Baseball Blogs Weigh In: Jays, Mets, Red Sox, Nats, Yankees

On this date 32 years ago, commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspended Braves owner Ted Turner for one year for tampering. Turner had announced publicly that the Braves would sign free agent-to-be Gary Matthews. Unfortunately, 30 years later, nobody was disciplined when the Angels signed free agent Gary Matthews Jr. to a $50MM contract. In the first two years of the deal, Matthews has been paid $15MM and his play has been worth -$600K (yes, that is negative) according to Fangraphs. With several big free agents still looking for new teams, will any of them be the next Matthews Jr? Only time will tell. In the meantime, let’s see what is being written in the Blogosphere…

• The Eddie Kranepool Society is not worried about Derek Lowe, feeling the deal will get done once the Mets add a fourth option year and sweeten the pot just a tad. They are also putting the Mets front office on notice about the possibility of letting Manny Ramirez slip through their fingers.
• Mets Geek feels the Mets still need to add one more piece to their revamped bullpen and suggest Wil Ohman or Joe Beimel are better options as a lefty specialist than what is already in-house.
• The Southpaw takes a look at some young players the Jays should try to target in the trade market, with Chin-Lung Hu at the top of the list.
• My Baseball Bias is not satisfied with just Mark Teixeira and wants to see the Yankees sign Manny Ramirez.
• Fire Brand of the American League makes a case for three players to be the Red Sox fourth outfielder, including Rocco Baldelli, Brad Wilkerson and Eric Byrnes.
• MLB Notebook takes a look at how the Nationals could spend the $20MM that would have gone to Mark Teixeira.
• River Ave. Blues says this offseason is proving to be a test of just how good Scott Boras can be.
• Sully Baseball is running a series of posts breaking down each team’s all-time home grown versus all-time acquired teams. Here he looks at the Astros.

Cork Gaines writes for RaysIndex.com and can be reached here.