S.L. Price's fabulous Sabathia feature in the Sports Illustrated baseball preview issue contains this nugget: The Angels offered Sabathia a five-year contract for $20 million a year with a 24-hour window. I don't know exactly what Sabathia thought of this offer, but he did tell me at one point that the interest from his home state California teams "wasn't what you think," meaning it was less.

Jon Heyman

I am not really sure what the Ninja was thinking on this one.  I guess he was going for the hometown discount.  It seems to me that quick strike strategy is not effective with the highest caliber stars.  Those signings seem to always drag on. 

Anyhow I thought this was interesting and I had not seen it reported elsewhere.