This and that

• The Chicago Tribune's Fred Mitchell reports that Dusty Baker intends to give Kerry Wood a call to "see what's up." I'd say that's a longshot. Someone will offer Wood - who's reportedly definitely not going to be back with the Cubs - a lot of money to close. We've got Cordero (unless Dusty thinks we'll trade him) and Wood's not going to be a set-up guy here. Don't get me wrong, I'd be fine with trading Coco and acquiring Wood, if that's part of the larger plan.

• In other bullpen-related Hot Stove developments, the Reds offered Stormy Weathers arbitration and Arthur Rhodes' agent told MLB.com that the Reds have made an offer for the free agent.

Arthur Rhodes is exactly the kind of lefty middle reliever I would expect the Reds to go out and get. If he can pull a rabbit out of his hat and reproduce his impressive 2008 statistics in 2009, he'd be a great acquisition. But he's 39. He didn't pitch in the majors in 2007 and he was 0-5 with a 5.32 ERA with the Phillies in 2006. Remember Rheal Cormier? He was about the same age when he reinvented himself with the Phillies and posted a 1.59 ERA in 43 appearances before the Reds acquired him. That didn't turn out so well.

I realize you need a stopgap with Affeldt gone and Weathers and Lincoln possibly leaving, and Rhodes has proven he can get lefties out, but it's hard to say how much longer he'll be effective. If he had a 0.68 ERA in 25 appearances for the Marlins, why don't they want to bring him back? I guess you could at least expect Rhodes to be as serviceable as Mike Lincoln was last year (after he was out of baseball for the previous three seasons). The difference is Lincoln was signed to a minor-league deal and invited to spring training; Rhodes will get $1.6 million for a year.

• The Mariners have talked to Brian Goldberg about Junior, according to a Seattle Times blog.

• Brian Kelly has been saying all along that he's not going anywhere, but his quotes today have fellow media outlets treating it as breaking news. Worth checking out though, as he did say some pretty nice things about how excited he is about being at UC.

• A couple of items from SI.com: In his ten sophomores ready to break out Seth Davis gives Dayton forward Chris Wright some love and puts UK's Patrick Patterson in the category of "too obvious to be featured here" because of how dominant they were as freshmen.

And Don Banks writes about the coaching carousel, looking at both likely head coaching prospects as well as hot seat rankings. Marvin Lewis continues to move down the list on the hot seat, as he has since Banks started ranking hot-seat coaches several weeks ago. It's hard to believe there are nine head coaches more likely than the coach of the 1-10-1 Bengals to get fired. Even more surprising: Brian Kelly's name appears among the names to know for likely head coaching prospects.

• I was wondering when Bruce Gradkowski was going to get another shot. ESPN's James Walker says the Browns are getting ready to sign him. I like Gradkowski, not just because he's a quarterback from the MAC but I always thought he was solid for the Bucs. I'm not going to pick them to beat the Titans or anything, but he'll be serviceable.

• Instead of the usual non-local link of interest, I've got a non-sports related link of interest to honor the victims of The Who concert at Riverfront Coliseum 29 years ago tomorrow.