Tuesday Morning Hot Links

*By now you may have read that the Astros were allegedly *not* the team that won the rights to negotiate with Byung-ho Park; that honor apparently goes to the Twins. Jerry Crasnick compared Park to Chris Carter.

*Dallas Keuchel won AL Outstanding Pitcher, Carlos Correa won AL Outstanding Rookie, and Jose Altuve won the Majestic Athletic Always Game Award (think, heart and hustle/rise and grind) at the MLB Players Choice Awards last night.

*Jim Crane said the Astros are prepared to increase payroll in the right parameters:
We'll focus on spending money wisely and adding a dimension or two that we might need. What's really nice is what we set out to do is starting to work. You've got a great farm system to draw from and you've got a lot of guys coming up, too, that could be Major League ready.

*Luhnow said there's a balance to strike:
The outcomes we're looking for is to create outs with our pitching staff and create runs with our offense and there's many different formulas. We don't feel like, 'We need a guy throwing 97 or else we're not going to be successful.' 

*Any decision to be made regarding the cheatin'ass Cardinals will be made before the beginning of the 2016 season.

*Tal's Hill will be removed before the beginning of the 2017 season.

*Richard Justice just !loves! the new Spring Training facility.

*It's that time of year again!

If I had a ballot: Raines, Bagwell, Piazza, Griffey, Bonds, Clemens, Schilling, Mussina, Trammell, Edgar.

— keithlaw (@keithlaw) November 9, 2015

*Jeff Passan gives the rundown on 192 free agents.

*Albert Pujols is doubtful for Opening Day 2016.

*Rockies SS Jose Reyes was arrested for alleged domestic abuse

*Sad news in MLB as former Braves/Angels pitcher Tommy Hanson has passed away at the age of 29.

Monday Morning Hot Links

*The prequel to the Winter Meetings - the GM Meetings - run from today through Thursday in Florida. The phrase "feeling out" is used a lot, which sounds vaguely sexy. Word in the article is to not expect any deals to get done, but the foundation for a lot of deals will get done this week.

*But before that, the Astros' brass will attend a groundbreaking event with Rob Manfred for the new shared Spring Training facility with the Nationals, which is being built on a landfill. 

*Interesting news out of Korea with 29-year old 1B Byung-Ho Park. Friday it was announced that the winning bid for Park was accepted at $12.85m and that a team has 30 days to negotiate a deal. News has slowly been trickling out about who didn't win the bid, and you can click the MLBTR link for a timeline. Basically the Astros are one of eight teams whose status regarding Park has not been addressed. We'll keep an eye out.

Park has hit 105 homers in the last two seasons in the KBO, with OPS' over 1.000 in each of the last three seasons.

UPDATE: Pirates are apparently out, leaving the Astros as one of seven teams whose status is unknown. But Buster Olney is hearing that Oakland won the bidding. 

*It's apparently that time of the off-season when it's cool for writers to post where they think free agents will end up. Free agency is like a Waffle House: it's never the place you consciously decided to go to, but it's always a place where you end up. So here are a couple more links

Heyman: (1) Thinks Rasmus signs a 4yr/$50m extension with the Astros; (2) Thinks Kazmir signs a 3yr/$39m extension; (3)

MLBTR: Has the Astros involved with a number of players, but doesn't see Houston landing any of the Top 50. 

*Here's a profile in Spanish of Carlos Correa's brother.

*The Fort Worth Star-Telegram offers up this anecdote about how the Rangers new pitching coach - Doug Brocail - started a fight with a fan in the stands in Oakland in 2004.