The New York Yankees grabbed another of the free agent superstars when they inked Mark Teixeira to an 8-year deal. This deal is much better for your fantasy team than it is for Brian Cashman’s Yankees.

Teixeira has a bad habit of accumulating statistics when the game is out of hand. He hits a lot of solo home runs when his team is down by five runs or hits a two-run double when his team is up by six. This information is of no use to your fantasy team, as you don’t care what Teixeira’s real-life team does as long as your fantasy team is profiting from his exploits of a mop up pitcher who really belongs in triple-A. But this info should be of interest to the many Yankee-haters out there who are tired of watching the Yankees playing with a different set of rules than the rest of baseball. The basis for this claim is a whole different diatribe, that I don’t have time or space for here, but it is pretty convenient that no other team can move into New York City to grab some of the seemingly endless amount of cash that both local teams tap into and then spend on free agents. Don’t look for a monstrous home run total for Big Tex, but the RBi’s will flow from his bat this season. I’m looking for a .300/22HR/130RBi/115R line this season, which is well worth the auction cash.

The Los Angeles Dodgers re-signed Rafael Furcal. The way he re-signed was a little suspicious, but the bottom line is that Furcal wanted to go back to L.A. and his agent got it done, with the Dodgers adding an extra year to the deal. This guy is a lead-off stud when healthy, but that seems to be an issue worth watching. Furcal’s game is based on his speed, and back injuries tend to slow down base stealing. If Furcal can stay in the lineup in 2009, look for numbers in the .290/15HR/60RBi/110R/30SB realm. If he can’t stay healthy, the Braves will be laughing all the way home and the Dodgers will be stuck with Chin-Lung Hu‘s anemic bat.