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.
  

The Dodgers and Chicago White Sox on Thursday finalized plans to play an exhibition game on Friday, March 23 in Tucson to benefit the Christina-Taylor Green Memorial Foundation. The game will be played at Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium at 1:05 p.m., and all proceeds go to the foundation, established by the family of Green, one of the victims of a shooting in Tucson on January 8, 2011.

The event was planned to raise money for the victims and families affected by that shooting. The Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks played a game last spring in Tucson, on March 25, 2011 to raise money for the Christina-Taylor Green Memorial Foundation.

Green is the daughter of Dodgers scout and national cross-checker John Green, who said, "The beneficiary for this game, the Christina-Taylor Green Memorial Foundation, will give back to the local community that gave so much to us. Christina-Taylor’s wishes and our mission statement are to help those less fortunate in the areas of education, the arts, sports and leadership programs to enrich our children’s lives."

The Dodgers have a split squad that Friday, also playing a game against the Kansas City Royals in Surprise, Arizona.

Individual tickets go on sale on February 15, and can be purchased online at tusconpadres.com, as the stadium is also the home of the Triple A affiliate of the San Diego Padres.

Former Dodgers executive Derrick Hall, now the President and CEO of the Diamondbacks, has had quite an offseason. Steve Henson of Yahoo! Sports has a wonderful profile of Hall, who battled prostate cancer and lived to tell about it:

Lately his energy has returned to his pre-surgery Herculean level. He and Amy hosted a dinner at their home for 80 United Way employees a few nights ago. He’s constantly on the radio and local television, pumping up the D-backs. He pops his head into offices and cubicles at Chase Field, chatting with employees who sell tickets, solicit advertising and evaluate the farm system.

His approach fosters the culture the United Nations recognized in giving the inaugural Positive Peace Award for a sports team to the Diamondbacks. It’s why MLB has Hall on its short list of candidates to replace Selig when he retires, perhaps as soon as 2014. It’s why several of the groups seeking to purchase the Dodgers have contacted Hall to become the CEO should their bid win.

That last sentence is interesting to note, as Hall resigned as senior vice president of communications just two months into Frank McCourt's tenure with the team, and the Dodgers haven't technically had a team president since Dennis Mannion was let go in October 2010.

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In other news...

• Jerry Crasnick of ESPN reports that former Angels outfielder Chris Pettit has singed a minor league deal with the Dodgers. No word yet on whether or not Pettit got an invitation to big league camp in spring training.
• Dodgers minor league outfielder and first baseman Scott Van Slyke is profiled by Ken Gurnick of MLB.com.
• Former Dodger, current Orioles pitcher Dana Eveland, along with current Dodgers farmhand Joe Becker, will host a baseball camp in Palmdale for kids ages 8-16 on Saturday, February 4.
• On his first day at his new location, Jon Weisman at Dodger Thoughts has an interview with the great Old Hoss Radbourn.
• Sam Miller of the Orange County Register tells the tale of Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto, C.J. Wilson's agent Bob Garber, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, and a restaurant from the winter meetings in Dallas
• Happy 93rd birthday, Jackie Robinson.
  
• Pitchers and catchers report to Dodgers camp at Camelback Ranch exactly three weeks from today.
  

At the 21st annual Southern California Sports Broadcasters awards luncheon on Monday, Vin Scully was named the Best Radio Play-by-Play Announcer for the 13th time. Scully, who is a member of the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Hall of Fame, has also won the Best Television Play-by-Play Announcer honor 10 times. This year, the TV honor went to Bob Miller, longtime announcer of the Los Angeles Kings.

This year will be Scully's 63rd season announcing Dodgers games. No matter how many times I see, say, or type those words, they still amaze me.

Rick Monday, who will return for his 19th season as a Dodgers announcer, was named Best Radio Color Commentator by the Southern California Sports Broadcasters, in the annual ceremony held this year at Lakeside Country Club in Toluca Lake.

Clayton Kershaw was also on hand to accept the Chuck Benedict Outstanding Achievement Award for his accomplishments on and off the field in 2011.

According to Bill Shaikin, Frank McCourt has eliminated several prospective owners including Dennis Gilbert and Mark Cuban.

Mark Cuban was eliminated from the Dodgers' ownership sweepstakes Friday, along with baseball executive and former agent Dennis Gilbert, according to two people familiar with the process but not authorized to discuss it.

The remaining bidders will now be vetted by MLB. Interestingly enough McCourt just saved GIlbert, Cuban, and whoever else did not make the final cut, $25,000 since they no longer need to pay MLB the investigation cost of a bid.

No word on if the darkest horse Josh Macciello is still in the running.

Not a surprise that Cuban is out given that Frank expects to sell the team for 1.5 Billion. Cuban may be flamboyant but at heart he's a self made businessman who knows value and it is doubtful the Dodgers at 1.5 Billion is value. As Cuban said back in November

"I don't think the Dodgers franchise is worth twice what the Rangers are worth," Cuban told The Times in November.

With the sale price supposed to reach at least 1.5 Billion that would make the Dodgers worth almost three times the value of Rangers who sold for $593 million.

Clayton Kershaw was in Oklahoma City on Thursday to accept the 2011 Warren Spahn Award, an award named after the Hall of Famer who won 363 games, given annually to the top left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball, based on rankings of wins, ERA, and strikeouts. Kershaw led the National League in all three categories last season.

Kershaw was asked about his pending salary arbitration hearing at the event, and told Yahoo! Sports, "I’m not worried about it at all. My court date was set. We’ll see what happens. Hopefully, it will be settled before then but you never know."

The Dodgers submitted a salary arbitration figure of $6.5 million for Kershaw in 2012, while the southpaw countered with a request for $10 million, which would set a new record for a pitcher in his first year of arbitration eligibility. I still think it is likely that the two sides settle before an arbitration hearing, which would be in early February, but if they don't come to an agreement it will be the first arbitration hearing for the Dodgers since 2007, with relief pitcher Joe Beimel.

But hey, since that Prince Fielder money didn't get spent maybe a long-term extension for the reigning Cy Young winner is in order.

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Kershaw will join Matt Kemp in Kansas City on Saturday night at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum Legacy Awards in Kansas City. Kershaw is the 2011 recipient of the National League Bullet Joe Rogan Award for pitcher of the year, while Kemp will be presented with the Oscar Charleston Award as the NL MVP.

I don't know what was more unstable this offseason: the Dodgers' team-building plan or the ACL of Victor Martinez. It turns out that both cost the team one way or another.

First baseman Prince Fielder signed a nine-year deal with the Detroit Tigers that became official today, and news broke today that the Dodgers were heavily involved in the negotiations in recent weeks, per various reports (Jon Heyman of CBS Sports, Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times, and Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports).

The Dodgers had a seven-year offer on the table, with an opt-out clause for Fielder, per Heyman:

The Dodgers' offer was said to have called for an average salary of about $26 million for the first four years and something in the low $20-million-range in the next three years. The bid was designed not to discourage Fielder from opting out and possibly moving to the American League where he could DH after the first four years. The total Dodgers deal was believed to have been worth in the low $160 millions.

I seriously don't understand this offseason. Every move made this winter by the Dodgers were the cumulative moves of a team desperately trying to add players with a small payout in 2012 with larger payouts in 2013 and beyond. The lack of money was cited as a reason for not re-signing Hiroki Kuroda, who ended up inking a deal with the New York Yankees for one year and $10 million.

Now all of a sudden the money was there for Fielder? It would have been nice to have that earlier in the offseason.

Maybe this explanation from Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports sheds some light:

One motivation for #Dodgers to get Prince was to boost short-term revenues. Team facing "huge revenue problem" in '12, one exec says.

Had Martinez not suffered the season-ending injury to his ACL, would the Tigers have offered nine years and $214 million to Fielder? I doubt it, but we'll never know.

Andre Ethier was interviewed by Mark Willard of ESPN Radio 710 in Los Angeles, and spoke about the knee injury that limited the right fielder to 11 home runs in 135 games and cut short season in early September:

"I've kind of dealt with this knee thing for the past two years, put it off for one off-season and then last season it just became a thing where a lot of things started multiplying and getting worse and something where I couldn't quite get back my swing … It was very frustrating and I learned a lot from that."

Ethier also expressed frustration at the Dodgers for not participating in any big free agent signings this winter, but noted, "Obviously it's going to get better from here on out because of the [sale] and getting new people in there." The interview will air on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. PST, which by then will make it about as fresh and timely as an interview by Lee 'Hacksaw' Hamilton.

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Clayton Kershaw caught up with Domingo Ayala (@DomingoBeisbol on Twitter) recently, and the two took part in a bullpen session together, and had a press conference for an upcoming "challenge" (hat tip to Xeifrank for the link):

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I can't thank you enough for the overwhelming amount of support you all showed me yesterday. I have written here at True Blue LA for over three years, and I'm thankful to have all of you as loyal readers and integral members of the community. There is nothing I love doing more than writing about the Dodgers, and about sports in general. Now, thanks to a freelance writing job I have taken, I will now have even more time to devote to doing a job I love.

My plan is to go to Arizona for six full weeks of spring training, and from then throughout the regular season provide you with more Dodgers coverage than ever before. Thanks again for reading, and for your support.