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BALTIMORE -- Two weeks after trading their closer to Oakland, the Baltimore Orioles agreed to a two-year, $15 million contract with former Athletics closer Grant Balfour on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the deal. Balfours contract will not be completed until the right-hander passes a physical, the person told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the transaction had not been announced by the Orioles. Balfour fills the vacancy left by the trade of closer Jim Johnson, who was dealt to Oakland because Baltimore didnt want to pay him about $10 million a season. Johnson had 50 saves in each of the past two seasons but was in line for a huge raise. "Its really about the allocation of resources and to have a competitive team," Orioles executive vice-president of baseball operations Dan Duquette said at the time. "You have to have proper balance." Balfour is the first significant addition this off-season by the Orioles, who went 85-77 in 2013 but came up short in their bid to reach the post-season for a second straight year. Balfour, who turns 36 on Dec. 30, went 1-3 with 38 saves in 41 opportunities with Oakland last season. He made $4.5 million with the Athletics in 2013. He had a 2.59 ERA and 72 strikeouts, with 27 walks in 62 2-3 innings. In 2012, he had 24 saves in 26 chances. In 10 seasons with Minnesota, Milwaukee, Tampa Bay and the Athletics, Balfour is 28-17 with 72 saves and a 3.27 ERA. The addition of Balfour means the Orioles wont have to try Tommy Hunter or Darren ODay at closer. Both likely will be tried in a setup or situational role. Sandy Koufax Jersey . -- Ben Brust scored 19 points to lead six Wisconsin players in double figures as the No. Walker Buehler Womens Jersey . Pistorius denied the allegation that he said to the close friend of the girlfriend he killed: "How can you sleep at night?" The accusation by Kim Myers provided a bizarre twist during the trial of the world-famous double-amputee Olympian, who is facing 25 years to life in prison if convicted of premeditated murder for shooting dead Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, at his home last year. http://www.ladodgersprostore.us/Kenley-J...dodgers-jersey/. Hernandez (3-0) struck out 11 and shut down Oakland for the second time in a week, becoming the first Mariners pitcher to win three times in the first nine games of a season. With the usual "Kings Court" for Hernandez home starts expanded to a "Supreme Court" encompassing the entire stadium with yellow shirts and "K" cards, Hernandez gave up four hits in the 28th double-digit strikeout game of his career. Corey Seager Jersey . "He came up to me and said, I want to train," said Toronto coach Ryan Nelsen. The 26-year-old midfielder is expected to play Saturday night when Toronto hosts D.C. United, returning to his Major League Soccer squad with mixed feelings about the Americans World Cup run -- sad that it ended when it did but proud of his teams performance. Corey Seager Dodgers Jersey . - Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr has nothing but good problems right now.Theres been exhaustive talk about the inevitable regression facing the Colorado Avalanche - a team that more or less rode the percentages to an improbable playoff berth last season. We no longer approach teams like last years Avalanche club with questions about whether their strategy at even strength - which at least last year, was get out-shot and win regularly - is sustainable for the long-term. The real question is whether teams in these precarious situations can do enough with their current roster to improve on last years performances and hope to mitigate the expected drop-off in point production. Colorados a particularly interesting case for this. The Avalanche may have been treated as a paper tiger all through last year despite their winning ways, but there are legitimate questions about whether player development can stave off some of the expected regression. Optimists point to the collection of young, near-prime talent on the roster which includes Gabriel Landeskog, Matt Duchene and Ryan OReilly. They are three of the leagues better forwards and the team has certainly found their starting goaltender in Semyon Varlamov. Perhaps the most intriguing name on the roster is wunderkind Nathan MacKinnon, who is coming off a brilliant rookie year. The 2013 No. 1 overall pick is an unbelievable combination of speed and versatility and scored at a comparable rate to that of Chicagos Marian Hossa and Philadelphias Claude Giroux last season. Colorado will only rely on him more and his average ice time - which was 17:21 last year - should go up this season. And MacKinnons underlying numbers from his Calder Trophy-winning campaign are fascinating. A good chunk of statistical oddity is tied up in his home and road splits, which were night and day. Like most other players (and teams) around the league, MacKinnon saw a drop-off in his performance on the road. But MacKinnons slide was particularly steep - enough that it should warrant investigation by a team looking to immediately improve their 5-on-5 play next season. To quickly capture MacKinnons drop-off, consider this - no skater that logged more than 500 minutes over the last two seasons saw road depreciation quite like his: MacKinnons Corsi percentage was 18 per cent worse on the road. That was well above the league average, which was about four per cent worse for the same collection of regular skaters. So yes, that drop is a bit out of the norm. Now lets look at a table of some of the other pertinent underlying data for MacKinnon from last season: Im going to touch on most of these metrics individually, but the numbers that should immediately stand out are his team-relative numbers: Relative Corsi Percentage (or the difference in Corsi Percentage a team experiences when a player is on the ice versus off) and Relative Goal Percentage (or the difference in Goal Percentage a team experiences when a player is on the ice versus off). At home, MacKinnon was a positive possession player (3.0 per cent) and significant plus-goal player relative to teammates (9.dddddddddddd4 per cent). On the road, MacKinnon was a negative possession player (-3.3 per cent) and floated around the team average in the goal department (0.5 per cent). The raw Corsi For and Corsi Against totals show what kind of trouble MacKinnon ran into on the road. The reality is that MacKinnon and his linemates spent way too much time defending the play. At home, Colorado was +10.8 shot attempts per 60 minutes with MacKinnon on the ice. On the road, that number spiraled to -10.4. The main reason for this insane shot-differential swing is tied up in MacKinnons road Corsi Against per 60 a€“ a number so high, only three forwards (Torontos James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak, and Buffalos Tyler Ennis) finished worse. Those ugly road shot differentials led to even uglier goal differentials, as noted in the Goals For/Goals Against rows. For every 60 minutes played at home with MacKinnon on the ice, Colorado was +0.7 in the goal column. For every 60 minutes played on the road with MacKinnon on the ice, Colorado was -0.6 in the goal column. Its for those reasons that I found MacKinnons zone start numbers in the initial table interesting. While MacKinnon enjoyed some favorable zone start situations on home ice, he was in more of a defensive role on the road. His raw offensive zone start percentages dropped 5.52 per cent and the percentage of offensive-zone draws he took relative to his teammates actually swung into the negatives. The drop in offensive zone starts meant less offensive opportunity immediately following the restart of play for MacKinnon. I was curious about whether MacKinnon was getting burned by a particular aspect of the zone starts beyond just opening more in the defensive zone last year. So I decided to pull out his Corsi Percentage data in the 30-second window following every draw he was on the ice for last year, then splitting by the outcome of that draw (i.e. win/loss) and venue (i.e. home/road). Was it possible that MacKinnons underlying numbers were getting dinged by something immediately off of the draw? Theres not much difference there. I think its safe to say that MacKinnons raw drop in zone starts a€“ combined with a slight uptick in competition, team effects, and the assortment of subtleties that make road hockey difficult for all (e.g. long change, general risk aversion) a€“ were the contributors behind his slide, as opposed to a singular aspect of the game where MacKinnon really deteriorated. The mere fact MacKinnon was able to have such an explosive season as an 18-year-old is enormously impressive; most players his age are shielded altogether from NHL competition and the few who do get minutes generally sink before they swim. MacKinnon may have looked like a boy amongst men at times on the road last