Twins minor leaguer Kyle Gibson, the No. 22 overall draft pick in 2009, will undergo Tommy John surgery, per Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. Best wishes to Gibson on making a full recovery and perhaps debuting in the Majors late in 2012.
Here are a few other items of note on this Thursday afternoon:
- The Brewers were interested in acquiring lefty reliever Mike Gonzalez from the Orioles before Baltimore dealt him to Texas, writes Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. “We had the irons in the fire,” Milwaukee GM Doug Melvin said. The Brew Crew remains without a southpaw in their bullpen.
- The Diamondbacks were among the five winners of August's post-deadline trade period, opines Jon Paul Morosi of FOXSports.com. Arizona shored up its infield by acquiring infielders John McDonald and Aaron Hill from Toronto in exchange for Kelly Johnson. Morosi's other winners: The Rangers, Tigers, Braves and Indians.
- Impending free agents, however established they may be, should still be scouted dilligently, writes Jim Bowden of ESPN.com (Insider subscription required). For example, though some of us may take it for granted that Albert Pujols' fractured wrist is fully healed, scouts from interested teams will be watching all of his final at-bats for even the slightest change in his swing or approach. After all, Bowden explains, with tens, and sometimes hundreds, of millions of dollars at stake, every bit of info helps.
When Melvin said “sorry, we traded Danny Ray Herrera to the Mets” the O’s front office probably hung up on him and blocked his number.
DBacks become worse, but are winners?
Have you been watching baseball? The D-backs are one of the hottest teams in all of baseball and their lead continues to grow on the Giants.
and aaron hill is entirely responsible….
Pitching and defense wins playoff games. Aaron Hill is at least Johnson’s equal defensively, if not an upgrade. John McDonald is definitely an upgrade defensively. AA knew exactly what he was doing: renting JM to Arizona, trading one under-performing 2B (Hilll) for the other (Johnson) and getting his hands on a player he was coveting. No one lost in this trade, but because the Dbacks will likely get to the post-season in a stronger position, this trade was definitely a win for them.
Pitching and defense wins playoff games
you forgot offense.
It’s safe to say both teams won the trade. They are getting great production from Hill and they have a solid back-up SS/utility fielder in Johnnymac. They are also winning and pretty much have the division won.
All I know is that Kelly Johnson is leading my fantasy team through the playoffs with a couple home runs and triples this week. Not to mention he’s batting over .500. He’s a winner to me. It’s just a shame he won’t be in the playoffs himself.