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Odds & Ends: Fields, Contracts, Suppan, Silva

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Links for Sunday….

Olney’s Latest: Lowe, Cruz, Atkins, Rangers

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Buster Olney's latest blog entry at ESPN.com focuses on Ryan Braun, who Olney thinks could eventually take over Albert Pujols' title of the National League's best hitter. The article also includes a few hot-stove notes….

  • Olney hears from talent evaluators that the trade market for starting pitching probably won't really develop for at least another month or two. Unless they can dump salary, teams likely won't be looking to move any starters quite yet. Derek Lowe and his $15MM price tag are mentioned as a potential salary dump.
  • The Royals haven't put Juan Cruz on waivers yet, meaning he'll probably be placed there Monday and clear on Wednesday. Olney speculates that the Cubs, in need of a setup man, could kick the tires on Cruz.
  • As the Baltimore Sun's Dan Connolly suggested last night, Garrett Atkins' job could already be in jeopardy after Rhyne Hughes' promotion. When MLBTR talked to baseball execs in March about offseason moves, the Orioles' signing of Atkins was nominated as one of the worst.
  • Olney says the perception around the league is that owner Tom Hicks is creating roadblocks for the sale of the Rangers in the hopes of securing more cash. Because of complications with the sale, baseball's other owners will likely have to throw in more money.

Cafardo On Suzuki, Cabrera, Griffey, Zambrano

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In Nick Cafardo's latest piece for the Boston Globe, he takes an extended look at the Red Sox' early-season catching issues. He reiterates that if David Ortiz's struggles continue, the logical solution is to move Victor Martinez to DH and acquire a catcher. Cafardo names Kurt Suzuki as a player who would intrigue the Sox, since he can hit as well as play defense. Here are a few of Cafardo's other notes:

  • Other catchers to keep an eye on for the Sox include Chris Iannetta, Miguel Olivo, Chris Snyder, and even Twins prospect Wilson Ramos, though he'd be costly.
  • Cafardo praises the work Miguel Cabrera has put in to improve his image after last year's off-field problems. According to Cafardo, the Tigers "entertained trade proposals for him, but they wanted the farm in return."
  • Ken Griffey Jr. is off to a slow start this year, but the Mariners will give him time to work through it. Seattle may eventually have to limit his playing time if his bat doesn't get hot, but would never release him.
  • Cafardo is skeptical that the Cubs will be able to trade for a setup man and move Carlos Zambrano back into the rotation in the near future, suggesting the relief market is fairly thin.
  • One AL international scout's assessment of Cuban shortstops Jose Iglesias and Adeiny Hechavarria: "Iglesias is certainly the more polished player at this stage, but Hechavarria has more upside…. I’d say Iglesias could play defensively in the big leagues right now, where Hechavarria would need a year or two to refine his game a bit." While the Sox would like to give Iglesias more minor league experience, they could bring him up if something were to happen to Marco Scutaro or Dustin Pedroia.

Odds & Ends: Rangers, Red Sox, Wilson, Dodgers

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Links for Saturday..

Highest Paid Players In 2010

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Let's round up what each of the 30 teams are paying their highest paid player this season. This includes any known signing bonus payments, but not money being paid to a player by another team.

  • Yankees: Alex Rodriguez, $33MM. That includes a portion of his signing bonus. A-Rod's contract is front-loaded, so his salary goes down as he gets older.
  • Blue Jays: Vernon Wells, $21MM. That includes an $8.5MM signing bonus payment he received on March 1st.
  • Mets: Johan Santana, $21MM. He could pocket another $1.4MM with award based bonuses.
  • Dodgers: Manny Ramirez, $20MM. Hiroki Kuroda is the team's second highest paid player, but he's still $7MM behind Manny.
  • Tigers: Miguel Cabrera, $20MM. Magglio Ordonez is only $2MM behind him.
  • Astros: Carlos Lee, $19MM. Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman are both making $15MM as well.
  • Phillies: Ryan Howard, $19MM. Roy Halladay will join him in the $20MM club next year.
  • Giants: Barry Zito, $18.5MM. He could earn another $1.25MM in award bonuses.
  • Angels: Torii Hunter, $18.5MM. $500K of that is part of his signing bonus, and he could pocket as much as another $1MM with award based bonuses.
  • Cubs: Alfonso Soriano, $18MM. Carlos Zambrano is a mere $125K behind him.
  • Red Sox: John Lackey, $18MM. Overtook J.D. Drew ($14MM) as the team's highest paid.
  • Rockies: Todd Helton, $16.6MM. I suspect he's been their highest paid player for the last half-decade or so.
  • Cardinals: Albert Pujols, $16MM. Matt Holliday's contract calls for a $17MM salary this season, but $2MM of that is deferred, so technically Pujols will make more this season.
  • Rangers: Michael Young, $16MM. The second highest paid player on the club is nearly $10MM behind him.
  • Braves: Derek Lowe, $15MM. Chipper Jones will earn $13MM, but could push past Lowe if he reaches some games played incentives.
  • White Sox: Jake Peavy, $15MM. Mark Buehrle is $1MM behind him.
  • Twins: Justin Morneau, $14MM. This only lasts until Joe Mauer's extension kicks in next year.
  • Brewers: Jeff Suppan, $12.75MM. Believe it or not, there's another $1.3MM available to him this year in award based bonuses, plus $300K for each time he's traded.
  • Reds: Aaron Harang, $12.5MM. Francisco Cordero is just half-a-million behind him.
  • Athletics: Eric Chavez, $12MM. Award based bonuses could bump this up another $550K.
  • Mariners: Ichiro Suzuki, $12MM. It should be $17MM, but $5MM is being deferred. He's still ahead of everyone else.
  • Royals: Jose Guillen & Gil Meche, $12MM. Meche could earn $450K in award bonuses, $50K more than Guillen.
  • Nationals: Adam Dunn, $12MM. No one else on the team is in eight-figure territory.
  • Indians: Travis Hafner, $11.5MM. Hafner, Jake Westbrook ($11MM), and Kerry Wood ($10.5MM) account for approximately 54% of the team's payroll.
  • Rays: Carlos Pena, $10.125MM. Carl Crawford is right behind him at $10MM.
  • Orioles: Brian Roberts, $10MM. Kevin Millwood ($12MM) is making more, but the Rangers are on the hook for $3MM of that.
  • Diamondbacks: Brandon Webb, $8.5MM. Dan Haren is just $250K behind him.
  • Marlins: Dan Uggla, $7.8MM. Nate Robertson is technically the highest paid player on the team at $10MM, but the Tigers are paying all but $400K of that.
  • Padres: Chris Young, $6.25MM. No one else on the team is over $5MM.
  • Pirates: Paul Maholm, $4.5MM. He'll also receive a portion of his $1.5MM signing bonus.

Thanks to Cot's Baseball Contracts for the info.

Astros Outright Yorman Bazardo To Triple-A

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SATURDAY, 6:40pm: Footer tweets that Bazardo has accepted the minor league assignment and will remain with the team. 

FRIDAY, 1:24pm: The Astros have reinstated righty Yorman Bazardo from the disabled list and outrighted him to Triple-A Round Rock, according to the team's Senior Director of Social Media Alyson Footer (via Twitter). She notes that because he has a prior outright, Bazardo can elect to become a free agent rather than accept the assignment. He has three days to decide.

The 25-year-old Bazardo was on the shelf with a shoulder strain he suffered in Spring Training. He posted a 7.88 ERA with more walks (22) than strikeouts (17) in 32 innings of relief for Houston last season.

Rosenthal’s Full Count Video: Orioles, Griffey, Braves

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FoxSports.com's Ken Rosenthal has a new Full Count video up, so let's see what he has for us…

  • The Orioles will almost certainly be the first team to fire their manager this season, and both Bob Melvin and Bobby Valentine came up in past internal discussions. Bigger jobs are in store for Valentine, but Buck Showalter might also be a candidate. Rosenthal reminds us that the team doesn't have anyone in-house with prior big league managing experience. 
  • The Mariners expect Cliff Lee back on Friday and Erik Bedard back in four weeks, but the focus will remain on the offense and Ken Griffey Jr.'s .238/.289/.262 performance. Rosenthal says not to expect anything to happen with him anytime soon; Seattle has five Griffey-centric promotions scheduled for the first half.
  • The Braves are a logical landing spot for Adrian Gonzalez, but they're also very high on first base prospect Freddie Freeman. The last time they traded for a first baseman with a year-plus left on his contract, they basically rebuilt the Texas Rangers.
  • The Nationals made a run at Jermaine Dye and had more than one conversation with Gary Sheffield's agent, but GM Mike Rizzo said those talks were just to gauge interest. For now, they're happy with the a platoon of Willie Harris and Justin Maxwell because of their defensive abilities, and Rizzo says that will remain a point of emphasis as the team moves forward. 
  • Rosenthal expects the Nats to get better as the season progresses. They'll be adding Stephen Strasburg, Drew Storen, Chien-Ming Wang, Ross Detwiler, and Jordan Zimmermann to their pitching staff at various points this year.

Discussion: Kaz Matsui

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Astros second baseman Kaz Matsui is in the final season of a three-year, $16.5MM pact signed in December of 2007.  Matsui's flat start combined with the strong play of Jeff Keppinger has led to the two men splitting time at second.  One has to imagine that Matsui will find himself relegated to the bench if he cannot boost his .214 OPS in the near future.

Of course, putting a player set to earn $5MM on the pine is rather wasteful.  However, drumming up a market for the native of Japan may prove to be difficult.  After a solid campaign in  2008, Matsui hit just.250/.302/.357 in '09.  Fangraphs estimates that his play last season was barely worth more than half of what he earned as his defense was also pedestrian.

If Matsui can get back to his 2008 form, could the Astros find a taker for him without absorbing the majority of the money he is owed?

Red Sox Acquire Jonathan Van Every

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The Red Sox acquired outfielder Jonathan Van Every from the Pirates in exchange for a player to be named later, according to a team press release.  To make room for Van Every on the 40-man roster, Boston has designated righty Santo Luis for assignment.

Van Every spent 2008 and part of 2009 with Boston, making 18 big league appearances across the two seasons.  Despite hitting .263/.360/.524 with 26 HRs in 2008 for the club's Triple-A affiliate, the 30-year-old was released in July of the following year.  Van Every has one option remaining.  The move improves Boston's outfield depth as Mike Cameron and Jacoby Ellsbury are on the 15-day disabled list.

Luis, 26, was claimed off waivers from the White Sox ten days ago. He posted a 4.34 ERA, 12.7 K/9, and 3.7 BB/9 in 56 High A relief innings last year, allowing 11 home runs.  Chicago had claimed Luis from the Astros in '07 in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft. 

Famous Unsigned Draft Picks

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Each year, the 30 clubs will select 50 or so players in June's amateur draft, but they only end up signing around 30 of those players. Some are high schoolers that decide to go to college while others are already in college and return to school in an effort to boost their stock. There's about a million other reasons why a player can go unsigned as well.

As you can imagine, there have been several big time players who didn't sign when they were first drafted. If the Yankees had been able to sign Mark Prior when they selected him as the 43rd overall pick in the 1998 draft, might his career have played out differently?

Here's a list of some other famous players who at one point were drafted but declined to turn pro…

  • Daniel Bard: Selected in the 20th round of the 2003 draft by the Yankees.
  • Barry Bonds: Selected in the 2nd round of the 1982 draft by the Giants.
  • David DeJesus: Selected in the 43rd round of the 1997 draft by the Mets.
  • J.D. Drew: Selected by the Giants in the 20th round of the 1994 draft, then second overall by the Phillies in 1997.
  • Rich Harden: Selected by the Mariners in the 38th round of the 1999 draft.
  • Todd Helton: Selected by the Padres in the 2nd round of the 1992 draft.
  • Aaron Hill: Selected by the Angels in the 7th round of the 2000 draft.
  • Luke Hochevar: Selected in the 39th round of the 2002 draft and the supplemental first round of the 2005 draft, both times by the Dodgers.
  • Randy Johnson: Selected in the 4th round of the 1982 draft by the Braves.
  • Matt LaPorta: Selected in the 14th round of both the 2003 and 2006 drafts by the Cubs and Red Sox, respectively.
  • Tim Lincecum: Selected in the 48th round of the 2003 draft by the Cubs, then the 42nd round of the 2005 draft by the Indians.
  • Brian Matusz: Selected by the Angels in the 4th round of the 2005 draft.
  • Mark McGwire: Selected in the 8th round of the 1981 draft by the Expos.
  • Jonathan Papelbon: Selected by the A's in the 40th round of the 2002 draft.
  • David Price: Selected by the Angels in the 19th round of the 2004 draft.
  • Justin Smoak: Selected in the 16th round of the 2005 draft by the A's.
  • Mark Teixeira: Selected by the Red Sox in the 9th round of the 1998 draft.
  • Chase Utley. Selected in the 2nd round of the 1997 draft by the Dodgers.
  • Jason Varitek: Selected in the 23rd round of the 1990 draft by the Astros, and then the 1st round of the 1993 draft by the Twins.
  • Barry Zito: Selected by the Mariners in the 59th round of the 1996 draft, and then the Rangers in the 3rd round of the 1998 draft.

There's countless more examples out there, do you know of any others? 

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