Here's the Seth Smith transcript from FanFest. My question is the last one, as I mentioned yesterday, about how you avoid letting Oakland's difficulty get in your head.

Brad Peacock is Bullpen Banter's #66 prospect for 2012.

Michael Choice is #64. Contact is the potential issue and nobody thinks he'll stay in center field.

Michael Taylor spent the off-season interning for KNBR radio in San Francisco. Query whether it was a legit internship or whether KNBR is yet another FLSA-violating organization taking advantage of people desperate to break into its business.

Via Aaron Gleeman:

Source: "#Twins are not considered serious contenders for (Todd) Coffey." The Cubs & Oakland are among those that are.

— Darren Wolfson (@DarrenWolfson) January 31, 2012

Sure, why not. Todd Coffey. He's a very large dude.

Ex-A's: Dan Johnson signed a minor-league deal with the White Sox, and Juan Cruz signed one with the Pirates.

Al Yellon writes an ode to massive multi-team trades. The list includes the Ben Grieve deal that netted the A's Johnny Damon and Mark Ellis, as well as the Carlos Pena for Ted Lilly swap that involved a lot more moving pieces than that.

Joe Lemire has an offseason edition of his power rankings that have the A's 29th. I'm not convinced they're actually that bad.

Me elsewhere: I wrote a FanFest piece for Baseball Prospectus. It's behind the paywall. It's also a blatant rip of Hunter S. Thompson or someone like him. Whatever, yo.

Also me elsewhere: I'm part of the Lineup Card at Prospectus for the first time, writing about "Undeservedly Obscure Baseball Films." I chose Keanu Reeves's Hardball. This one is not behind the paywall, and everyone else's contributions are awesome.

Master Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni was designated for assignment by the Blue Jays. It's about time, really, seeing as how the man passed in 1996.