MLB.com's Joe Frisaro answered some Fish-centric topics in a fan mailbag that dealt with a few hot stove rumors. Here are the highlights…
- It's unlikely that Florida will go after big-name free agent relievers like Matt Capps or Brian Fuentes this winter. The club is more likely to explore "a trade or two for some young, emerging arms" to form their bullpen.
- "It's not guaranteed" that Leo Nunez will be a Marlin next season. Nunez is headed to arbitration for the second time, and Frisaro predicts the right-hander is due to earn approximately $4MM. Nunez was terrific in the first four months of the season before a horrific August (a 9.31 ERA and three blown saves in 10 appearances) cost him the closer's job to Clay Hensley, though Nunez did pitch well in September. Nunez would draw a lot of interest on the trade market if the Marlins decide that he's too expensive.
- Frisaro predicts the Marlins' 2011 payroll to be around $48-$50MM, with a bit of leeway to bump it up a couple million dollars. He thinks the club's payroll for 2012 (when the Marlins move into their new ballpark) will be bumped up to the $70MM-range. Frisaro notes that Florida's season-ticket sales for their new stadium are already better than expected.
- Even if the Giants hadn't planned on retaining Cody Ross, Frisaro shoots down any chance that the Marlins would've been interested in bringing Ross back.
young emerging bullpen arms? coghlan is a natural secondbaseman, uggla is a free agent after 1 year. John Mozeliak wake up!!!
would the marlins do 1 of Motte or McClellan along with a catching prospect Anderson+ a low minors lottery ticket with upside like Virgil Hill Jr or Matt Adams for Uggla.
marlins starting 9 would be:
hanley-ss
coghlan-2b
sanchez-1b
Morrison-OF
Stanton-OF
Maybin-OF
paulino-c
thirdbaseman? i forgot who they trot out their.
The Marlins are one of my favorite teams in Baseball and Leo Nunez, one of my favorite pitchers in Baseball, should stay…If he gets traded, here are some possibilities I have…
Leo Nunez to the Royals for Louis Coleman, and Kanekoa Texeira
Leo Nunez to the Yankees for David Adams and Adam Warren
Leo Nunez to the Blue Jays for Alan Farina and Joel Carreno
Leo Nunez to the Twins for Angel Morales and Billy Bullock
Just some ideas
I really want to see the Marlins sign J.J. Putz…Sign Dontrelle Willis to a minor league deal.
And dont even get me started on young arms who i want to see them acquire. My list is so long it wouldn’t even fit on this page…But just a couple the first name that came to mind, Kenley Jansen. What about a trade of Elih Villanueva and Chris Volstad for Kenley Jansen and Russell Martin?
They already have some really good bullpen pieces in Brian Sanches, Leo Nunez, Burke Badenhop, and Clay Hensley…If only they were able to build on those 4 guys. We’ll see!!
By the way Ferrariman, Coglan is the 3B and Uggla plays 2B.
I CANT WAIT FOR THE MARLINS TO MAKE SOME MOVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No offense dude but that all except J.J. Putz sounds horrible. The only reason to trade Nunez other than the fact every team in the division owns him is if you could get a quality left-hander in return. Which I doubt any team would give up for him. As much as I love D-Train there is no way he will ever be an asset again unless he completely drops his herky-jerky delivery or becomes a position player. The only moves we are likely to make are for left-handers be it for the bench, bullpen, or rotation.
I didn’t read your post correctly.
Motte, Anderson, and Descalso for Uggla. But he isn’t going anywhere anyway.
The Braves will probably get involved if the Marlins decide to move Nunez. Wren wants another top-notch arm to go with Kimbrel and Venters, and Fredi already knows Nunez.
Nunez to the Braves for Christhian Betancourt and Jordan Schaefer?
Not sure how the Braves view Bethancourt at this point, but the talent is there for him to be a top-50 prospect if his bat comes around. And Schafer has zero value right now.
Whether the Marlins were going to bring Cody Ross back or not, they still erred by only getting the waiver fee for him.
actually there is an article by Joe Capozzi that they dont regret it at all. Since Cody is actually nothing special over the course of a season its not a big deal.
I saw that article. I still think they were stupid to give him up for so little. He’s worth more than a waiver claim. They should have put him on the market before the deadline. I know they thought they were contending still, but they should have been smart enough to realize they really weren’t.
I’ll have to agree to disagree here.
Capps isn’t a free agent, is he? Unless I missed something.
theres some sort of option i believe, that hasnt been exercised yet. could be wrong, but something is keeping it from being official. im sure they will keep him with Nathan recovering.
Who needs Leo Nunez when you can have Benito Santiago? I bet that he was a big help to the team for the whopping 5 games he played for the Pirates. You screwed the pooch there, Littlefield.
In that case, Leo Nunez to the Pirates, then shipped to Boston for Felix Sanchez and Lars Anderson.
Leo Nunez is a fun guy to watch. He clearly enjoys himself on the mound, including a string of expletives when he messes up. (English or Spanish? No one knows for sure.)
When he’s on, he’s explosive, and unhittable; when he’s not, it’s excruciating. He’s got a live arm, an idea of what he’s doing, and he won’t eat you out of house and home. I’d take a chance on him.
he doesnt speak much english…hanley would translate for him a lot.
We should just post a sticky at the top of the blog. Items worth covering …
1. The Marlins are not expected to sign any big dollar FA’s.
2. Andy Pettitte is undecided as to whether he will play or not next year
etc, etc
I love reading SPANs posts, since its not much that i see other passionate marlins fans (i know they arent your first team though)
i dont think they should give up on Nunez unless they sell really high. But he still has a great upside and the ability to save 35-40 games with a decent ERA…which at 4.5 million is cheap. he needs better pitch selection and a consistent delivery….it would be really dumb to just give up on him.
I dont see Uggla going anywhere until July, or not at all. When people really start to point fingers at payroll things happen (MLB threatens team, they sign JJ) so i think something will be worked out. Plus with Matt Dominguez not quite ready we need Cogz at third (which was his first position ever until translating to 2b in minors) and Uggs at second. If they could swing Uggla for a catcher and good bullpen arm then i would think it would happen, i like a lot of these trade ideas. The marlins are also known for not working within their division, so unless the Braves trade is really really enticing i doubt they would trade him. the team repeatedly says they do not trade to rivals but with this FO who knows huh?
The Red Sox will be rebuilding their BP, so I would imagine if he is on the block they will look in. He would probably slot in nicely for the 7th inning spot and take over the 8th inning spot next season when Bard most likely replaces Papelbon at closer. What are the Marlins in need of? I haven’t been able to follow them as closely as I did when living in FL.Obviously they are going to want some talent back for him since this isn’t a huge salary dump for teams outside of FL and SD. I’ll see what some of the more Marlins knowledgeable fans think they need before hazarding a guess at what I think the Sox could possibly offer in a package for Nunez.
With the amount of solid relievers out there this offseason i doubt that Boston will look to trade for relievers. Especially since FLA doesnt HAVE to trade him. They can bring him back and have him compete for the closers job and go from there.
There are just too many solid relievers out there right now for anyone to think about trading for a RP yet.
I don’t know what your definition of solid is but when I look at the FA market I don’t see any sure things. And it’s not typical of the Red Sox to pay FA RP big money or long term contracts which some will be looking for.
Wood is expensive, wants to close and injury is a big worry.
Downs is in his mid 30’s, probably wants to close or get closers money, will cost a 1st rounder(unless the Sox sign a higher ranked FA, which is the only case I see Downs as a even a remote possibility).
Soriano wants big money and to close
Benoit is a possibility
Other then that all the rest have probably even more question marks. The FA market may have a lot of RP available, but most of them are not fits in some way or another.
RR was traded for when the market didn’t have what the Sox were looking for last time. So I wouldn’t say it’s out of the question. And yes I also understand that the Marlins have reasons to hold onto him, I was just commenting about his possible availability that was stated in the article.
In no particular order Benoit solid rebound year this year, Balfour has been good since joining TB and has been Very good against NY, Jesse Crain, Matt Guerrier, Jason Frasor, Jon Rauch, Chad Durbin, Jeremy Affeldt, Pedro Feliciano.
And thats leaving off guys that could close for non contenders (Gregg, Dotel, Fuentes) and guys coming off recent injury (Putz, Romero)
In no particular order Benoit solid rebound year this year, Balfour has been good since joining TB and has been Very good against NY, Jesse Crain, Matt Guerrier, Jason Frasor, Jon Rauch, Chad Durbin, Jeremy Affeldt, Pedro Feliciano.
And thats leaving off guys that could close for non contenders (Gregg, Dotel, Fuentes) and guys coming off recent injury (Putz, Romero)