One year ago today, the Orioles' signing of Miguel Gonzalez to a minor league contract became official. The move drew little notice at the time, but Gonzalez would go on to become a key cog in Baltimore's unlikely playoff berth. Gonzalez pitched to a 3.25 ERA, 6.6 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9 in 105 1/3 innings for manager Buck Showalter's team. Here's more news from around the league…
- Scott Miller of CBS Sports spoke with MLBPA director Michael Weiner about the increasing amount of players calling for harsher penalties for first-time PED offenders. Recently, Dustin Pedroia, Matt Holliday, Michael Cuddyer and Ryan Zimmerman spoke out, with Cuddyer calling for first-time offenders to receive 100-game suspensions. Weiner said the issue will be tackled this coming offseason.
- Adam Wainwright's agent Steve Hammond has returned from a ten-day trip to Israel, so negotiations with the Cardinals could resume soon, tweets B.J. Rains of 1380 AM. Rains spoke with Wainwright about his relationship with Hammond for a forthcoming installment of MLBTR's "Why I Chose My Agency" series.
- MLB.com's Ken Gurnick looks at the nine Dodgers will be free agents following the 2013 season. As Gurnick notes, Chris Capuano, Aaron Harang, Nick Punto, Mark Ellis, Jerry Hairston, Matt Guerrier, J.P. Howell and Juan Uribe will all be eligible for free agents. They're not all guarantees to depart, however, as Capuano, Ellis and Harang all have options on their contracts. This is also the final season that the Dodgers will owe $8.3MM in deferred money to Manny Ramirez, meaning they'll have $54.2MM coming off the books.
- Dave Cameron of FanGraphs explains that the disparity in salaries between experienced players and inexperienced players works in favor of low revenue teams and has a positive impact on competitive balance in MLB.
Steve Adams and Ben Nicholson-Smith contributed to this post.
