Cardinals get Wells, Kennedy

The Cards finally made their first moves: they signed Adam Kennedy, brought in Kip Wells, resigned Gary Bennett, and gave Eli Marrero a minor-league deal.  No monetary details, but Bernie Miklasz guesses $15M for three years, while Rosenthal thinks it's three years for $10M.

With Kennedy, Bennett, Scott Spiezio, and Jim Edmonds on board for 2007, the Cardinals appear to have their position players mostly set.  They'll probably still add an outfielder, but that would seem to be a low priority.  Wells is a nice addition to fill out the rotation, but even counting on Adam Wainwright in the rotation, that leaves one more hole to fill.  My money's on Jeff Weaver coming back, but surely Walt Jocketty is exploring plenty of options, including some via trade.

By Jeff Sackmann

Comments

[greenbaydude1232]

cardinals projected starting rotation:

1. Carpenter
2. Weaver
3. Reyes
4. Wainwright
5. Wells

Well that looks plain terrible. Great in 2 years but plain terrible right now. I have to think they will make a trade or something.

[allabouthephils]

That actually looks decent to me.... Maybe it looks bad to a Cubs fan... But, I could see that having a lot of potential.

[nrmax88]

weaver isnt a definite to come back. Wellls is pretty bad. Reyes and Wainwright have high potential and carp is carp

[zubes007]

New Slogan for St. Louis...

THE St. Louis Cardinals: Mediocrity At It's Finest! (other than Pujols and Carpenter)

[DR**Predz**]

At least they have an ace on the team. But I'm curious to see if Weaver has finally turnd the corner. He has great stuff but I dont know, I guess he just forgets how to pitch.

[nrmax88]

i think duncan will be very good for weaver if he stays in st louie

[allabouthephils]

I agree... I think Weaver and Wainright are the wildcards here.. If those two turn the corner... St. Louis will be the NL Central champs again...

[Not Joe Morgan]

I don't think that staff looks all that bad at all. The opposite almost.

[Kramerica Industries]

ESPN's Peter Gammons believes Manny Ramirez will likely be traded within the next week and says the White Sox are a possibility.

Gammons says the Red Sox want three players back for Ramirez, and though the Giants may want him more than anyone else, they probably don't have enough talent to surrender to pull the deal off. Gammons also said that he expected a J.D. Drew deal to be finalized after Saturday's arbitration deadline and that he expected a Daisuke Matsuzaka signing to get done, though probably not until the last minute.

rotoworld.com

[bsox21]

Peter Gammons talks more shit than all of u do here.

[Jutter]

BSOX21 - Are you Peter Gammons, then?

[nrmax88]

no jutter, but i am peter gammons, and bsox obviously knows i talk more shit then everyone here. So there

[allabouthephils]

hahaha...... good one jutter....

I idolize Peter Gammons. Everytime I hear him talk, he sounds like he just loves life and what he does... Gotta respect a guy who has a few things in this world figured out.

[Jutter]

Being a Cubs fan, I hate every move that the Cards make because their moves always seem to work out.

That said, if the Cards re-sign Weaver, their staff will look pretty good to me. That sucks.

[allabouthephils]

nrmax,

I have to ask ya why you think every Cubs fan has this misconception that they are going to the playoffs this year ? I know you agree with me when I say they are far off...

[nrmax88]

Yes yes. I can understand it thoguh. After 04, the mets came off a shitty horrible season. 71 wins i think. They then hired Minaya, Willie randolph, signed beltran, pedro, and their team really was looking up. I figured they would compete and probably make the playoffs. They competed for about half the year, and the next season when everything was put together, they thrived. This reminds me alot of the cubs. Except Beltran was 27 as soriano is 30, so i dont know about the sori 8 year deal. Schmidt may be nice, although old, because he helps bring a name to their pitching staff, Zambrano and Schmidt are a nice 1 2. The difference was that Pedro came in to the mets and completely revitalized that franchise on the spot. That showed other players that the mets were serious about winning. The cubs are kind of in the same situation now, so i say by 08, possible serious contenders, the only worry cubs fans should have is that they arent going to have a lot of financial room to do much, spending the shitload of money they are spending right now

[bsox21]

gammons is a babbling moron.

its clear that accurcy doesnt mean shit on this board tho, so i can see why ur all fans of his.

[bsox21]

NL Central Champs 2007

Milwaukee Brewers

I called it.

Book it.

[bsox21]

by the way, i called the tiger medioric rise last year.

doesnt matter, cuz the only guys who believe me are my fantasy legue mates and my buddy who made a killing on tradesports.com by trusting me.

anyways,

NL Central - Milwaukee

u heard it here first.

[Kramerica Industries]

Hideki Okajima is in serious discussions with the Red Sox about a two-year deal, ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney reports. left-handed reliever, who was 2-2 with a 2.14 ERA and four saves last season for the Nippon Ham Fighters is a free agent.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2678439

[nrmax88]

lol, the ham fighters

[allabouthephils]

Agreed... but Schmidt is no Pedro... Dempster is no Wagner... Soriano is no Beltran... and frankly D-Lee is no Delgado...

The Cubs lineup is no where near as balanced as the Mets... The Mets had a vastly superior nucleus to work with ( Wright and Reyes)... The Mets pitching staff is superior in every way. I just don't see this Cubs jelling the way the Mets did last year... Plus, the Mets didnt just spend for the sake of spending they waited for the right people... It took two years to get to where they are now, but I think it's worth it for them...

I hate talking nice about the Mets, but I have to give the respect.

[tyler]

with all their starting positions filled, any chance they trade Chris Duncan? The Yankees would love a young first baseman who's a solid hitter

[alexvires]

good lord...

i can't even believe this is news worthy outside of adam kennedy.

and i definitely called the stupid garry bennett move.

as far as the cubs go: I completely agree with nrmax.

i can see the cubbies just getting things in order this season, but if they make the playoffs, it won't be too far.

However, the next season, things should really play out.

bsox, you sound like you've still got a stick up your ass from the manny post arguement.

gb dude, it's not for sure that weaver comes back even, but yeah...when kip wells is inserted into our starting rotation, things look very very bad.

if Weave Does resign, wainwright shines like he did in the post season, they get a half way decent season out of reyes, (which really they should, reyes should come into his stride this season) and they make a move to pick up somebody half way decent to get kip wells out of that picture, and replace the gap left by mulder and I think it's not half bad.

and really, if you've followed cardinal baseball over the last 5 years, it's never been much better.

think back to the Benes and Morris days... we managed to pull out pennants then as well.

Mediocre? yes. but managable with high scoring offense? yes.

and really...the closest contender to the cards, the CUBS don't have very much better pitching.

it's pretty square on that end of the spectrum.

...this is all IF weaver resigns.

If he doesn't... well, the cardinals are up shit creek.

[murderersrow]

this just in... according to YES network, Yankees won the rights to Igawa for $25 mil

[tyler]

nice... he might suck, but if he ever turned out to be better than matsusaka it will make the yanks look great and the sox look terrible

[murderersrow]

absolutely would

[desturbd1]

"Agreed... but Schmidt is no Pedro... Dempster is no Wagner... Soriano is no Beltran... and frankly D-Lee is no Delgado..."

Agree on all points...except the Mets don't have Pedro until August at best, so it's not really fair to match him against Schmidt. And who knows what he'll be like when he gets back.

"nice... he might suck, but if he ever turned out to be better than matsusaka it will make the yanks look great and the sox look terrible"

Yes, because what's most important in baseball is making your rival look silly by taking a risk on a FA. If this is true, I'm sure the "hey if he's better then Matsuzaka, even though nobody in the world thinks he will be, Boston will look dumb" angle was a big part of Cashman's reasoning.

[tyler]

who said it had to do anything with cashman's decision? thats just my perspective as a fan

[desturbd1]

I guess that's fair...my bad for misinterpretation, I suppose. But I still think that's a lame reason to get excited about a signing, even as a fan...

Anyway, until it appears, uh, anywhere besides a comment thread on mlbtraderumors.com I'm not gonna think too much about it. No offense murderersrow, but this place has been burned by entirely unsubstantiated radio rumors before...so pardon my skepticism.

[Jutter]

You heard it here first: NRMAX is BSOX21. There can't possibly be two separate blithering fukstix who toot their horns so loudly that they can't hear what anyone else is saying.

Onto baseball, I'm glad the Cubs didn't win the Igawa bid!

[murderersrow]

no problem desturbd1, just was watching mike and the mad dog, and it has been reported by YES, Mike and the Mad Dog, and WFAN. Just thought i would give ya a heads up about it. I definitely understand not completely trusting the reports.

[tyler]

yeah, it looks like the yankees were able to keep the news quite so that the YES network would get first dibbs at breaking the story

[tyler]

I think its better to take a chance on this guy instead of overpaying for Lilly or Meche

[jskohl]

Damn...almost sounds like the Los Angeles Angels of St. Louis!

[nrmax88]

jutter why r u so angry kid? cant take a joke?

[Bing_chi_ling]

did the Rangers or Brewers sign Brian Shouse? Cauz on the Espn.com transactions says that both of them signed him.

[desturbd1]

Hmm, yeah, it's starting to show up on the Net. Here's what I don't understand. If SI is to be trusted, the Yanks bid $30MM to talk to Matsuzaka, and then $25MM to talk to Igawa. Now you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would rate Igawa anywhere near Matsuzaka...so this seems strange to me.

Of course, it's entirely possible that New York has decided that market changes necessitated a higher bid. Maybe Schmidt's refusal to consider NY threw them off, or maybe one of the SP's who has already signed elsewhere (Wolf, Eaton, etc.) was a target. Or maybe they're just pretty desperate for starting pitching and this guy is the best they can get without throwing gobs of money at Zito, Lilly, or Padilla.

I don't know much about Igawa...but I've read that he could be anything from a No. 3 to a No. 5. Kinda like Lilly...though on the plus side, Igawa's supposed to be a horse and absolute innings-eater, which the Yanks definately needed. So I dunno...depending on what Lilly and Padilla get, this may not be too bad a signing. Still weird, though, given the notable lack of interest in Daisuke.

[nickjs21]

It's just nice to see the Yankees finally attempting to crack the Asian market.

[bsox21]

"It's just nice to see the Yankees finally attempting to crack the Asian market. "

nickjs21,

MAtsui, Irabu, Wang....partnerships with the Yomiuri Giants....

yea, the yankees are FINALLY making a move into the Asian market.

Another gem from you, moron.

[StLknows]

aside from Wang and Hideki that is. yeah, the cards now got 3 players from the 2002 angels, not exactly noteworthy, but oh well. AK was the only guy I wanted at 2nd so that was perfect, and wells...well he'll probably win 15 games with an ERA a shade under 5. I'm just glad to see that its only a one year deal.. oh yea, also nice to see Eli back in red. I was sad to see him go in the JD Drew, I mean Adam Wainwright deal.

[StLknows]

DAMN! I knew red sox fans were bitter, but not this bad. it would be annoying if it wasn't so pathetic

[nrmax88]

eli marrero is pretty bad.

"and wells...well he'll probably win 15 games with an ERA a shade under 5"

Was that a joke?

Yeah, and my mom will probably play 1st base for the yankees and hit 35 homers over the short porch

[StLknows]

okay, maybe a shade under 6. but Marquis won what 14 games last year?! and I was upset when I saw we signed kip, but anybody is an upgrade over marquis. and Marrero has already made it into the hearts of cards fans, plus it was a minor league deal who cares?

[nrmax88]

yeah true. An era a shade under 6 sounds more realistic. I liked marrero but he just sucked his short time on the mets

[bsox21]

Wells for $4 mil in an inflated market isn't a bad deal.

[nickjs21]

bsox21, Only a genuine pigheaded caveman would read that statement and not sense the DRIPPING sarcasm. Saying the Yankees need to get into the Asian market is like saying the Red Sox need a good DH, or saying if only the Twins had a legit ace. Or are you so wrapped up in your egotistical world that you read everything as a challenge to be argued?

Does your mom let you on the internet past 6?

[papi4prez]

Please people, don't let bsox21 form your judgment of Red Sox fans. The majority of us are knowledgeable.

[Dev0]

Kennedy Down, it should be interesting to see who is playing the middle infield with Aaron Hill in Toronto.

Also One of Lilly, Padillia, or Meche will be in Toronto next season that you can be sure of unless Toronto makes a deal for a pitcher.

Also on a Deal I happened to see a rumor floating around about the Jays looking into Chris Capuano.

Some sort of Rios and something for Capuano and one of their Corner OFers.
I think I heard Jenkins but off hand I'm not sure however I think Kevin Mench might make alittle sence here altho he was horrible as a Brewer so maybe not.