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Well his goatee that is.

From the girls at the Inside Track:

That Red Sox Golden Glover Kevin Youkilis will shave off his goatee tomorrow night to raise some dough for his Hits For Kids charity. Yooooouk will take it all off for a $5,000 donation from Gillette at the Cask ’n Flagon at 5 p.m.

I only wonder if he plans on growing it back for next season. Otherwise, we go back to this Youk.

Also posted on my site

It’s going to be a busy week for the teams in MLB as the deadline looms on the exclusive negotiating period with their free agents. When the clock strikes midnight tonight, free agents can talk to any of the teams about a contract for next year and years to come.

So what does this mean for the Red Sox? It means that they better hope their contract offer of 3-years $36 million is good enough for Lowell or they risk the potential of losing him. I fully expect Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein to be burning up the phones of Lowell’s agents, the Levinson brothers, all day today.

It will be interesting to see what happens with other free agents like Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Barry Bonds, Francisco Cordero and others.

There is a fantasy baseball impact on this as well as many of you out there participate in fantasy baseball leagues. Some of you participate in AL-only and NL-only leagues as well as mixed leagues. With some of this AL and NL-only leagues being keeper leagues, your hoping that your star free agent on your team doesn’t switch leagues. I’ve had this happen to me when Jim Thome was a free agent with the Indians. He ended up signing with the Phillies and it hurt my team for the following season.

Today also marks the start of the big four awards in MLB, the AL & NL Rookie of the Year, the AL & NL Cy Young, the AL & NL Manager of the Year and the AL & NL MVP’s. This is how the schedule breaks down this week and next.

Nov. 12: AL and NL Rookies of the Year
Nov. 13: AL Cy Young
Nov. 14: AL and NL Managers of the Year
Nov. 15: NL Cy Young
Nov. 19: AL MVP
Nov. 20: NL MVP

Continuing with my post, Impact Rookies for 2008, published over at Fantasy Insider Online, I wanted to talk a little bit about [tag]Oakland Athletics[/tag] [tag]first base prospect[/tag], [tag]Daric Barton[/tag]. Barton played in 136 games for AAA Sacramento before being called up to the major leagues. In 516 AAA at-bats here’s what Barton’s line looks like:

Daric Barton - .293/.389/.438 | 38 doubles | 5 triples | 9 home runs | 70 RBI | 69:78 K:BB

Barton ranked third in the Oakland minor league system with that .389 on-base percentage, and was named their 2007 Organizational Player of the Year. He’s been regarded for the last few years as a top prospect with remarkable understanding of the strike zone. Barton was drafted in the first round of the 2003 draft by the St. Louis Cardinals. In five minor league seasons Barton hit .301 with a .414 on-base percentage and has walked more than he’s struck out (313:266 BB:K).

Barton was called up to Oakland in September and played in 18 games, receiving 72 at-bats. He exploded on the MLB scene  going 2-3 with a double, an RBI and two walks in his major league debut. His full, 2007 major league line looked like this:

Daric Barton - .347/.429/.639 | 9 doubles | 4 home runs | 8 RBI | 11:10 K:BB

Barton should get every opportunity to try out for the starting first base job for the A’s in 2008. Whether he earns that job at the start of the season or at some point later, he will contribute in a number of stat categories, in particular the slash stats. Daric Barton will make an inpact in 2008 for the A’s and your fantasy team!

Not only has top prospect,[tag]Jarrod Saltalamaccia[/tag], hit 2 home runs tonight against the Nationals, but he’s playing first base for the fourth time this season. One more appearance at [tag]first base[/tag] (a position of weakness for the [tag]Atlanta Braves[/tag]) will qualify him at first base for eligibility purposes on Yahoo.

It’s been rumored throughout the Braves camp for the past month or so that Bobby Cox plans to work Salty into at least a part time role at first base. With Scott Thorman hitting below .230 for the season, if Salty keeps hitting like this he’s likely to see more games out in the field, instead of behind the plate.

It’s about time for me to start my positional rankings. These will be ever evolving throughout the spring and up to opening day. I’ll get these all out over the next few days. Here are the [tag]top 10 fantasy first basemen[/tag].

1. Albert Pujols
2. Ryan Howard
3. Lance Berkman
4. Justin Morneau
5. Mark Teixeira
6. Paul Konerko
7. Derrek Lee
8. Carlos Delgado
9. Adam LaRoche
10. Victor Martinez