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Archives for February 2007

Will Tigers Keep Pudge?

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The Tigers have a $13MM option with a $3MM buyout for Ivan Rodriguez in ’08.  Pudge turned 35 in November.  He said recently that he’d like to finish his career with Detroit and might play until he’s 40.

Given the buyout, Rodriguez’s option is more like $10MM.  PECOTA puts him at $8,125,000 for 2008, so exercising it seems wise.  There’s value in the one-year commitment.  Extending him for extra years might be a mistake, though.

Detroit’s larger 2008 commitments:

Ordonez – $15MM
Sheffield – $14MM
Bonderman – $8.5MM
Inge – $6.2MM
Polanco – $4.6MM

After the ’07 season, Rodriguez, Kenny Rogers, Todd Jones, and Carlos Guillen are all potential free agents.

A-Rod To Stay?

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The latest quote from Alex Rodriguez:

"I want to be a Yankee and I understand my contract and I understand my options.  My goal is to go in with Derek and Mo and open the new stadium. It’s pretty clear."

The interpretation is that he wants to be a Yankee in 2009.  However, the above statement is very different from, "I will not exercise my out clause."  Many folks still think A-Rod is leaving the Yankees after this season.  Most likely, he hasn’t made any kind of decision yet.  The A-Rod/Rivera storylines will follow us around all season, like it or not.

Carlos Guillen Reaches Walk Year

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Carlos Guillen is being pretty cool about his impending free agency.  He’s not establishing an ultimatum for Dave Dombrowski.  He’s not complaining about his $5MM salary this year even though he might be worth four times that (so says PECOTA).  He’s not demanding to play shortstop now or in any future contract.  Basically, he’s the model contract year guy.

I would like to see a modified PECOTA as a means of determining Guillen’s worth over for the 2008-11 seasons assuming some time spent at 1B.  The projection system values him at $70MM over those four seasons, though it has him playing 100+ games at short each year.  PECOTA calls for below average defense for the last three years of the contract, but still values him very highly. 

Given the massive difference between his production coming from shortstop and first base, his future employer might want to keep him at short even as his defense slips further.  Maybe the Tigers could compensate by signing Orlando Hudson after the 2008 season.   

Troy Renck Interview Part 1

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Troy Renck is the Rockies/MLB beat reporter for the Denver Post.  You see his name here often with exclusive rumors and info from his columns for that paper.  Troy was kind enough to answer a bunch of my Rockies-related questions for MLBTradeRumors.  Below is the first half of the interview.

Will the Rockies be able to rekindle Todd Helton trade talks with Boston, Baltimore, or another team year?  Do you take Todd at his word that he’d veto any deal at this point? 

Troy: It’s possible they could revisit talks, specifically with Boston. But Helton’s promise not to accept a trade during the season places a statue of limitations on any new talks. My calculated guess is that trade discussions won’t resurface in earnest until the offseason.

How would you grade Dan O’Dowd’s offseason?

Troy: O’Dowd made a terrific, if not unpopular trade by acquiring Willy Taveras, Taylor Buchholz and Jason Hirsh for Jason Jennings. Hirsh is the key. If he realizes his potential, he could become Jennings at a much cheaper price for several years. Taveras helps in center field, though I am not sure he’s a longterm solution. The preference would be to have more power from that position. Getting Rodrigo Lopez provides a potential innings-eater to ease Jennings’ absence. Lopez struggled mightily last year. The Rockies think he can have success again because he’s not coming off an injury and will be paroled from the AL East.

His best under-the-radar move was adding Brian Lawrence, who, if healthy, could give the rotation a jolt in May.

Looking For Some Help

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I’m looking some help regarding my fantasy baseball guide.  Let me explain:

I sell a fantasy baseball guide; it’s in Excel format.  To make it smaller, I make it into a .zip file.  So far, I have just been sending the guide to each customer as an email attachment (it’s about 1.2 MB currently).  I’ve used an email service called BlueTie that allows for this; it’s worked OK so far.

Each week, I re-send the Guide to all customers with updates included.  So it is a weekly mass email of a 1.2 MB file to each person.  Issues: 

1. Some people have trouble receiving attachments via email.
2. The cool features I can add to the guide are limited since I need the file size to be small if it’s sent as an attachment.
3. I like the idea of hosting the file somewhere as a password-protected download, but have no idea how to do this and whether it’s affordable.  I assume I’d have to pay for bandwidth.
4. Everything has worked OK so far using BlueTie. However, BlueTie made a fatal error this evening by sending more than 10 of the same email to every customer! How can I make sure this never happens again?

If you can help me solve these IT-type issues, please email me at mlbtraderumors@gmail.com with your ideas.  I’ll pay you for this project, should it become a project.  Thanks.

Rosenthal’s Latest

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Ken Rosenthal has the latest buzz going around regarding various free agents and trade possibilities.  An overview:

The Braves might find Oscar Villarreal and/or Lance Cormier expendable if the rest of their pitchers remain healthy throughout the spring.  Stephania Bell, or Orthopedic Clinical Specialist, recently reported on Mike Hampton’s risk level in RotoWire’s fantasy magazine.  She lists him as a moderate risk, and views having 2006 off as a positive for him.  It gave him time to get healthy everywhere and strengthen muscles where needed.  Interestingly, Bell labels Bobby Crosby as low risk.

Rosenthal says Steve Finley’s only decent shot at starting would be if the Cubs trade Jacque Jones.  The 42 year-old Finley must decide whether to wait that situation out or sign elsewhere.  Jones recently said he never asked the Cubs for a trade.  He also volunteered to help out in center field if need be.

The Reds are the most likely destination for Dustin Hermanson, but Rosenthal quotes one exec saying he was only throwing 85-87 mph in his recent workout.  In a fantasy league, I’d still lean toward Bill Bray for saves in Cincy.

The Rangers have liked Texas native Kerry Wood for a while now, but the Cubs should have no motivation to trade him.  Wood recently recovered from his hot tub incident to throw ten pitches off a mound without trouble.   

Rockies Monitoring Pavano

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Troy Renck of the Denver Post reports that the Rockies are keeping a close eye on Carl Pavano’s situation in New York, prepared to swoop in if he’s pushed out.  Colorado will be scouting the 31 year-old righthander this spring. 

Renck believes the Rockies might only have to pay $10-12MM of Pavano’s remaining $22MM for the next two seasons. Dan O’Dowd could ship out Josh Fogg or Byung-Hyun Kim to further balance salaries as well as create some room for Pavano.  As it stands, the Rockies have quite a bit of starting pitching depth.  Several promising youngsters might not be able to crack the rotation this spring unless some trades are made. 

Nationals Sign Ron Belliard

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UPDATE: Baseball Digest Daily is reporting that the Nationals have signed Belliard to a non-guaranteed minor-league contract.  RotoWorld says he’ll earn $750K upon making the team.  A disappointing result for the second baseman.

It looks like the best Ron Belliard might be able to manage is a backup infielder role with the Nationals.  The club is eyeing him for their bench, though they probably wouldn’t pay more than a million or two.  Belliard had lousy luck, reaching free agency in a year with a surplus of second basemen.

If signed, Belliard would back up Felipe Lopez at second and Ryan Zimmerman at third.  It’s not a hopeless situation for him, though.  As Bill Ladson says, Lopez could shift back to short if Cristian Guzman is awful again or is dealt.  This might be Belliard’s best shot at regular duty.

Earlier this month, Belliard was named in a federal extortion case. 

Royals Interviews

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Recently I asked some questions of Craig Brown of Royals Authority and Will McDonald of Royals Review.  They kindly supplied some great answers, so check out their blogs.  You can view the first part of the interviews here.

Which Royal is going to surprise people in 2007?

Craig: I think the power projections for Ryan Shealy are low.  He won’t hit as many HR in Kansas City as he would have in Colorado, but I’m still leaning toward 30 HR for him.  He just needs to learn to hit lefties at the Major League level and drive that inside pitch.

It might not fall under the category of surprise, but Alex Gordon is everything he’s supposed to be.  The only thing that will keep him from the Opening Day roster is if he fails miserably in Spring Training.  He’s ready for the big leagues and has to be a leading candidate for Rookie Of The Year.

Will: In a good way? I thought that was like threesomes and being able to dunk a basketball, something that happens to other people. I expect Meche to have a flukey-good start ERA-wise, with some subsequent crowing from the Royals to Jayson Stark and other usual suspects. I’ve always liked David Riske so he’s my second candidate. Its a strange roster, filled with horrible players and low-upside OK players. And maybe Alex Gordon. Reggie Sanders may surprise people with a league-average start, proving he’s still alive.

What If Rivera Just Retires After ’07?

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A reader recently brought an interesting New York Times article to my attention.  Jack Curry’s article from December 10th, 1999 discusses Mariano Rivera’s devotion to God.  Some interesting quotes:

Curry:

"Finally, after he half-sobbed and half-spoke for 20 minutes, Rivera, who is 30, told the congregation that he would play baseball for four more years before retiring to become an evangelical minister or preacher."

Rivera:

"I would love to play as long as I can, but I think if I play four, five, or six more years, that’s enough and then I’ll stop.  Maybe it’s one year.  Maybe it’s two. You never know."

Curry:

"Then he stopped speculating and reaffirmed what he had told the congregation: ’Like I said, I want to play four more years.’"

Rivera:

"If I came to be a free agent, I wouldn’t think about going anywhere else. I want to finish my career with the Yankees.  Inside of me, I’m thinking four more years.  That will be enough.  I love the game, but I love God more."

By all accounts, Rivera should’ve retired by now.  I’m not sure what happened in the last six years to change Rivera’s mind.  But what if instead of being the object of his first-ever free agent bidding war, the Hall of Fame closer simply retires after 2007? 

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