A year ago today, the Brewers acquired Felipe Lopez from the Diamondbacks for prospects Roque Mercedes and Cole Gillespie. Lopez raked after the trade, but was not offered arbitration by the Brewers. Gillespie and Mercedes ranked among Arizona's top 30 prospects heading into the season according to Baseball America, with the former now playing for the big league club. On to today's links…
- The Mets scouted Jeremy Guthrie's last start, according to Ed Price of AOL FanHouse. Guthrie could make for an interesting project, as one scout told Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports, "He should be better than he is."
- The relief trade market is "absolutely terrible," one talent evaluator told ESPN's Buster Olney (Twitter link).
- The Padres are not a fit for Marlins outfielder Cody Ross, according to Tom Krasovic of AOL FanHouse. The Padres prefer David DeJesus instead, tweets Dan Hayes of the North County Times.
- Astros owner Drayton McLane "seems paralyzed by indecision," writes Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle.
- SI's Jon Heyman ranks the 24 best available position players, starting with Prince Fielder.
- Red Sox draft pick Anthony Ranaudo is done pitching in the Cape Cod League, reported Brian Foley of The College Baseball Blog yesterday. The consensus among prospect gurus is that Ranaudo had nothing left to prove. An elbow injury and representation by Scott Boras caused Ranaudo to drop to the Sox at #39 in the June draft.
- The Mariners should aim to be competitive in 2012, writes Dave Cameron of U.S.S. Mariner.
- Former Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi offered a few stories of near-deals on WEEI's The Big Show on Friday.
Ranaudo is going to end up being one of the real steals in this draft. Just get him signed
I agree, Sox can’t let him go back to LSU. Just pay him his top 10 money.
Guthrie really could be a steal for a team. He gets virtually no run support with the O’s (I believe he gets the 3rd or 4th worst in the league). He has pitched great at times, and even when he doesn’t pitch to his potential he will still eat up innings (6innings + in most of his stats) . The Mets would be a good spot for him I think.
Plus a switch to the NL might add better numbers.
He’s pitched a TON of 6 IP starts and eats a lot of innings. I don’t know if the NL switch would really help him as much as leaving the Orioles would. As you mentioned, he gets no run support, but even more, he has had the worst bullpen support you can imagine. A lot of inherited runners scored. It’s gotta be in the very unlucky territory.
His main problem has been his execution of pitches. He has excellent stuff. He was hitting 94-96 mph in his last start with movement. And his slider is good when he’s more consistent. Each of his bad starts comes down to one bad offspeed pitch that he’ll hang inside, so he’s come to avoid pitching inside more and more.
“He should be better than he is.” That’s usually the case with Guthrie. “He is good” only applied to two years of his career.
Oh dear, Jon Heyman.
John Buck a “long shot to go”? Vernon Wells being worthy of market attention?
I’ll eat my hat if Buck isn’t gone by the deadline, and choke on it if somebody picks up Wells’ contract.
I agree, John Buck is a gonner with Arencibia using the heavy seige equipment on the door.
“Gillespie and Mercedes ranked among Arizona’s top 30 prospects heading into the season according to Baseball America, with the latter now playing for the big league club.”
I think you mean the former.
DeJesus is a better fit but I disagree with Dejesus is not worth a top prospect and MLB ready Pitcher…he worth a 2-3 good prospect not a top one
I think Guthrie could be a decent pitcher, but how about the Mets get someone that doesn’t need to be worked on?
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=2072&position=P
Oh yes. Guthrie definitely should be better than what he is.
Is the scout that said that one of those Mets scouts? If so, I understand moreso than I did before why they’ve been making so many boneheaded moves. (Dear God, I just defended Minaya partially. Shoot me now!)
More words of wisdom from Riccardi.
Bear in mind, the defense behind Guthrie has been pretty poor, too.
The defense, Team, Owner, Run Support, Confidence, Bullpen, everything you can imagine has been poor behind Guthrie
Wow….Heyman thinks the Hart for Bumgarner is fair?????
I agree that Willingham or Uggla would be a nice fit for the G’s in a Sanchez + prospect trade.
As a Brewers fan, I’d love to sell high on Hart and fetch Bumgarner 🙂
I wouldn’t trade Bumgarner for Fielder. Although I wouldn’t put it past Sabean to offer Bumgarner AND Posey for Hart.
If Ranaudo and Boras play games with the Sox and he goes back to school for another year, and does well, he’ll surely wind up getting picked by some bottom feeding team and will wallow in mediocrity for years before he’s able to move on to a good team. That team could very well rush him and he could pay a heavy price in confidence or physical injury.
“Frasor to me, he would be the least of the guys. The tighter the situation, the worse he pitches. I would be a little worried about that.”
Some very harsh words for Frasor.
Here is hoping you never get a job anywhere in MLB JP, you freaking bum!
I say the BoSox give Ranaudo the top-10 bonus that he desires. He would have been one of the TOP college arms in the draft had he not been injured his junior year and he’s been straight up dominant in the Cape Leauge. This looks like a guy that may be able to help our rotation in a relatively short amount of time..
I cant wait to see Ranaudo pitch, seemed like he should of gone higher if not for an elbow injury, just hope he isnt injury prone
It actually wasn’t an elbow injury but his forearm which makes it even better for the Sox
Edit: Alright I could have sworn it was a forearm injury before actually reading the article I should look it up.
I did look it up and his injury was a stress reaction in his right forearm
the mets do need pitching help no dobt about it but i dont think Guthrie is the answer… Omar is a terrible GM and i know hes gonna make the wrong move again the Wilpons need to get him out of NYC and fast.
I keep telling everyone not to underestimate Guthrie. The guy is the consummate pro, takes the ball every time and gives his all. If the Mets saw his last start, they saw a gem, six and two thirds, one run, seven hits, five Ks, a walk. He was consistently in the mid 90s with a ton of movement. Guthrie is usually in the mid 90s, but what gets him in trouble is location. When he busts the ball in on the hands, he’s deadly. When he gets it up and out over the plate, he gets killed. I guess it’s that way with all pitchers. Locate and command well and win, locate and command poorly and lose. If Guthrie can be consistent, he will be a big winner.
He pitches 190 to 200 innings, throws strikes, doesn’t walk many, so he’ll give up some HRs. And, keep in mind, that’s in Baltimore against the Yankees and Red Sox. But consider that A)most of the HRs he does give up are solo shots and B)he wouldn’t give up nearly as many HRs in San Diego.
Don’t underestimate this guy, I’m telling you.