September is arguably the slowest month of the year when it comes to baseball rumors. The trade deadline has come and passed, the waiver trade deadline has come and passed, and free agency is still more than two months away. Heck, even the draft signing deadline has passed.
Most of the moves that will be made this month are smaller one involving minor leaguers or complementary players, but almost nothing that would impact a playoff race. Let's take a second to look back at the majors stories from last September, which might help give us an idea of what to expect this month…
- The Brewers grabbed reliever Todd Coffey off waivers from the Reds. It was a small and seemingly inconsequential move at the time, but Coffey has been a horse out of the pen for the Brew Crew this year, giving them 71.1 innings of 2.78 ERA ball.
- Kyle Lohse signed a four year, $41MM contract extension with the Cardinals. As ESPN's Jayson Stark noted on Thursday, only two players (David Eckstein and Ryan Franklin) have signed extensions in-season this year.
- Two August waiver trades were completed last September. Cincinnati received pitcher Micah Owings from Arizona as the player to be named later in the Adam Dunn deal, while the Padres took home a pair of minor leaguers from the Dodgers to complete the Greg Maddux swap. We're still waiting for a few PTBNL to actually be named, including the one involved in the David Weathers deal.
Ironically enough, some of the biggest deals of last September didn't involve players at all, but instead front office personnel. The general managers of three big market teams - Brian Cashman of the Yankees, Omar Minaya of the Mets, and Theo Epstein of the Red Sox – all received contract extensions 12 months ago. Considering how this season has gone for the Mets, you'd have to think the Wilpons wish they could redo the Minaya extension considering it doesn't kick in until next year.
Three NL West GMs - Ned Colletti of the Dodgers, Dan O'Dowd of the Rockies, and Brian Sabean of the Giants - are not under contract beyond this season, however Colletti has a mutual option while the Giants have a club option on Sabean for 2010. Could we see one, or perhaps all three of these guys receive extensions this month?
