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Archives for April 2008

Snyder Accepts Minor League Assignment

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MONDAY: Snyder has cleared waivers and accepted his assignment to Triple A, as suggested by Sarah Green back on April 5th.

FRIDAY: According to Jeff Horrigan of the Boston Herald, the Tigers, Rays, and Phillies have interest in recently-designated pitcher Kyle Snyder.

Snyder, now 30 years old, was the seventh overall pick by the Royals in the 1999 draft.  He was tolerable as a middle reliever for the Red Sox last year, though his control was poor.  He had two labrum surgeries in ’03 and ’04, and that injury reoccurred in ’05.  The Royals designated him the following year, and the Sox claimed him off waivers. 

Here’s a look at Snyder’s pitch type data from last year.  Most projection systems predict an ERA around 4.80 this year for him.

By the way, the Red Sox will also be designating Bryan Corey tonight.

Yanks Face Catching Woes

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Buster Olney wonders whether Jorge Posada will have to spend most of the season DHing, and at the same time his backup Jose Molina may be DL-bound.  Sure, the Yankees could just make do with internal options until Molina returns in a few weeks.  But it’s also possible that Brian Cashman will look for outside help.

Trade possibilities include Bengie Molina, Ramon Hernandez, Humberto Quintero, Brayan Pena, and Gerald Laird.  Laird may be off the table, as the Rangers wait to see if his offensive resurgence lasts and give Jarrod Saltalamacchia more time.  Molina and Hernandez carry commitments through ’09, while Pena and Quintero are backups and could be easily acquired.

The Reds may be considering a similar list of available catchers, though they are looking for more than a short-term fix.

Braves Hurting For Pitching

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With Tom Glavine ailing and the fifth starter spot an open audition, the Braves are facing a starting pitching shortage.  The bullpen could use a hand as well, but one thing at a time.

Healthy, possibly available free agent starters include Roger Clemens, Russ Ortiz, Horacio Ramirez, Jeff Weaver, and David Wells.  Obviously they all have warts – age, baggage, ineffectiveness.  But if one of them can eat innings at a 4.50 ERA, it might make sense.

How about acquiring a starter via trade?  Here are some names to ponder: Daniel Cabrera, Joe Blanton, Jason Marquis, Matt Morris, Dave Bush, Matt Belisle, Vicente Padilla, Robinson Tejeda, Jeremy Sowers, Kei Igawa, Kyle Snyder, and Kevin Correia.  This list works for other clubs light on pitching, the Tigers for example.

Odds and Ends: Darvish, Maddux

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Let’s kick off the day with some random links.

  • Baseball America’s Jim Callis profiles young phenom Yu Darvish, currently pitching in Japan.  If he were MLB-bound, he’d be the third-best prospect in the game.
  • DRays Bay would like to see Edwin Jackson traded rather than Jason Hammel, if there’s a roster squeeze.
  • Greg Maddux has told some teammates that this is his last season.  That nugget is only a small part of Tim Keown’s fantastic article about the legendary Professor.

Liriano Promotion Could Affect Arbitration

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Francisco Liriano is pitching in his first major league game in 19 months today, and Twins fans have to be excited by that prospect.

However, as pointed out by Joe Christensen of The Star-Tribune, had the Twins waited longer to promote Liriano from the AAA Rochester Red Wings (where his service time clock was on hold), the lefty wouldn’t reach the three-year arbitration benchmark until after the 2009 season.

As it stands now, with two years and 32 days of service, Liriano will see his salary move beyond the $1MM mark at the end of this season.

Posted by Matt Birt

A Lot Riding On Gorzelanny’s 2008 Performance

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Dejan Kovacevic of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette concerns himself with one significant name missing from the Pirates’ recent contract extensions: Tom Gorzelanny.

Kovacevic reveals that Gorzelanny’s name came up when team officials discussed players who should get extensions, but because he won’t be eligible for arbitration until after the 2009 season, and because they wanted to see more of him, they decided to exclude him.

The feeling amongst management is that the lefty could become a premier pitcher, so they are looking for big growth this season.  Things with Gorzelanny have been less than stellar thus far, so he’s not helping his case any.  His most recent start lasted only 2.1 innings, as he gave up six hits and four walks.  But looking beyond this year’s small sample size, Gorzelanny’s second half last year betrays the front office’s confidence.  He walked 3.5 batters per nine, and had a solid but not-overwhelming 6.5 strikeouts per nine (for an underwhelming 1.9 command ratio).

The Pirates waiting to see more from Gorzelanny may not work in favor of his bank account.

Posted by Matt Birt

Despite Tiger Woes, Bonds Not An Option

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John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle addresses the possibility of adding Barry Bonds to a Tigers team with a struggling offense out of the gate.  The team is currently 2-9 with a league-low 33 runs scored.

GM Dave Dombrowski responded to concerns raised about the offensive production thus far with his best Alfred E. Neuman impersonation, saying, "What!  Me worry?"

"If we hit the same all year, I’d be the most surprised I’ve ever been in my career," he said.  On signing Bonds, Dombrowski replied, "Our everyday lineup is set.  It’s not even a situation with us."

All this hand wringing over the offense, while understandable, seems misdirected.  The real concern has to be the pitching staff.  As Shea points out, the starting staff had just one quality start in the team’s first nine games.  With or without adding the recently DFA’d Kyle Snyder, Detroit should be much more concerned about solidifying its rotation and relief corps.  That offense is going to produce.  But pinning all hopes on it while neglecting the team’s arms could lead to a lot of disappointed fans.

Posted by Matt Birt

Rosenthal’s Latest: Roberts, Jones

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Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com has his latest video "Rosenthal’s Full Count" up and running.

  • First, Rosenthal calls Andruw Jones the "early candidate for worst free agent signing" noting that Jones is now batting 7th. Rosenthal goes so far as to say that the Dodgers’ best outfield right now includes Juan Pierre and does not include Jones…The Dodgers are truly lucky to have Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp on the cheap right now ($840K combined), because Jones ($14.1M) and Pierre ($8M) are a lot of dead contract weight for one outfield.
  • And we can thank Rosenthal for keeping Brian Roberts in our lives…Rosenthal notes that as the O’s start coming back to earth after their hot start, they can start thinking once again about their July fire sale. The big name is obviously Roberts and Rosenthal says that the Cubs still want the second baseman. He says the Rockies are also likely to be interested. However, the Indians, who tried to put a package together for Roberts this past off-season, will not be one of the bidders as it would require position shuffling, something not likely to occur in-season…Then again, Peter Angelos may just keep dangling Roberts into next off-season. Once Roberts is traded, Angelos may be worried that there won’t be much reason to talk about the O’s. You guys would miss all the Roberts rumors, wouldn’t you?

Cork Gaines writes for Rays Index and can be reached here.

Odds And Ends: Crisp, Spiezio, Lahey, Longoria

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Here are a few notes from the MLBiverse…

  • Terry Francona sounds like a manager that is frustrated and wishes the Red Sox would go ahead and trade Coco Crisp. After starting Crisp for the second straight game, Francona said "The more [Jacoby Ellsbury] plays, the better he’s going to be, and I clearly feel that responsibility…I’m trying to balance [playing time] the best I can."
  • It only took a couple of weeks, but Scott Spiezio managed to mess up his latest opportunity with the Atlanta Braves. After failing to show to his AAA Richmond game "ready to play", Spiezio was released by the Braves.
  • Rule 5 pick Tim Lahey, who was DFA’d by the Phillies, cleared waivers and has been sent back to the Twins for $25K.
  • With Evan Longoria now in the majors, the Rays may be forced to trade Jonny Gomes or Eric Hinske (who is off to a hot start) in the next few weeks.

Cork Gaines writes for Rays Index and can be reached here.

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