Last season, the AL East produced two 95-win teams and two more who won at least 85 games. However, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post, the division has seen recent success off the field as well as on it. Three AL East teams – the Blue Jays, Red Sox, and Rays – rank among the top five in Sherman's list of baseball's best offseasons. Here are a few other division-related items:
- Luke Scott would be "all for" signing a contract to keep him in Baltimore long-term, he tells the Baltimore Sun's Dan Connolly. As MLBTR's Arbitration Tracker shows, Scott is one of two remaining arbitration cases for the Orioles, along with Jeremy Guthrie.
- Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star (Twitter link) thinks it makes a lot of sense for the Jays to sign Eric Chavez to a minor league deal, though he acknowledges that the third baseman has other offers and the final say.
- Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News believes Andy Pettitte will pitch for the Yankees again, "sooner rather than later."
- Marc Topkin of the St. Petersburg Times runs through a few moves the Rays could make in the coming weeks, but says the team is "pretty much set" for Spring Training.
I’m thinking the market for Chavez is a bit inflated right now. Would be nice to have the Jays take a flyer on him, but I’m worried the all the recent talk has jacked up the price. This is a guy who’s been frequently injured, and he would need to prove his ready to go before a team makes any real committment IMO.
Sherman’s rankings blast the Cards. Ouch. I don’t think the Cards have had the best offseason, but it surely isn’t the worst either. I would extending Pujols would have a big effect on that ranking.
I would be all for having a guy like Luke Scott as a DH, even emergency 1B on a team, but locked up beyond a couple years the way DH’s are paid now, unless at a really cheap price? Think most teams would pass on that. His career marks mirror a guy like Ty Wiggnington pretty close, a guy with Scott’s bat but could/can play just about every position on the field, albeit fairly poorly but can never the less and Scott will be 33 next season also.
As much as like Scott, hot/cold streaks and all, just don’t see the Orioles offering him much more than a couple years at 4-5m a season.
can we stop linking richard griffin’s opinions please?
Who else North of the Border would you want for Jays talk? The chances of finding a suitable option fall somewhere between slim and none.
How bad is it in Jays land? Midseason the guys who run one of their more popular fan blogs openly acknowledged they were ignoring baseball and their blog to focus on the World Cup.
Griffin’s not all that good, but at least you can count on him to always show interest and put forth some effort.
You really have plenty of options, although few in the mainstream press, and of which Griffin is firmly near the bottom. Shi Davidi and Jeff Blair do a lot of good work on Jays news, Wilner is very hit and miss but can contribute some useful pieces. You also have a wide range of Jays blogs with different biases, battersbox handles the youth and minor leagues well, and lands a lot of interviews with the Jays staff, BBB is a good catch all, with Dakers getting the official press releases and doing solid background work on all trades with the help of the other SBN affiliates. Tao of Stieb does the occassional opinion piece with good depth, Jays Journal does more creative trade ideas and has a good Jays top 50 in progress that is more in depth than any i’ve seen elsewhere. Beyond that you have mopupduty, sports and the city, hum and chuck, blue jay hunter, Ghostrunner on First and The Southpaw that all provide a good quality of article on whatever perks their interest that day. Leaning on one of the most derided reporters for most of your Jays articles doesn’t really make use of one of the larger online team blogospheres.
Luke Scott’s hot and cold streaks are home and away games, the splits are brutal. The fact that he’s a much better hitter with no one on should tell you that he is easily pitched too in all other situations. Also have to mention his flat footed defense. The guy is so overrated.
I would like to see him (Chavez) compete with B.Lawrie for the starting 3B job, and if both fail we have the options of either Bautista or Johny-Mac at 3B.
If the Jays don’t sign someone Encarnacion will be the opening day 3rd basemen.
How do you figure that? They have Bautista for 3B, and enough warm bodies in the OF (Snider/Davis/Rivera/Patterson). Encarnacion has been said to be used as a 1B/DH option – 3B only in a pinch.
Jose Bautista is the best Right Fielder in baseball. If they don’t sign someone or a make a deal or promote somebody as it sits right now Encarnacion will be the opening day 3rd basemen. Regardless of what anybody says believe it or not baseball managers and GM’s don’t always tell the truth and Toronto baseball writers don’t report anything relevent or true.
Bautista is a capable fielder with an exceptional arm – but he is not the best right fielder in baseball (defensively). As far as the Jays needs are concerned, based on today’s 40 man roster – Bautista is 3B.
Who’s a better Right fielder? 12 outfield assists in 113 games who was better then that? We can agree to disagree on opening day Jose Bautista will be in right field.
Outfield assists don’t really mean much. It just means the runner thought they could beat the throw… and failed. Once a fielder gets a rep for throwing out runners, they stop running. No one running = no outfield assists. So, not a good measure of the quality of an outfielder. Things to consider is how well a player gets a read on the ball and how much range they have.
Bautista at 3rd, end of discussion.
So let me get this straight … The Rays.. The Tampa Bay Rays had a top 5 offseason? Is the dude high or something? Whatever he is taking I want some. The Rays lost the Face of their Franchise to a Division Rival, lost more than half of their Bullpen, including one of the Best Closers in the game, TO A DIVISION RIVAL, and Lost their starting 1st Baseman, and than they signed 2 over the hill Shell of their former selves players? One that is a clubhouse headache, and another that’s an alright guy, but to me he seems like the lights are on but no bodies home. This is a top 5 offseason? The Brewers should be number 5, they got an ace for basically nothing, and another decent number 3 pitcher. They now have probably the 3rd or 4th best rotation in the NL. That is a top 5 off season in my opinion. And the Blue Jays unloading Vernon Wells was crazy, but I also disagree with that being #1, it was really good that they did, but I’d probably put that at #3. Should go, 1. Red Sox/Phillies 2.Phillies/Red Sox 3. Blue Jays 4. Brewers/A’s 5. A’s/Brewers.
Very True, I though about it also, the Rangers lost Cliff Lee but added Adrian Beltre, and Mike Napoli, I think they could make the top 5 also. So. 1. Red Sox/Phillies 2.Phillies/Red Sox 3. Brewers 4. Texas/A’s 5. A’s/Texas. I don’t care how you want to order it.
I know he only played one game at first but what about him going to the Cubs? I think he would be a nice back up at 3rd and 1st.
Nice article in today’s Daily News by Lupica about Pettitte. Thought it was right on the money. Nice to see a New York sports writer not afraid of the Yankee’s front office.
i wouldn’t mind the jays signing chavez, depth is depth .
Me too, I think he still has a lot to offer, even if its in a mentor role. I would rather him than some of the other bench options we’ve had to deal with…
My bad I meant defensively. He is the best defensive Right fielder and his defense has always been very good that didn’t change last year.
Quite probably due to the fact they managed to sign or trade for a very solid bullpen of Type A/B relievers on team favourable contracts on one year deals to help protect their young staff, cashed in expiring contracts for a lot of picks in a very deep draft this year, traded for Olivo to land another pick, and brought in a highly considered talent like Lawrie as well as shifting Wells. That’s a lot of future talent secured while basically remaining where they were last year with the on field product.If anything they may be better defensively this year with Davis in CF instead of Wells, and Encarnacion off of 3B, as well as a possible improvement in the bullpen. Lot of maybe stuff but on paper the organisation made a major step forward.
Remember when Manny had 17 outfield assists to lead the majors? He was an AWESOME fielder!! :-/