The Orioles announced a deal they agreed to a month ago. Cesar Izturis is officially an Oriole again and these are officially the day's links…
- Stop by at 2pm CDT for this week's chat.
- The Red Sox signed Tony Pena Jr. to a minor league deal and invited him to Spring Training, according to ESPN.com's Jayson Stark (on Twitter). Pena, who spent parts of four seasons as a big league shortstop, spent the 2010 season in the upper minors with the Giants and posted a 4.13 ERA with 7.3 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9 in 76 1/3 innings.
- The Mets deny that they offered Chris Young a contract, according to Dan Martin of the New York Post. ESPN.com's Buster Olney reported last night that the Mets had offered the tall right-hander a deal that's likely worth over $1MM.
- Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports argues that the Angels have "holes to fill and explaining to do" after missing out on Carl Crawford and Adrian Beltre.
- Rafael Soriano told Enrique Rojas of ESPNDeportes that he has “no preference” between the AL and the NL (link in Spanish). The closer says he isn’t worried even though he’s on the market after most top free agents have signed.
I agree..there is some explaining to do on the part of the angels…even though we already know they dont like dealing with boras and spending tons of money..
question is…what are they going to do when jered weavers contract is up??
and Morales
and Morales
i know bro, their 2 best players are under an agent that has screwed them over MULTIPLE times. arte gotta start sucking up to boras right now
2 guys Anaheim CANNOT lose…
Passing on Beltre will be a good move by the angels in a few years. Mets fans know a bad contract when they see one.
Tony Pena Jr. has one of the nastiest curveballs I’ve seen from a converter. The guy really has a chance to be a good bullpen piece for the Red Sox.
You would’ve thought maybe his father would have seen he would be better as a pitcher perhaps.
Really good point
Tony Pena Jr. has one of the nastiest curveballs I’ve seen from a converter. The guy really has a chance to be a good bullpen piece for the Red Sox.
I remember seeing Tony Pena Jr. shagging flies iin the outfield when I visited Fenway back in ’91 when his dad was the catcher. It would be great to see him back there, if of course he deserves it.
what are they going to do know?
seriously, whos left for the angels to go after? damon? is that really it? what about a trade for headley from the padres bc they need backstop help, like one of the writers here suggested?
It looks bad, but if you ignore the arte’s empty promises, its been an alright offseason for the halos. they got 2 really good relievers to strengthen their biggest weakness last year, the bullpen. our starting rotations really good, even though people severely underrate weav, and say haren is declining because he peroformed badly for a dbacks team that was out of contention before you could say go. we’re getting kendry back, and its hard to expect everyone having a down year again like last year. sure beltre woulld’ve helped but callaspo aint too shabby( i think he hits consistently around .280-.290), and the 100mill the angels probably would’ve spent to outbid the rangers can be saved to get more FA next year or better yet, help resign our core guys, weaver and k-mo.
So what i’m trying to say is, if it wasn’t for the fact that arte left us expecting for big name free agents, the angels had a pretty productive offseason. and yeah we might be getting pods or dam or rafael soriano. wish we could’ve got at least laroche tho.
I agree, people are acting all doom and gloom over this deal. He averaged 3.5 WAR in his “bust” years in Seattle, lets not write him as if he isn’t a very VERY valuable piece to any team.
Beltre has been worth over 5 WAR (which does adjust home home parks) exactly two times in his 13 year career. To expect him to suddenly put together a string of 3 consecutive 5 WAR seasons is being a little optimistic.
That said, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see him string together 3 seasons that averaged 3.5 – 4.0 WAR. After that you can probably start reducing expectations anywhere from 0.25 to 0.5 a year (age, injury, skill regression).
My guess, if Beltre stays reasonably healthy is that the Rangers get 20 WAR out of him over 6 seasons. Using today’s estimate of $5m/win that works out almost perfectly with what the Rangers paid for him.
Of course, that assumes that he does remain healthy, happy, and suffers only standard regression. It’s not a bad signing when viewed relative to WAR. It only becomes questionable because it’s $20m more than the next highest confirmed bid and the fact that Rangers are already paying a 3rd baseman $16m/year for the next 3 seasons.
he averaged 3.5 yes but went as low as 2.5 in 2009 and 2005. If you are the Sox, Yankees or another big market team you can better absord mistakes but can a small market team like the rangers afford to increase payroll by 25% (65 mil in 2010 divided by beltres avg salary of 16 mil). Thats the real question here.