The contract could be worth up to $5.1 million, the person said, and it also lets Garcia opt out by March 29.

Garcia, 35, went 12-6 with a 4.64 ERA in 28 starts last season for the White Sox. The righthander is a two-time All-Star and has a career record of 133-87 in 12 seasons with Seattle, Philadelphia, Detroit, and the White Sox.

Two weeks before spring training begins, the Yankees’ rotation remains unsettled.

New York is still waiting to hear whether 38-year-old Andy Pettitte will return for another season. CC Sabathia remains the Yankees’ ace and Phil Hughes and A.J. Burnett are assured spots, with Sergio Mitre and young Ivan Nova as possibilities to start. Former Cy Young winner Bartolo Colon and the Yankees agreed on a minor league contract last week.

Garcia bounced back from three injury-interrupted seasons to pitch well for the White Sox last season. The Yankees got a close-up look at him when he threw seven impressive innings to beat them in Chicago Aug. 27. Garcia also lost at Yankee Stadium in late April.

GM: Lawsuit won’t limit Mets Sandy Alderson insists a lawsuit against the Mets owners by the trustee trying to recover money for Bernie Madoff’s victims isn’t limiting his moves as the team’s new general manager.

The Mets finished last season at $127.6 million, the sixth-highest payroll in the major leagues, according to the commissioner’s office. Alderson estimated the 2011 payroll will be between $140 million and $150 million.

Mets owner Fred Wilpon said a decision to explore new investors was created by uncertainty caused by the lawsuit filed last month by trustee Irving Picard, who said the Mets made nearly $48 million in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

Also, Martin Luther King Jr.’s oldest son said any discussion of his potential interest in becoming a minority owner of the Mets is premature.

Martin Luther King III said he was contacted Saturday by television executive Larry Meli, who is interested in putting together a group that would include former Mets first baseman Ed Kranepool and Donn Clendenon Jr., whose father was MVP of the Mets’ 1969 World Series victory.

Ramirez gets extension Shortstop Alexei Ramirez agreed to a deal with the White Sox that will pay him $34.5 million over the next four seasons, according to a report in the El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish language paper owned by the Miami Herald. Ramirez, 29, was set to make $2.8 million in 2010 before heading into arbitration . . . Pitcher R.A. Dickey and the Mets agreed to a $7.8 million, two-year contract that avoided salary arbitration. The 36-year-old knuckleballer went 11-9 with a 2.84 ERA last year . . . The Orioles and righthander Justin Duchscherer have reached agreement on a one-year contract, pending the completion of a physical. Duchscherer, 33, is 33-25 with a 3.13 ERA over eight seasons with Texas and Oakland. He pitched in only five games in April last year before having surgery on his left hip . . . Reliever Rafael Betancourt, slated to make $3,775,000 this year, will earn $4 million in 2012 under a new contract agreed to with the Rockies . . . Righthander Edinson Volquez and the Reds agreed to a one-year contract worth $1,625,000, avoiding arbitration . . . Frank Viola is returning to professional baseball, agreeing to become the pitching coach for the Mets’ Class A Brooklyn Cyclones. The 1988 AL Cy Young Award winner, now 50, pitched for the Mets from 1989-91 and retired as a player in 1996.