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Archives for May 2010

Olney’s Latest: Oswalt, Berkman, Rays, Wood

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In today's blog post at ESPN, Buster Olney discusses the trade value of Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman, which might not be as good as owner Drayton McLane would like. One GM noted that Houston's ace battled back trouble last year, which makes him a scary investment because of the potential to underperform and/or breakdown. 

Another executive noted that the contracts of both players might be prohibitive. Oswalt is guaranteed $33MM through 2011, while Berkman is making $15MM this season with a $2MM buyout of his $15MM club option for next season. It's also worth noting that the first baseman is hitting just .185/.290/.352 in 62 plate appearances since coming off the disabled list. If McLane decides to move one of his franchise players, it might be a tough pill to swallow since the return is expected to be less than stellar. 

Here's the rest of Olney's rumors…

  • Despite having the game's best record and run differential, the Rays need a righthanded reliever and lefty hitting designated hitter. The latter will likely have to come from outside the organization, and the opportunity to acquire such a player will assuredly arise during the summer. Remember, the Rays do have Hank Blalock hitting .388/.448/.541 in Triple-A.
  • Olney speculates that the team could use top prospect Jeremy Hellickson as that righty reliever, though it might compromise their rotation depth since he's effectively their sixth starter.
  • Kerry Wood's injury probably increased the chances that he'll be traded, because now his $11MM option for next season is unlikely to vest.

Odds & Ends: Strasburg, Piniella, Ely, Marlins

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Jamie Moyer, we are all witnesses.  Some quick notes as we finish up the work week….

  • Stephen Strasburg allowed just one hit and one walk over six shutout innings in his debut for Washington's Triple-A affiliate, reports The Associated Press.
  • Jon Paul Morosi of FOXSports.com predicts the Cubs' woes may drive Lou Piniella into retirement when his contract is up after this season.
  • The Los Angeles Times' Steve Dilbeck thinks the Dodgers erred in sending rookie right-hander John Ely back down to the minors so quickly.
  • Clark Spencer of The Miami Herald has some details of Florida owner Jeffrey Loria's chat with reporters today.  Loria dismissed any problems between him and manager Fredi Gonzalez, though Spencer notes that Loria "never exactly came out and said Gonzalez's job was 100 percent secure."  Loria was vague about when Mike Stanton would be called up to the majors, but the owner noted that the Marlins "don't want him to come and fail. If he's going to come here, he's going to come here to stay."
  • Speaking of Stanton, his name came up more than once during Baseball America's J.J. Cooper's chat with fans today.  When asked if he'd rather have Stanton or Jason Heyward for the next 10 years, Cooper's answer was "Heyward and it didn't really take any time to think about it," though that's more of a nod to Heyward's limitless potential than a slight towards Stanton.
  • Brian McCann revealed today that he is having more vision problems, and he will again start wearing glasses in the field, reports David O'Brien of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
  • ESPN's Buster Olney reports (via Tweets here and here) that the Mariners will still be paying Milton Bradley while he is on the team's restricted list.
  • Jean-Jacques Taylor of the Dallas Morning News writes that of all the catcher possibilities the Rangers looked at over the winter, little-regarded Matt Treanor became the team's "savior" due to his solid defensive and game-calling skills.  (Probably on purpose, Taylor doesn't mention Treanor's .619 OPS.) 
  • Aaron Rowand, like Barry Zito, is also starting to live up his big Giants contract, writes Mychael Urban of CSNBayArea.com.  Urban notes that Rowand's early-season success may be due to a better offseason fitness regiment and a total swing overhaul.

Eveland May Not Be Long For Toronto’s Rotation

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MLB.com's Jordan Bastian reports that Dana Eveland "might be pitching on a start-to-start basis at some point" given that the Blue Jays have several potential starters with longer-term futures with the club soon coming off of the disabled list.  Eveland is out of options, which is part of the reason why he was designated for assignment by the A's in February and dealt to Toronto a week later. 

This news doesn't come as a surprise given that the left-hander was acquired by the Jays as a veteran stop-gap for the rotation, but it has perhaps been surprising how well Eveland has performed thus far in 2010.  Aside from one disastrous (7 ER in 3 IP) outing against Boston on April 26, he has a 2.23 ERA over his other five starts.  It represents a strong turn-around fom Eveland's garish 7.16 ERA in 13 appearances for Oakland in 2009. 

As Bastian points out, given Eveland's success and the lack of concrete timetables for the injured hurlers' returns, Eveland could remain in the rotation into June.  The two pitchers who are probably closest to returning at Brian Tallet and Marc Rzepczynski, but Bastian tweeted last week that Tallet may be headed to the bullpen and Rzepczynski's struggles in the spring opened the door for Eveland to claim the rotation spot in the first place (a decision that was cinched when Rzcepczynski broke a fingertip and went on the DL).

Probably the best-case scenario for the Blue Jays would be if Eveland keeps up his solid performance so that the southpaw might create some measure of trade value when and if Toronto decides to remove him from the rotation.  The Mariners and Diamondbacks reportedly had interest in Eveland when Oakland DFA'ed him.  If the Jays could flip Eveland for even a low-level prospect, it would make their acquisition of the lefty into a nice all-around success.

D’Backs Wary About Making Bullpen Moves

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It's becoming conventional wisdom around baseball that it's foolish to commit too much money to closers and/or set-up men since most relievers see their effectiveness vary wildly from year to year.  While this logic may be sound, it can also leave a team's hands somewhat tied (and its fans frustrated) when the present bullpen isn't producing.

Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic spoke to Diamondbacks GM Josh Byrnes about the Snakes' relief woes.  Going into Friday's play, Arizona's staff ERA from the seventh inning on stood at an NL-worst 5.71 in such situations, and right-hander Esmerling Vasquez is the only D'Backs reliever with an ERA under 4.63.  Most of the attention has focused on closer Chad Qualls, who has blown two saves already and has a 7.36 ERA in 13 appearances.

Byrnes said changes could be made if things become dire, be it calling up "guys in the minors; [or] maybe we make a trade."  But Byrnes also preached patience, noting that "it's hard to stay the course with it, but sometimes that's the best thing to do."

Byrnes told Piecoro that "as far as major trade or a major expenditure [for a reliever], [it's] probably something we want to be very careful about."  Piecoro notes that the club considered acquiring the likes of Matt Capps, Rafael Soriano and former D'Backs closer Jose Valverde over the winter, but the price for Soriano and Valverde was judged to be too high, while Capps would only sign if he was guaranteed the closer's job.  The Diamondbacks instead picked up Bob Howry and Aaron Heilman, which MLBTR's Tim Dierkes was "not enthused" about, and chose to keep Qualls as the closer after his solid 2009 season (24 saves and a 3.65 ERA in 51 appearances).  These moves look ripe for second-guessing at the moment given that Qualls, Howry and Heilman have all tough starts while Capps, Soriano and Valverde have pitched extremely well.

Arizona has a 14-15 record but is just four games behind the division-leading Giants.  Given that a hot two weeks can put a club on top of the tightly-stacked NL West, Byrnes might be forced to roll the dice on another reliever should his club still have a shot at first place come the summer.  D'Backs fans demanding that the Snakes blow up their bullpen and bring in reinforcements, however, should be careful what they wish for.  The team's last midseason deal for a reliever saw them pick up Jon Rauch in July 2008 and he subsequently put up a 6.56 ERA for Arizona that season.

Angels DFA Fernando Rodriguez

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Right-hander Fernando Rodriguez has been designed for assignment by the Angels, reports Mark Saxon of ESPNLosAngeles.com.  The Halos needed to clear a spot for Michael Ryan on the 40-man roster, as Ryan was called up to replace Triple A-bound reliever Matt Palmer.

Rodriguez was an 18th-round pick of the Angels in the 2003 amateur draft, and the El Paso native has just one major league appearance to his credit: two-thirds of an inning pitched on May 2, 2009, where he allowed three runs, two of them earned.  Rodriguez was a starter for most of his minor league career, but has worked exclusively out of the bullpen since 2009.  He compiled a 4.68 ERA in 200 career games in the minors, 112 of them starts, and posted a 1.92 K:BB ratio.

Kenny Williams On Trade Chatter

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The White Sox may or may not have inquired about Astros' first baseman Lance Berkman according to Scot Gregor of The Daily Herald, but there's no chance GM Kenny Williams is putting together a package to acquire him. However, that didn't stop Williams from talking about the state of the trade market…

“I don’t think anyone is really prepared to make any deals right now,” said Williams. “And any interest expressed in any players out there who are impact guys has been done so for quite some time. There really isn’t much substance to anything at this stage of the season. Another 30 games, and you’ll start to see talk pick up."

“But if you’re not playing well it doesn’t make any sense to go down those roads, anyway. You've got to warrant that.”

The White Sox are just 12-17 on the young season, and their offense has been carried by the resurgent Andruw Jones and Paul Konerko. They've gotten basically no production out of catcher (.626 OPS), second base (.554), shortstop (.557), third base (.649), and left field (.644), so there's plenty of room for improvement.

Of course, if the club continues to struggle, then the White Sox could become sellers, rather than buyers.  In that case, a player like Konerko could be an attractive trading chip, as CBSSports.com's Danny Knobler points out.  This is the last year of Konerko's five-year, $60MM contract, so a budget-conscious contender would just have to take on two or three months' worth of Konerko's $12MM 2010 salary without making a long-term commitment.  Konerko could fit right in on a team like the Rays — they have a hole at DH with the struggling Pat Burrell, their minor league system is deep enough to spare a decent prospect even for a short-term rental player, and in Konerko, they get a veteran right-handed bat who knows AL pichers well and has lots of postseason experience.  Konerko has the right to veto a trade, but he might welcome the chance to join a pennant contender like Tampa Bay.

MLBTR's Mark Polishuk also contributed to this post

Discussion: The Ideal Trade

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Every year we see countless trades involving every kind of player, from established big leaguers to promising prospects to minor league roster filler. Most of the time, one team ends up getting the better end of the deal, whether or not that's apparent at the time of the trade is a different story all together.  

Moshe Mandel at TYU posed an interesting question today: does a GM want to see the prospects he's traded away succeed? Are the Phillies rooted for Kyle Drabek or against him? What about the Yankees and Austin Jackson, or the Red Sox and Nick Hagadone? Furthermore, what about the big leaguers traded away? Does a GM want to see those players do well?

I believe that the best trades are those that benefit both teams, because they've not improved your ball club but also your reputation with other clubs as well, which can help with future deals. Some might not agree, and think that the best deals involve improving their team while hurting another. 

What about you? What does your ideal trade look like; is it a win-win, or something else? Is it wrong to want to see someone you've traded away fail? 

Amaro On The Impact Of Ryan Howard’s Deal

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Phillies' GM Ruben Amaro Jr. appeared on the MLB Network Radio channel on Sirius XM Radio with host Rob Dibble and Jim Memolo today to discuss, among other things, how Ryan Howard's massive contract extension will impact decisions that need to be made about other players on the roster.

“Well, hopefully it’s a positive effect," said Amaro, "that the players understand that we’re trying to prolong our success … I’ll be specific, with guys like Jayson Werth who could potentially be free agents, you know, we’d love to keep him … We’d love to sign him back.  It’s going to be my job to try to put all the pieces together.  We don’t have an unlimited budget and we’re going to have to be intelligent about how we handle things but we’re hopeful that we can put all of the pieces together to continue the trend of being a contender.”

Werth is one of several Phillies that can be free agents after the season, but he's the only one that's going to cost big bucks to keep. Philadelphia does have outfielder and top prospect Domonic Brown hitting .347/.402/.667 in Double-A (82 plate appearances), so they do have a pretty good backup plan already in house.

Amaro is correct in saying that Howard's deal is a statement about how the team wants to prolong success, which is attractive to both possible free agent targets and players already on the roster. Then again, so are two consecutive National League pennants.

Odds & Ends: Pirates, Astros, Castro, Crawford

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Let's start this Friday off with some links…

  • Jon Paul Morosi of FoxSports.com feels that Neal Huntington's rebuilding plan has yet to yield results. 
  • Olney tweets that rival executives feel that both Oswalt and Lance Berkman would have trade value, but only if Houston was willing to eat a lot of money and accept secondary prospects in return. Yesterday we learned that Berkman would be willing to waive his no-trade clause.
  • SI.com's Melissa Segura hears that MLB will announce a pilot program that will allow international amateurs to register before the July 2nd signing period begins, which should streamline age investigations and signings (link goes to Twitter).
  • Meanwhile, MLB.com's Jesse Sanchez chatted with MLB's Dominican office consultant Sandy Alderson about what he hopes to achieve regarding how he hopes to improve the international market.
  • ESPN's Enrique Rojas tweets that the Cubs have called up top shortstop prospect Starlin Castro. The 20-year-old was rated as the 16th best prospect in the game by Baseball America prior to the season, and was hitting .376/.421/.569 in 121 Double-A plate appearances. Chicago has already pushed his free agency back a year, but he can still qualify as a Super Two after 2012.
  • Richard Justice of The Houston Chronicle mentions that the Astros have only $44MM in salary commitments for next season, most of which is tied up in Roy Oswalt and Carlos Lee. I respectfully disagree that Oswalt's $16MM salary "can easily be traded." How many teams have that much room in their budget?
  • ESPN's Buster Olney tweets that Carl Crawford has put himself in a pretty good position going into free agency. The Rays' left fielder is hitting .343/.408/.571, but is only 7-for-11 in stolen base opportunities, and there's still 83% of the season left the play.
  • ESPN's Keith Law and Jason Churchill go back and redo the 2004 draft. Both see Justin Verlander and Dustin Pedroia going 1-2 in a redraft.

Players That Would Have Been Free Agents After 2010

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With more and more young players signing long-term extensions that buy out arbitration and free agent years, the amount of talent in future free agent classes isn't as impressive as it could be. Here's a list of players who would have been free agents for the first time after this season (meaning they will accrue their sixth full year of service time in 2010), but instead are still under contract for another year or two (or more)…

  • Joe Blanton: The Phils have Blanton under contract for $17.5MM total in 2011 and 2012. There's plenty of value in being a league average workhorse, so he might have been able to find more on the open market.
  • Zack Greinke: Kansas City owes the reigning Cy Young Award winner $13.5MM in both 2011 and 2012. He would have been the most sought after free agent in years, and would have been in a position to challenge CC Sabathia's $161MM record deal.
  • Dan Haren: Arizona wisely locked up their ace, and will pay him $12.75MM in both 2011 and 2012. They also hold a $15.5MM option for 2013 ($3.5MM buyout). Haren would have been in line for a deal similar to the five year, $82.5MM contracts signed by John Lackey and A.J. Burnett, if not more.
  • Maicer Izturis: The Halos control him for the next two seasons at just $6.9MM total.
  • Scott Kazmir: He's under contract for $12MM in 2011 with a $13.5MM club option for 2013 that could be bought out for $2.5MM. Could he have done better than one year, $14.5MM guaranteed on the open market? 
  • Yadier Molina: The youngest Molina brother will earn $5.25MM in 2011, and St. Louis will presumably pick up his $7MM option for 2012. Given the dearth of quality catchers, he definitely would have found more than $12.25MM on the open market.
  • Justin Morneau: He'll earn $14MM each year from 2011-2013. The market for players with Morneau's skill set has dropped off considerably, but his age (still just 29) would have been a help.
  • Brandon Phillips: It feels like he's been around forever, but Phillips wouldn't have been eligible for free agency for the first time until after this season. The Reds owe him $11MM in 2011, then have to decide between $12MM option or a $1MM buyout for 2012.
  • Alexis Rios: Would Rios have been able to the match the $50MM he's owed through 2014?
  • Ramon Santiago: Detroit owes their utility infielder $1.25MM next season. Not bad scratch for a bench player.
  • Grady Sizemore: Cleveland locked Sizemore up super early in his career, and still have him under contract for $7.5MM next year with an $8.5MM option for the year after. He would have been one of the most sought after free agents after the season.
  • Chris Snyder: He's guaranteed $6.5MM after this season, possibly more if the D'Backs pick up $6.75MM option for 2012.
  • Huston Street: He has yet to pitch this year, but Colorado owes their closer $15.3MM over the next two seasons, and there's also a $9MM mutual option for 2013. Considering his shoulder injury, he's probably glad to have the guaranteed money coming to him.
  • Nick Swisher: The Yanks owe Swisher $9MM for 2011, then have to decide between a $10MM salary or a $1MM buyout for 2012. He probably would have been able to find more than that as a free agent.
  • Kevin Youkilis: The Red Sox control their first baseman for $12MM in both 2011 and 2012, then could retain him for 2013 with a $13MM option or a $1MM buyout. He would have bested that on the open market.
  • David Wright: The Mets have their franchise player under contract for two more years at $29MM total. He might have been able to quadruple that as a free agent.

Thanks to Cot's Baseball Contract for the info.

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