The Mets have not yet tried sending Bartolo Colon through revocable waivers, FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal tweets. One reason this is significant is because Colon would represent one possible upgrade for an Angels team that just lost Garrett Richards to what appears to be a significant knee injury. It’s unclear whether Colon would be claimed by another team before getting to the Angels. He’s pitched fairly well this year, despite his age, and he’s set to make a reasonable salary of $11MM in 2015. Here are more notes from around the big leagues.
- At least so far, the David Freese / Peter Bourjos trade has worked out fairly well for the Angels, MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez writes. Freese got off to a slow start but has hit well since June, while Fernando Salas has been steady out of the Angels’ bullpen. Meanwhile, Bourjos hasn’t hit well in a part-time role with the Cardinals (although he continues to provide defensive value), and outfield prospect Randal Grichuk has spent most of the season at Triple-A.
- Calls for the Marlins to trade Giancarlo Stanton may have been premature, writes Rosenthal. Next season, Stanton will still only be 25 and under control through 2016, and the Marlins will have a healthy Jose Fernandez. They might also get more help from young hitters Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna, so they could contend in 2015. While they likely won’t be able to sign Stanton long term before he becomes eligible for free agency following the 2016 season, they might be able to simply wait to trade him, perhaps for established players rather than prospects.
- Padres pitcher Andrew Cashner will make his first start since June 18 on Saturday in Arizona, Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune tweets. On his way back from a shoulder injury, Cashner pitched five innings in a rehab start for Triple-A El Paso Monday. Cashner has emerged as one of the top starters in the National League in the past two seasons, and he had a 2.76 ERA with 7.0 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9 in 76 1/3 innings this year before he got hurt.
You have to really reach to consider that Freese trade a win for the Angles.
Even if you dont take into account his .292 BA since the beginning of June, Freese’s .259 is still better than Bourjos’ .226 and Salas is pitching well, a 2.49 ERA, while Grichuk is in AAA. Angels win, Angels win, Angels win!
Grichuk is leading the Cards system is homeruns, and will be up soon. I wouldn’t call it a win either way yet. The Cardinals also saved about $5 Million and opened up a spot for Kolten Wong.
He is not up now and minor league numbers have never equaled major league numbers. Freese and Salas are producing more NOW. Angels won this one so far by far.
Saying they are winning the trade now is like saying a team won because they scored in the top of the first.
No you don’t. Freese has hit .280 with a .350 OBP since May 1. Salas has a 2.49 ERA / 2.74 FIP / 1.062 WHIP overall. The Angels won that trade by a landslide. I think you actually have to reach to try and consider it a loss for the Angels.
Salas and Freese haven’t been that much more valuable than Bourjos alone once you factor in defense. As of right now, Freese and Salas have provided more value than Bourjos, but it aint no landslide.
Grichuk is a prospect. And if the cards would just play bourjos, it would be a win for them. But jay is beasting right now.
Since July 1, bourjos has hit .319/.385/.553 and Grichuk has a .811 ops in AAA playing mostly center.
Very premature to call this a win for the angels who have one year of freese and two years of salas, while the cards have 6 years of the .811 OPS, AAA centerfielder and 2 years of the best defensive centerfielder in the game who has a .900 ops over the last 6 weeks (and would be playing more if Jon jay would just stop hitting)
Way to premature to call this an angels win. Cards are probably going to get more value out of bourjos/Grichuk then the angels will out of freese/salas
Btw.
Salas has 1.0 rWAR this year
Freese has 0.5 because he is awful defensively
And bourjos has 1.2 playing part time and Grichuk has 23 home runs in the minors.
This is a BIG win for the angels?
I agree with everything you’re saying except that Bourjos is the best defensive CF in the game. Juan Lagares is better using the eye test and all defensive metrics say he is much better.
Agree re Lagares, and would throw Jackie Bradley in there as well. Probably two or three others.
Bourjous is not even in the top 5 defensively using DRS or UZR/150. Since you have to use a minimum of 450 games of data to get an accurate measure on either of those stats, to be fair to him I went back to 2011 and he still came up 8th and 12th respectively.
Yep. I don’t watch other teams very much and his sample size is somewhat small, but I feel like Lagares might be the best defensive CF in the game. He leads the league in defensive rWAR and he’s only played in 90 games.
Bourjos is gone this off season. Cards aren’t going to keep him.
WAR is an almost worthless stat because the defensive metric used isnt accurate until you take into account 3 full seasons of data. Its impossible to use it to compare what individual players are doing now. Now if ALL you want to use is offensive WAR, then ok. Grichuk is playing in the PCL. YOU could get an .811 OPS in parks like ABQ and El Paso (the last two places the Redbirds have played). Its nothing special and not in the top 60 in the PCL even for the entire season. And Grichuk is hitting .264 in a league that hitting .300 doesnt get you into the top 50. He also has 100 SO in 417 AB. That is scary bad. Angels win hands down so far. MAYBE Grichuk becomes a good major league hitter, but that is a big maybe.
You have to be really salty to make that comment.
How am I salty? His reasoning makes no sense
I wouldn’t call it a total reach, but I think Alden Gonzalez’s reasoning is flawed. There was never an expectation for Grichuk to play in the Majors this year. When ever a deal involves a prospect, you really have to wait a couple years to see if it’s a win or a loss.
Comment #1: Are the Angels winning the trade right now? Yes! They got a little better.
Comment #2: Are the Cardinals losing the trade right now? Of course! They got a lot worse.
Comment #1 MIGHT be true. Comment #2 is COMPLETELY false.
And the reason is simple. The Cardinals are indeed a much worse team this year than last year. But it’s not because of losing Freese.
Compare the positions affected by this trade between 2013 and 2014. Far from perfect, but worth taking a look.
Cardinals 2012
3rd Base (Freese) – 1.8 oWar ($3M)
2nd Base (Matt Carpenter) – 6.1 oWar ($500K)
Center Field (John Jay) – 2.6 oWar ($525K)
Total oWar 10.5
Total Salary $4.025 Million
Cardinals 2014
3rd Base (Carpenter) – 3.0 oWar ($1M)
2nd Base (Kolten Wong) – 1.1 oWar ($500K)
Center Field (still John Jay) – 2.2 oWar ($3.24M)
Total oWar 6.3
Total Salary $4.74 Million
If you just look at oWAR, the real difference between 2013 and 2014 is Matt Carpenter’s reduction (From 6.1 to 3), not from losing Freese obviously. Freese’s oWAR is LOWER this year than last. We’ll see what the remainder of the season holds.
So you have to compare Kolten Wong’s value vs. David Freese’s. AND Wong’s a rookie, so freeing him up for some plate appearances is extremely valuable to the Cardinals long-term. AND the salary is a huge difference. AND I don’t think .4 oWAR in favor of Freese is really worth all that.
Jay has beaten out Bourjos fair and square. This isn’t a bad thing at all for the Cards. Bourjos is on the bench and can be used in the field.
Grichuk long term is a great bet based on his looks in the minors, but we’ll see how he performs these last months in the majors.
Couple that with the length of contracts and cost, and I don’t see how the Cards lose out on this one. I don’t see how they win either.
Can you really say the Angels improved substantially with Freese? No.
Salas? Maybe, but his FIP puts him 27th on the list of relievers with over 30 innings pitched. And it’s unlikely he’ll beat that number next year. (Even if he does, still don’t think it balances out).
So as others have said on the thread, it’s going to take time.
Of course, If the Angels make the playoffs this year, Freese has been known to work some magic there : )
I’ve said before on here that the Marlins should keep Stanton and try to make a run in 2016. They have so much young talent and really only need a few solid veteran role players to fill out the roster.
Of course, this can backfire severely. They could have an off year like Tampa is now and be forced to trade Stanton for much less than he’s worth, just like the Rays had to do with Price. They had lost any leverage.
Unfortunate as it is to see these injuries- I doubt if Colon will make it to the Angels- all NL teams first and then the AL teams- and the Angels would be next to last to get to him- someone will but a block claim in—–
The Mets may just be waiting for another injury, then drop Colon on to the wire, and see what happens. They have a few more days to make a decision. Perhaps they feel that if they put him on the wire and he’s claimed and they can’t make a deal, they won’t get value for him, and if they wait a little longer, there might be an even more emergent need. He’s still owned a hefty sum for a hefty old guy.
No team is going to claim Colon just to block the Angels. None of the other AL playoff contenders are going to take 11 million out of their FA spending money to take a large old pitcher they don’t need.
Maybe the Tigers… depending on how bad things are with Verlander.
They don’t have the money or the need. The pay raises to Verlander and Price alone will negate almost all the salary coming off the books assuming they keep VMart.
He’s basically been average and injuries are not a concern with him. $11MM isn’t great, but it’s not a huge overpay. However, you’d have to pay that salary and then also give up a prospect, so it’s probably not worth it unless the Mets pick up some salary, which I don’t think they want to do.
The Dodgers might with Ryu on the DL, Beckett likely out for the year, and now Greinke having elbow issues.
Would that be to block the Angels?
“block the Angels” Skipped over that part for some reason. No LA wouldn’t do the move to just block Anaheim. I could see LA doing it because they’re throwing Fausto and Correia out there twice a week. If Greinke’s elbow is more than tired it might force Ned’s hand but no one in Dodger town cares enough to block the guys over in OC.
How is 11m reasonable for a 40 year old Colon?
Unless Colon somehow gets to the Dodgers, Angels, Tigers on the waiver wire I don’t see him being dealt until the offseason.