Tyler Flowers Rumors
White Sox Announce Spring Invitees
The Chicago White Sox have announced their Spring Training invitees.
The White Sox invited 18 players: Left-handed pitching prospect Aaron Poreda and infield prospect Gordon Beckham; catchers Tyler Flowers and Donny Lucey; right-handed reliever Mike MacDougal joins fellow White Sox minor leaguers Poreda and Beckham as non-roster invitees.
These 13 signed minor-league deals with the White Sox: Infielders Javier Castillo, Bryan Myrow, Sergio Santos and Eider Torres; catchers Corky Miller and Chris Stewart; outfielders Josh Kroeger and Michael Restovich; right-handed pitchers Ryan Braun, Franklyn German, Brad Salmon and Jon Van Benschoten ; left-handed pitcher Randy Williams.
Why The Braves-Peavy Trade Fell Apart
Tom Krasovic of the San Diego Union-Tribune had an article yesterday involving a couple of failed Padres trades.
Krasovic says the Padres and Braves were discussing a 4-for-1 Jake Peavy deal in November. Yunel Escobar and Gorkys Hernadez were agreed upon. The conflict came as the Padres wanted Charlie Morton over Jo-Jo Reyes as well as Jeff Locke or Tyler Flowers over Blaine Boyer. To me that gap looks pretty sizeable, so maybe the trade was never close. At this point it seems like the Braves could end up with Javier Vazquez and Kenshin Kawakami as their rotation upgrades. They've reportedly made Escobar unavailable, leading Dan Hayes of the North County Times to suggest the Braves would have to remove Tommy Hanson's apparent "untouchable" tag to get Peavy. Everything I've read about Hanson has said the Braves are adamant about keeping him.
Krasovic also says the Giants made a run at shortstop Khalil Greene before he was dealt to the Cardinals.
Javier Vazquez Trade Reactions
The word yesterday evening was that the Braves acquired starter Javier Vazquez and lefty reliever Boone Logan for Tyler Flowers, Brent Lillibridge, Jon Gilmore, and Santos Rodriguez (MLB.com's Mark Bowman confirms the prospects). Look for the trade to become official tommorrow. Reactions to the deal:
- South Side Sox expects a couple of accompanying moves: the trade of Jermaine Dye for a young starter and the signing of an affordable free agent outfielder. They don't see the White Sox benefitting from the Vazquez trade in 2009, but at least Ozzie cleared out his doghouse.
- Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune says the Sox will still have power if Dye is dealt. Gonzales also provides info on the prospects received for Vazquez.
- Yahoo's Tim Brown says the White Sox are also willing to trade Paul Konerko and Jim Thome.
- Sox Machine provides a more in-depth look at the prospects.
- From the Braves' point of view, J.C. Bradbury sees this as a solid win-now move that won't affect the '09 team.
- Ken Davidoff says the Braves will now have less of a need for Jake Peavy or A.J. Burnett. I think, though, that they'll still aggressively try to acquire one of the two. Most of the rumored packages for Peavy didn't involve the prospects sent to Chicago, with the possible exception of Flowers.
- Dave Cameron notes Vazquez's career-long underachievement. This always baffled me when trying to do fantasy baseball projections based on component stats.
Rosenthal's Latest: Hardy, Flowers, Wolf
Another day, another column from Ken Rosenthal.
- With multiple vacancies in the rotation and bullpen, the Brewers may need to see what kind of pitching Mike Cameron and/or J.J. Hardy can bring in return. GM Doug Melvin is not ready to shop Hardy. He's received interest, but most teams have not given names (one team suggested swapping him for a pitcher Melvin termed, "a fifth starter.")
- The Padres have asked the Braves to substitute catcher Tyler Flowers for center fielder Gorkys Hernandez in their Jake Peavy offer. Dave O'Brien sees this as unlikely.
- If they can't sign Mark Teixeira, the Angels are ready to shift gears to C.C. Sabathia, Francisco Rodriguez, or other players. The idea of a Manny Ramirez pursuit was "tabled rather quickly."
- The Cardinals plan to add one or two lefthanded relievers, probably free agents.
- In his quest for righthanded power, Reds GM Walt Jocketty inquired on Matt Holliday and Josh Willingham before they were traded. Purely speculative - Jermaine Dye could be a nice fit.
- At least half a dozen teams have expressed interest in free agent starter Randy Wolf.
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