almost every team only carried ten pitchers at a time. They might add an 11th pitcher if they had a group of doubleheaders coming up.Buster Olney suggests implementing pitch clocks but grandfathering in any pitcher who started in the majors before 2015  http://www.yankeesfanproshop.com/authentic-giancarlo-stanton -jersey , (ESPN+ sub. req.) which is when the minor league introduced the pitch clock. On the face of this it seems like a logistical nightmare, but when baseball banned the spitball, pitchers who threw a spitball were permitted to continue to throw it for the rest of their career. Burleigh Grimes was allowed to throw a spitter until his retirement in 1934, 14 years after it was banned.Craig Calcaterra notes that MLB is giving out a conflicted message about the future of Atlanta¡¯s ¡°Tomahawk Chop.¡±The city of Long Beach has approached the Angels about the possibility of building a new stadium in that city. The details are pretty sketchy about this at the moment. But the Angels originally considering leaving Dodger Stadium for Long Beach in 1965, except Long Beach insisted on the team being called the ¡°Long Beach Angels¡± and then-owner Gene Autry refused to call the team anything other than the Los Angeles Angels or California Angels. That¡¯s when Anaheim stepped in.One of the stars of that Angels team that moved from LA to Anaheim was second baseman Bobby Knoop. Knoop announced his retirement from baseball after 53 seasons in the game.Knoop has been an infield instructor with the Angels since 2013.Alden Gonzalez talks with Reds outfielder Yasiel Puig about his new team and his old team, the Dodgers. This piece is getting a lot of attention because in it, Puig admits that he didn¡¯t work hard with the Dodgers. But the whole piece is more nuanced and it¡¯s not clear to me how literally he meant that. But Puig says he loves Cincinnati so far.Zack Meisel has a terrific piece on Indians outfielder Leonys Martin and his comeback from a nearly-deadly infection last September. (The Athletic sub. req.)Gabe Lacques profiles new Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, whom he calls the first millennial manager. Baldelli¡¯s Cubs connection is that the two managers he played for in Tampa Bay were Lou Piniella and Joe Maddon. David Schoenfield asks if you¡¯d rather have a team full of hitters who hit 25 home runs or one where everyone was a Gold Glove winner.Sheryl Ring looks at the current state of the lawsuit that Athletics outfielder Dustin Fowler has filed against the White Sox for the injury he suffered in his first major league game at whatever they were calling the White Sox park back then.The Nevada Gaming Control Board has denied MLB¡¯s request to not take bets on Spring Training games. Seriously, if you¡¯re betting on Spring Training games, you have a problem. Unless you¡¯ve managed to fix one Roger Maris Jersey , in which case MLB has a problem which is why they don¡¯t want bookmakers taking bets on Spring Training games.The outfielder called bank! Check out this play in Division III college baseball where the outfielder overthrew everyone on a throw home only to see it bounce off the back wall right back to the catcher for an out.And finally, it¡¯s time to talk about that travesty at the Academy Awards over the weekend. I¡¯m talking, of course, about the decision not to give an Oscar to America¡¯s Greatest Filmmaker, Phillies outfielder Andrew McCutchen, for best documentary short feature. The good news is that McCutchen has a new video out where he talks about how hard it is to hit in the first game of the year and why Spring Training is for the birds. Complete with bird calls. And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.