A look at the latest from Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports…
- Rosenthal explains why we shouldn't expect the A's to make catcher Kurt Suzuki available in trade. He suggests that if Suzuki did become available, the demand to acquire three-plus years of his services would exceed Cleveland's return last summer for Victor Martinez. Suzuki hasn't had extension talks with the A's, though John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle tweeted that he's open to the idea.
- Although the Twins explored trades for closers after Joe Nathan went down, they "never had a formal discussion with the Padres about Heath Bell." He may not be a big strikeout guy, but Jon Rauch has done a solid job so far in saving six out of seven.
- Rosenthal says Dusty Baker asked the Reds about a contract extension, but "evidently the team is not yet ready to decide upon his future."
Don’t bring Baker back. Nuff said.
Dusty Baker asked the Reds about an extension but they’re waiting to see how many Tommy John surgeries they have to pay for by the end of the year.
Really Dusty? You’ve yet to have a winning season for us, your team, which is loaded with talent, is playing uninspired baseball and you think now would be the time to talk about getting a new contract?
Really? I wonder if I could put lackluster work into my designs, constantly make bad decisions in the marketing area and ask my boss for a raise…
I would like the Braves to look at Dusty Baker as an option for manager next year when Bobby Cox leaves and the Reds don’t re-sign him. I think he would be a good replacement since he has some MLB experience unlike E. Perez, C. Cadahia, or T. Pendleton and when he has a good team he can get them to win.
No. I’d hate to see the Braves get Dusty, he’s bad, just really really bad. Every Cub fan alive will tell you that and I’m guessing that Reds fans have figured it out by now too. The Braves are so well run by Bobby Cox that it’d be a shame to see Dusty take them over.
Don’t forget Giants fans. We’ll tell you how bad he is too. The last game of the 1993 season he started a rookie (Solomon Torres) over Burkett or Swift (both 20 game winners that season), the Giants lost to the Dodgers and became the best team to not go to the playoffs. The 2002 World Series. Ugh, I don’t even want to remember that abortion.
You can have him now. Got any used rosin bags? We’ll take them in trade.
Tommy Hanson will be sad.
if he ruins Tommy hanson I will personally take out Dusty Baker
The only contract information I want to hear regarding Dusty is the termination of his current contract.
dusty can come back as the waterboy if that counts.
noo i dont even want him around the players he can come back the janitor or laundry boy
I knew Suzuki was unavailable
Sure Dusty can have an extension….
Of his old contract for ESPN to be a analyst
dusty blows get him outa here
His name is Dusty, not Messiah.
Its a good sign that Rosenthal thinks Suzuki is unattainable. After all, no major network reporter on baseball is more consistently wrong. I don’t disagree with his leverage argument that we might have to pay more for Suzuki than for V-Mart, but that certainly doesn’t rule the move out. In fact, I’m relatively sure the A’s will at least test what they can get for Suzuki prior to beginning his arbitration years.
I do take issue with Rosenthal’s misguided assessment of the BoSox catching futures. Luis Exposito is ranked in the top 20 BoSox prospects under “Minorleaguebaseball” (13), SoxProspects (10), Baseball America “Carolina League” (17) (10/09), Callis of BA projects him as the starting MLB catcher for 2012, and Ben Badler of BA has on numerous occasions noted Expo’s offensive and defensive skills (ranked him 19th of 54 minor league catchers for 2008). While he has development work to do, there’s no way Rosenthal has made a fair assessment here. Romine was defensively ranked 53rd of 54 minor league catchers for 2008. I’m sure he’s improved some, but certainly not to the ML-ready level implied by Rosenthal and Girardi.
I could see the Cubs go after Heath Bell. It’s only going to be a matter of time in which Z is going to start complaining. Hendry has matched up with the Pads before and we do have some people we could give up. Tom Gorzelanny, Jeff Samardzija, Sam Fuld and Jeff Stevens.