The Hong-Chih Kuo era with the Dodgers officially ended on Monday, as the southpaw relief pitcher signed a major league deal with the Seattle Mariners. Kuo, who is recovering from arthroscopic surgery on his left elbow in October, will receive a base salary $500,000, plus bonuses of up to $2.5 million, per Peter Wang of ETTV. Kuo will make $1 million if he makes the Mariners' 25-man roster.

Kuo will wear number 32 with the Mariners, a number already forever claimed in Los Angeles by Kuo-fax.

In other old friend news from Monday...

• Infielder Blake DeWitt was designated for assignment by the Chicago Cubs to make room for just-claimed infielder Adrian Cardenas
• Relief pitcher Joe Beimel signed a minor-league contract with the Texas Rangers
• Infielder Alex Cora signed a minor-league contract with the St. Louis Cardinals, per the Associated Press

In other Dodgers-related news...

• Russ Mitchell was designated for assignment on Monday to make room on the 40-man roster for Todd Coffey. We'll always have the home run in Chicago, Russ.
  
• We received 22 guesses for the 2012 salary of Clayton Kershaw and the date he would sign the contract, and the average guess was $8,584,091 on February 12, two days before his scheduled salary arbitration hearing.