Miguel Olivo never played a major league game for the A's, but he signed with Oakland as an amateur free agent 14 years ago today. Here are some afternoon links, including an update on Olivo…
- Steve Foster of Inside the Rockies breaks down some of Colorado's offseason decisions and says Olivo wants to stay in Denver next year.
- Brewers owner Mark Attanasio gave GM Doug Melvin a strong vote of confidence, according to Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
- Mark Buehrle repeated to Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune that he'll consider retiring after the 2011 season.
- Rockies manager Jim Tracy told Troy E. Renck and Jim Armstrong of The Denver Post that he'd "absolutely" like to see Jeff Francis on next year's team. Colorado will likely decline its $7.5MM option for the lefty's services, but could re-sign him nonetheless.
- Joel Sherman of the New York Post says the Yankees are not going to offer Javier Vazquez arbitration this winter and predicts that the right-hander will sign a one-year deal with a base salary of $4MM or so.
- Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports explains why he considers Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston "a proud and often outspoken man who carried himself with dignity in a business that isn’t always fair."
If Vazquez can be had for a base salary of $4M next season, the Pirates should sign him. He can’t be any worse than Zach Duke.
I’d give him monopoly money and a Pittsburgh steelers jersey for a 2 year deal. final offer.
So you think he’s going to choose the Pirates over retirement or another team?
If any NL team can get him for 4 Mill they should sign him. He just can’t pitch for the Yankees or in the AL. Its unfortunate too as they Yankees considered the picks as part of the deal. Win some lose some.
Vazquez is a NL pitcher through and through. Mark my words, if a NL team nabs him for $4 million, he will be on the “best signings of the off-season” list after next season.
Agreed. I wouldn’t mind the Mets signing him. Yeah, he has a tendency to pitch bad in big games, but fortunately the Mets don’t have many of those.
I would love the Mets to sign him. He’s certainly better than Maine or Perez, and I’m hopeful our new non-Omar GM will not succumb to an undeserved three-year deal for his services.
I never really understood why the Yankees thought about Vazquez and compensation picks as they, in recent years at least, don’t offer arbitration to Type A FAs.
Vazquez should NEVER go back to the Bronx…not even on vacation. The guy just can’t make it here.
Pretty sure nobody is visiting the Bronx on vacation.
I wonder if Javy would come back to the Braves on a cheap deal after we deal Jurrjens this offseason for a bat.
You make a good point. Bringing Javy back to Atlanta might not only make it easier to trade Jair but may be the only way (or bring in another veteran starter) to deal Jair.
If we deal Jurrjens without adding another starter we will have only three starters who have pitched **more than 218IP in their entire professional career**. People sometimes forget that Minor has pitched only 173.2 innings as a pro with all but 14 coming this year and Beachy has only 217.1 pro innings and only 23 starts in three pro seasons. I don’t see how you can rely on Minor for more than 170 to 180 innings next year which makes him a fifth starter and Beachy as talented and MLB ready as he is, his arm stamina would really benifit from a full AAA season starting.
In a perfect world we could go Hudson/Hanson/Lowe/Jurrjens/Vazquez and let Minor and Beachy put full seasons in at AAA and find an OF bat some other way but Minor and adding Vazquez does give you the option of trading Jurrjens if the right deal is out there.
Javy was great in ’09 but the Braves have other pressing needs to save up their pennies for. Plus, there’s already pretty good starting pitching depth and more in the minor leagues.
People will try to claim NY as the reason Vazquez didn’t pitch well this year. I’ll suggest that anyone here who thinks Vazquez would be a bargain pickup take a look at his past year. The drop off in velocity is alarming, not to mention the lack of bite to any of his offspeed offerings. He simply is not the pitcher he was, whether its an injury, age or fatigue.If he can figure out to use his stuff effectively ala Mussina, he’ll be a competitive pitcher again, but his current form is atrocious.
His GB/FB (0.76) and FB% (47%) were very off from his career norms (0.96 and 40.6% respectively). He would fare much better away from Yankee Stadium only due to it’s dimensions.
He hasn’t faired much better on the road.
Sure he may fare slightly better, but are the dimensions of the Roger Centre as bad as YSIII for flyball pitchers?? No of course they aren’t, yet Javy still got rocked yesterday.
He is simply throwing meatballs to the plate, almost everything someone hits, outs, fly balls, line drives, foul balls are all very well struck. People are just squaring up on him.
I bet the Nationals would take a chance on Vazquez at that price and the hope that he can regain his 2009 form once he’s back in the NL east.
Welcome back to ATL, Javy
Good time for Sox to trade Buerhle and Quentin, let AJ, Jenks, and Konerko go (maybe just offer arby for Paulie, in a bid to get draft picks, let him sign his well-deserved 2-year deal elsewhere). Then Kenny will have a big chunk of change to play with to radically reshape this team in an effort to catch up to the Twinkies.
im all for trading buehrle….I mean dont get me wrong he is a very very good pitcher, very consistant and a fan favorite in chicago. Being at his first no hitter there is always a place in my whitesox heart for him. BUT there are bigger needs for the sox than another mid level pitcher….with danks, floyd, jackson in the fold and hopefully peavy being back healthy and possibly having chris sale moved back to starter there is no need for him. They need to keep PK, he will not get another deal worth 12mill per like he had this last time due to his age…but a 2-3 year deal worth between 8-10 per(maybe even a smaller base with a ton of incentives) Carlos could and very well might be non-tendered…his defense is so-so and his BA as gone down hill since his MVP season. Yeah he is still good for 30 hrs but still…and with PK and possibly vicedio being in the fold for 1st and DH carlos has no place on this team so here we go..
Trade Buehrle to the NL(do the nice thing and trade him to a “contender” or even to STL because he wants to play there) either for pitching prospects or for an out fielder….
Sign PK 2-3yrs for 25-30 mill
let AJ walk, or resign him on the cheap to be the back up next season.
DFA mark teahan, let brent morell be the starting 3rd basemen next season
resign omar and have him and lilibridge on the bench as super subs
let kotsay walk and resign Andruw Jones as the 4th out fielder
make a run at crawford…if that fails try for carlos pena(huge power from the left side which was sorely needed this year and a gold glove fielder, if that fails make a run again at johnny damon or even sing thome again….pena and damon give ozzie his “flexibility” for DH he wants…or simply let vicedio come up as the DH..
resign freddy garcia as either a long man or back up in case peavy is not ready by spring training.
No 1 Is EvEr GunNa KaTcH uP wItH mY tWiNkIeS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Vazquez has performed better in the NL and has been light’s out with the Braves in the past. The two things (trading Jurrjens/signing Vaz) are not directly related, but I think the Braves will trade Jurrjens for a bat, thus leaving a rotation spot open.