As the Padres face a big uphill battle in San Francisco this weekend, we look at some news items….
- Yu Darvish's likely posting fee could be around $25MM and the right-hander might look for a five-year deal from an MLB club, suggest sources of Matt Cerrone of Metsblog.com. The Mets, Yankees, Rangers and Braves are listed as four of the eight teams who have shown an interest in Darvish, and we know the Rays have watched him pitch as well.
- Pedro Feliciano's struggles against right-handed hitters will prevent the reliever from earning a big contract this winter, writes David Brown of Yahoo Sports. The fact that Feliciano is a Type A free agent will also hurt his cause, since teams will shy away from losing a draft pick to sign a limited relief pitcher.
- Rafael Soriano, Cody Ross, David DeJesus and Francisco Rodriguez are among several free agents or trade candidates that Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic thinks the D'Backs might consider acquiring.
- Bob Gebhard, the Diamondbacks' vice-president and special assistant to the GM, will survive the expected front office changes in Arizona this winter, tweets Bob Nightengale of USA Today.
- Nightengale also tweets that Tim Wallach is "picking up plenty of steam" in regards to the Toronto manager's job. The Rockies have granted hitting coach Don Baylor permission to interview for that same position, reports Jordan Bastian of MLB.com.
- The Everett Daily Herald's Kirby Arnold lists several Mariners who might not be with the team next season, including Jose Lopez, David Aardsma and Casey Kotchman.
- Dodgers assistant GM Logan White told Baseball America's Jim Callis that he hasn't been fired by L.A., and is "working for the team until…told otherwise" (both Twitter links). Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus tweeted about "rumors starting to swirl" that White and the Dodgers were parting ways earlier in the day. White was one of several candidates interviewed for the Arizona general manager's job that eventually went to Kevin Towers.
- The Washington Post's Adam Kilgore lists five possible replacements for Adam Dunn if the Nationals don't re-sign the slugger.
- In a chat with fans on Thursday, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News predicted that the Rangers would announce contract extensions for manager Ron Washington and GM Jon Daniels within a week of Texas' final playoff game.
- Trevor Hoffman hasn't decided if he will play next year yet, but if he does, MLB.com's Adam McCalvy predicts Hoffman will look for "a situation in which he at least has a chance to be the closer."
If the D’backs want K-Rod, I will drive him from New York to Arizona myself. We’ll make a road trip out of it.
Save some room in the car for Oliver Perez.
How about everyone not named David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Ike Davis. Poor Mets fans. Your management has doomed you for years with these horrible signings. Don’t worry you guys will contend soon enough. In 2015!
Yeah. Though to be fair I suppose it’s harder to compose a solid roster when you can’t simply buy the best free agent available every offseason, eh?
k-rod on a winning club would be fine, the problem is the mets offense does not put them in a position to get as much for the dollar for k-rod. a closer is only good if there is a game to close. with that said, i would honestly trade k-rod for a young 2nd baseman. pay his entire 2011 salary and swap him for some youth. the mets could use bobby parnell or takahashi ( if he wants to close ) for 2011. combined they would make about half of what k-rod makes. people must understand, unless ur name is mariano rivera, its a crapshoot more often than not. there are 30 clubs…how many reliable closers are there ?
Hope Darvish signs. I don’t know how he’ll make the transition to the bigger ball and tougher hitting, but I think he’ll be good anyway. The Braves and Rays can try, good fit with both of those teams even though I think they can’t afford 25$, the Mets are a big no, well at least hopefully, the Marlins, Blue Jays, Angels, Marlins, and Arizona should have a look
That’s half the Marlins payroll, no way they even think about bidding for him. And how are the Mets a big no when they bid 40 million for Dice-K a few years back. If they can bid for 40 million for Dice-K then, they’ll no doubt be in the picture for Darvish this year.
Too much money!!!!!
Pads how about signing Crawford AND Werth 4 offense two 1-0 losses against chicago is PATHETIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah… The Pads are going down unless they can stop Buster Posey y Los Gigantes…
Sweet. Darvish’s posting fee isn’t so bad. Call me a spoiled Yankee fan but a Sabathia-Lee-Darvish-Burnett-Hughes rotation sounds beast. He would also make a nice No. 2 on the Mets and Tigers.
My guess is that the Rangers let Lee go to the Yankees and sign Darvish. They can’t afford to invest that much money into one player, even with their new revenue stream. They need to think about the future.
So…
Posting Fee: $25MM
Contact: 5 YRS/$70MM
and unlike others I have faith in this guy. He’s no Dice-K. This guy has got a better arsenal than Boba Fett. 6 pitches that he has pinpoint control of. Let’s see what happens.
IF the rangers can’t re-sign lee they won’t sign darvish they’ll go after Greinke in a trade.
I can see Darvish having a pathetic demise like Boba Fett.
Don’t you read Expanded Universe comics. Boba escaped the stomach of the Sarlaac by using his flamethrower. Boba Fett is the man and so is Yu Darvish.
The “most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy” still got his rear-end handed to him like he was one of the Three Stooges.
“6 pitches that he has pinpoint control of. Let’s see what happens.”
So did Matsuzaka, once upon a time.
DiceK actually does have really good control of his pitches he just doesn’t try to throw them as strikes
spoiled yankee fan.
I as a Yankee fan would also love to see that and I could care less if I’m called spoiled. Look at the Red Sox starting 5 if all are healthy and live up to their hype. As far as Lee goes nothing against the Rangers but even if they offered Lee a few more million I think Lee wants to pitch for the Yankees and the whole CC thing with Lee and their wifes and talking about homes right before he got traded should be the proof. I would rather Pettitte then Burnett unless Burnett can turn it around next season. 2009 wasn’t too bad for him so there’s hope. The offseason is always so much fun.
Oh man I would love to see Darvish as a Brave. Imagine, Yu Darvish, pitching phenom, along side Jason Heyward, future multitime MVP award winner. I’m drooling just thinking about it.
“along side Jason Heyward, future multitime MVP award winner.”
Oooo, the kiss of death.
Jason Heyward is actually a future Hall of Famer. Don’t you watch ESPN?
I’ll say this now for everyone to hear, if the Rays bid on Darvish & Win, after what Sternberg said about cutting back on payroll, he’ll look like the BIGGEST HYPOCRITE on the planet.
Darvish probably won’t translate well to the bigs. I’ve read sites that say over here he may at best be a #3 starter. Curious to see what teams will bid.
Teheran: South America
Darvish: Asia
Hanson: USA West Coast
Minor: USA South
Beachy: USA Midwest
Really doubt the rotation pans out like that in a few years but that would be a pretty cool collection of diverse guys.
3 americans an asian and a south american…prettyyy sure other teams have more diversity then that.
Yup…I can name one off the top of my head:
Dodgers
Bills = USA
Kershaw = USA
Padilla = Nicaragua
Kuroda = Japan
Monasterios = Venezuela
I’m sure there’s a team with their starting 5 from different countries.
… that wasn’t the Dodgers rotation for most of the season (Haeger, Ely, Lilly were over Monasterios most of the year).
You would have to think AA would be in on Darvish as well, despite the pitching depth.
for 5yrs/70MM?
im not sure if AA wants to make a bet that big
he may not even translate well in to the Majors, and AL East of all places