In today's blog post at ESPN, Buster Olney wrote about the major hurdles the Astros will face in trying to trade Roy Oswalt. The biggest obstacles are Oswalt's salary (owed $29MM through 2011), his history of back trouble, his full-no trade clause, and the fact that teams are coveting young players more than ever and might not be willing to give up a package good enough to convince owner Drayton McLane to move one of his star players.
As one GM put it, "a no-trade clause doesn't become a must-trade clause." Another believes they won't "just give the guy away." Here's the rest of Olney's rumors…
- The Mariners continue to search for a hitter.
- Toronto's asking for one or two prospects for relievers Jason Frasor and Scott Downs, but rival executives believe that asking price to be very high.
- Some executives believe that the Rays will make Andy Sonnanstine available at some point this summer. Olney suggests the Mets as a potential fit, noting that there were brief talks between the two teams about a trade this offseason.
I put the odds of Oswalt being traded at less than 10%.
Mariners need more than one hitter, only like two or three players are actually hitting.
Downs might be able to a get a top-150 prospect for Downs, but I doubt they could get that for Frasor.
Pretty much any starting pitcher who can put up an ERA below 5 is a good fit for the Mets.
That’s a pretty horrible assumption.
Their rotation is pretty horrible. Maine is done, Perez is useless, RA Dickey isn’t going to keep it up, and I don’t think Takahashi is going to be as effective a starter as he is a reliever and I rather keep him in the pen because few teams have a long man as good as he’s been.
Olney has been saying this all season long. But he continues to get his facts wrong.
If Oswalt has a history of back problems, then why has he consistently put up 200+ innings? Sure, he battles a sore back. What pro player doesn’t have ailments? Pujols has a large contract and has battled elbow issues, but he continues to perform. Olney is losing a lot of cred on this one for me. If Roy was rumored to be heading to NY or Boston, Olney would be all over this hyping it up. Like I said, Olney is losing some cred on this one.
Olney also misquoted gm Ed Wade. He said “I’m going to put my tongue in my cheek again and say Roy’s contract includes a no-trade clause, not a trade-me clause.”
Finally, Oswalt did not demand a trade. He simply asked McClane to think about it.
I could see a Murphy/Sonnanstine swap.
I would like to see a Reyes for Oswalt trade!
The M’s continue to baffle me. At this point there are a couple of trade targets that would require next to nothing to take on. It’s not like they have anything to lose.
If you don’t go the trade route go the FA route and bring in Dye or Sheffield or Delgado on an incentive deal. Give em $1m guaranteed with the ability to earn up to $8m based on their performance.
If Dye could come in and give you 400 AB’s with a 350 OBP and 20+ HR’s he would be worth the money. If he comes in and is terrible you gambled a million and came up empty. In either case, doing SOMETHING is better than just sitting there.
And unlike other clubs that are struggling to hit, the M’s really don’t have very many reasons to expect improvement. The team, coming into the season, was going to be awful with the stick. Sure some guys are playing below expectations, but as a whole this was and is a really bad offensive team.
cubs would be looking at sonnanstine