Erubiel Durazo Rumors

Explaining The Durazo Disinterest

By Tim Dierkes [February 20, 2006 at 1:18pm CDT]

I’ve been at least mildly curious as to why Erubiel Durazo is being treated like he has a disease one year removed from a .919 OPS season. I mean, if there’s interest in Ruben Sierra, there sure as hell should be interest in Durazo.

Fortunately, I had a source fill me in recently on the story here. Seems that Durazo was raking in a simulated game last summer and was cleared by Oakland team doctors. He was penciled in to the following week’s lineup, but ultimately chose surgery against the team’s advice. Apparently Durazo is perceived as less than a team player around baseball, leaving him with few interested suitors.

Of course, the fact that he’s exclusively a DH and is coming off Tommy John surgery doesn’t exactly spark bidding wars, regardless of his attitude. I still need Durazo and Roger Clemens to come to terms so that I can analyze the results of my Top 50 Free Agents list.

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Rangers Interested In Durazo

By Tim Dierkes [February 16, 2006 at 10:31am CDT]

For one reason or another, free agent DH Erubiel Durazo has gotten little to no interest this offseason. Durazo struggled through a lost season in 2005, which culminated in July Tommy John surgery. He won’t be able to help a team until summertime.

Still, the lack of interest seems odd to me. Only the Rangers have considered him, and even then just as a minor-league invite to possibly back up Phil Nevin.

Durazo had an awesome age 30 season in 2004 for the Athletics: .321/.396/.523 in 511 ABs. I kept thinking the White Sox would go after him this offseason, not fully realizing that he’d undergone Tommy John. My ignorance caused me to rank Durazo 15th among all free agents this winter, probably my biggest gaffe on the list. Another point working against him is that he needs to be the DH, and there are only 14 such spots in baseball.

Nonetheless, Durazo will probably cost less than $1MM and could theoretically provide a .900 OPS in Texas for a half season.