Links for Wednesday…
- The Mets have no interest in trading for Cristian Guzman, according to MLB.com's Bill Ladson. Guzman could have played shortstop in New York while the Mets wait for Jose Reyes to get healthy.
- Dave Allen at FanGraphs thinks the Rays should use Andy Sonnanstine as a long reliever to start the season with an eye towards trading him if something comes up. Sonnanstine is going to get squeezed out of Tampa's rotation in a numbers crunch, but he has minor league options remaining.
- The Cardinals are in trade talks with the Reds in hopes of keeping Rule 5 lefty Ben Jukich, reports Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
- The Indians signed righty Justin Germano to a minor league deal, reports Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Germano, 27, posted a 4.38 ERA, 4.97 K/9, and 1.18 BB/9 in 76 innings for the Softbank Hawks last year.
- After working out for the Diamondbacks, Dominican outfielder Wagner Mateo will audition for at least four more teams according to Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic.
- Dan O'Dowd told Tyler Kepner of the New York Times he hopes Troy Tulowitzki retires a Rockie.
- Joe Pawlikowski of River Ave. Blues explains why he does not expect the Yankees to sign Joe Mauer even if the superstar catcher reaches free agency.
- Kiko Calero received calls from a dozen teams this winter, reports Anthony McCarron of the New York Daily News.
- Dave Cameron of U.S.S. Mariner finds Seattle to be lacking in middle infield depth.
“mariners lacking in middle infield depth”
how about julio lugo for ichiro+gutierrez? i dont think its worth it for the cardinals though. M’s might have to throw in Ackley.
Not nearly enough for the Cards. Add in Felix, and you have a deal.
The Cardinals should keep Ben Jukich to start the season and work out a trade to stash him in AA if things don’t work out. You never know when you will find another Johan Santana, Dan Uggla, Josh Hamilton, Luis Pedromo, Everth Cabrera, Shane Victorino, or Randy Wells.
I’m going to say that the other 4 teams Mateo tries out for are the Royals, Mariners, Marlins, and Blue Jays.
I’m going to guess that he signs with the Royals if he can prove to be healthy.
Joe Pawlikowski got it wrong Tim, Spanny is locked up for the next 5 seasons.
While Joe Pawlikowski’s arguments about Mauer make sense, I don’t think the yanks would pass up Mauer. For an organization that consistently spends money to field a team through free agency, it doesn’t follow that all of the sudden they wouldn’t spend money on the best catcher in mlb. Just b/c they have the minors filled with catchers doesn’t mean the yanks won’t trade away their bounty of catchers for mlb ready players, and then buy the rest of the team in free agency. That’s exactly what the yankees have been doing since….well, ever. If Mauer makes it to free agency uninjured, the Yanks will play the same game they played when they got teixiera – they’ll wait for the market to develop and then outbid the highest offer by 10M. Joe Pawlikowski’s arguments would make sense if they were about any team aside from the yankees.
mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090725&con…
The Yankees had the highest percentage of homegrown talent in the American League in 2009. Since Cashman has focused in on the farm system the Yankees have slowly been turning out an above average amount of top prospects. Many have been traded, yet 56% of the 25 man roster represents the farm system, so its hard to say they are built on free agents.
They are not a one dimensional team that just spends money, and Pawlikowki takes this in to account. It makes no sense for the Yankees to get Mauer $20+ million with top prospects Montero and Romine near Major League level next year.
I assume that the Yankees will sign a number 2 starting pitcher and possibly a left fielder, but assuming Gardner has a good year, Cliff Lee might be their target.
mariano river, jorge posada, andy petitte, and derek jeter were all here before Cashman became GM just FYI. that little list you have is missleading.
Firstly, that 56% number is from before the trade deadline last year. So you should be using the word “represented.” It’s very easy to call up a minor leaguer, have him play a couple games, say you’re developing talent, and then send him down (such is the case with september call-ups, for example). So lets go to where it really counts. Lets use the Yankees 2009 WS roster to see where the talent is pitching in (pardon the pun).
Firstly, 8 players (32%) on the WS roster are no longer with the team. The 5 (20%) free agent departures were free agent arrivals and 2 of the 3 trade departures were homegrown talent. Brian Bruney stands alone as the only man on the WS roster as brought in by trade and then traded away.
Of the WS roster, 12 (48%, not 56%) were homegrown talent, and as Ferrariman mentions, 4 of the 12 were in the organization before Cashman arrived. So 8 of the 25 (32%) players that Cashman developed were homegrown talent and were on the WS roster. But let’s take it one step further. Of those 8, only 3 players played a starting role for the yankees (I was generous and counted Joba as a starter even though he relieved in the WS). So 3 of the 25 players that Cashman developed played a starting role for the WS yankees, which is 12% (far from 56%). And even if you want to count the 4 people Cashman didn’t develop that count in a starting role (I’ll count Mo as a starter even though he is technically a reliever b/c he still plays a prominent role on the team), that’s still 7 of 20 (not including the 5 non-starters), or 35%. So when you’re team buys or trades for 65% of your WS roster, it’s kinda hard to say that the Yankees are built on homegrown talent. Because aren’t the rings what matter to Yankees fans? You’ve got 27 of them, and that’s all I ever hear. It doesn’t matter that the 65% of the 27th ring was bought?
I’m not going to get into a debate about whether the Yankees are better than every other team or whether they bought their 2009 team, or any of the other typical debates that get tossed around in regards to the yankees. Everyone already has their opinions and their anchors, LOAs, & LORs are already set. What I will say is that though the yankees might have had the highest percentage of homegrown talent, that talent was far from represented on the WS roster, and that talent has been cut significantly with the losses of Phil Coke & Melky Cabrera (and then the other minor leaguers that the yankees had in their system like Austin Jackson that are no longer there). MLBfanhouse along with SI ranks the Yankees farm system @ 15th this year (mlb.fanhouse.com/2010/01/26/2010-farm-system-ranki…), (sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/baseball/mlb/12/01/…). 15th isn’t bad, but for a system that is supposed to be focused on their farm system, sitting on the bubble of best and worst isn’t where your organization should be.
They don’t really need him. Jesus Montero may be as good as Mauer (probably not, but you get my point). They would rather blow it all on a big pitcher like Lee or Crawford rather than Mauer, even though they may just want to spite MLB and more importantly to them the Red Sox.
I think the only way they don’t go hard after Mauer is if they win the WS in 2010 – then management will probably believe that their team is good enough to win without him.
I think they might check in on him, sorta like they did with Matt Holliday, but they won’t do anything unless the price is alright, which probably won’t happen with a guy like Mauer.
Well, they did “check in” on Matt Holliday the year after they won the WS. Would they have done the same if they didn’t win the WS?
But then again, Holliday is not Mauer. Mauer is arguably the best player at his position while Holliday struggled to hit in the AL when he was on OAK. If Holliday had a better showing in OAK (and thusly didn’t get traded to the Cards), I think the Yanks would have gone after him. And then there’s the added bonus that OAK would not have been as “aggressive” as resigning Holliday as the Cards were simply because he would have been out of their price range. Holliday probably still has a couple suitors in this scenario, but Boras wouldn’t have been able to posture OAK like he did STL to raise the price of Holliday. He would have had to invent a ghost team like he’s done in the past, and those don’t really work as well. But then again, it’s just a hypothetical. It’s hard to say what would have happened.
Didn’t the Nats offer 200 million for Teix?
according to espn & the washington post, the Nats offered a 160M/8yr contract. Various sources reported that the sox offered apx 168-170M and the O’s offered a 140-150M/7yr contract. It also would have been difficult for the Nats to offer 200M to Tex with the 20M offer to Adam Dunn on the table just months before signing a 16M contract with Guzman.
it didn’t make a lot of sense for the yankees to bring in ARod when they already had a megastar shortstop in jeter. But they did that anyways.
i wouldn’t rule anything out. But me, along with the rest of baseball except the yankees hope he stays with the twinkies.
Forgot the Red Sox 🙂
I hope he stays on the twins as well 🙂
I think Sonnastine need some more time to readjust. If I’m the Rays, I give him that time. You can never have too much pitching.
I frankly hope that Jukich can provide some LOOGY insurance for Dennys Reyes, in case the aptly-named Dennys happens to enter Cardiac-arrest while involved in some sort of a self-induced pancake eating marathon at the Jupiter/Florida Dennys restaurant.
It would not be the worst thing if Jukich usurped Dennys Reyes, as Reyes was quite shaky last year, and had a decent ERA in 2009 thanks only to some good luck: and a good defense and bullpen backing him up and bailing him out of the constant trouble he was in every night.
Or even better, the Cardinals could somehow step into the still FA-ing Joe Beimel?