Happy 51st birthday to Steve Sax! Sax was the NL Rookie of the Year in 1982, played on two World Series champions, made five All-Star teams, and holds a special bit of pop culture history as one of Mr. Burns' softball ringers on The Simpsons.
Today's news tidbits…
- As part of a Dodgers-related mailbag, MLB.com's Ken Gurnick cites the Blue Jays, Marlins and Indians as teams that could offer Eric Chavez more playing time than the Dodgers could. Toronto's interest in Chavez is well-known, but Florida and Cleveland are new to the mix. Other teams known to be looking are Chavez include the Yankees, White Sox and Mariners.
- The Angels are looking for a leadoff man and bench help, and don't seem to be interested in Vladimir Guerrero, tweets Jon Heyman of SI.com. The Orioles look like they're Guerrero's most ardent suitors at this point.
- A.J. Pierzynski tells Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune that he was all but officially signed by the Dodgers before the White Sox swooped in with an offer to bring the catcher back to Chicago. "It all came together in a 15-minute span," Pierzynski said. "I was pretty much resigned to the fact I wasn't coming back." Had Pierzynski not returned, the White Sox would have focused on Miguel Olivo as a replacement behind the plate.
- The Chone Figgins-to-Oakland rumor looks to be dead, which Joe Pawlikowski of Fangraphs thinks may be a good thing for the A's.
- The Royals are converting prospect Wil Myers from catcher to outfielder, reports Terez A. Paylor of the Kansas City Star.
What source said the Marlins are interested in Chavez?
cbs sports, palm beach post, and several indie blogs.
Im surprised the Bluejays havent signed Chavez already
And battle it out with John McDonald for playing time?
Chavez is injury prone. I’d be a little reluctant.
that’s why it makes sense for the marlins. they need a bit of depth for dominquez. I would like that signing.
a lot of yankees on that burns’ team… mattingly, sax, boggs, canseco, strawberry, clemens… would have put homer in left and had him and strawberry hit 3-4 though
Yeah, but of those guys, only sax and mattingly were yankees at that time.
As much as I hate our catching options, I am really glad we didn’t sign AJ.
i despise him pretty much
I didn’t hear anything about the Dodgers on the verge of signing him, hes a total Ned guy though.. He would of been a out machine that costs 5-6 million dollars a season. Luckily we got AJ Ellis, Navarro suck fest and the Rod for about 3 million dollars.. Perhaps half the cost but double the suck, I am cool with it however. The 90+ games at DS, AT&T and Petco would of been brutal.
If you listened to the latest Beyond the Box Score podcast, we talked about their options. I think it would be smarter to have not signed Rod Barajas to a $3.25MM deal, let Ellis and Navarro play. That way they would be able to spend the money on a better LF than the horrible Gibbons/Thames platoon. Gibbons doesn’t even hit righties.
AJ Ellis isn’t a major league player, neither is Navarro at this point. Who could of we signed for LF? Saving that money would of allowed Ned to sign Bill Hall to a 7 million dollar contract or something disgusting. The best idea for the Dodgers is for Gwynn to man CF fulltime and let Kemp move to RF and Dre to LF.
And for the better. Myers isn’t a catcher. Perez is. And both will do find in their respective positionseven if Myers in the OF lowers his value.
Myers is 6’3”, 190, too–not exactly a catcher’s build. I’d rather him be in RF and play every day and not risk injury. And unless he was a plus defensive player at C, he would in all likelihood been moved from there eventually, anyway. And it’s better he learns the new position in the minors than the majors. Sounds like they felt he’d need two more full seasons to become a decent catcher; this way he hits the majors in a year-and-a-half or less.
Rumors have surrounded Eric Chavez the past few years about cocaine abuse. So we another article on MLB cities with the best blow. After that, we would all have a better idea of were Eric Chavez would sign.
lol what? never heard that one before, and a google search for “eric chavez cocaine” yields no results. please ban yourself from here.
cocaine only stays in your system for a few days so one could use it almost all of the time and not piss hot. IDK if he ever used and don’t care but I just wanted to throw that fact out there.
Oh my god why are people talking about Eric Chavez? Yeah big deal, he’s ALWAYS healthy up until May. Cool, he’ll hit a few HR in spring training, you will get your hopes up that maybe he’ll get back to the 2003-era Chavez, then he will start out slow, then his shoulder remembers that it has nothing holding it there and he’s done for the year.
When did Brett wallace go to Houston?
Greinke is in Milwaukee too.
The Cardinals should sign Chavez and have the all-injury platoon team with Freese.
Wo, wo, wo… Has Wil Myers ever played the outfield?? Just wondering if he’s like a Craig Biggio.
I think he’s played some RF but it was always the consensus that eventually he’d flip to the outfield. Very similar to Montero, only that Myers can actually play a position.
Man, that’s gonna send his trade value through the roof!
I think if Mike Trout does great in spring training, he’ll start in center field and Peter Bourjos will be the 4th outfielder/ pinch runner. The Angels don’t need to sign Scott Podsednik to be lead off but I would like them to trade for Michael Young to play 3B instead of Callaspo. If they cant get the trade done then the Angels should give Mike Trumbo a chance to play 3rd or give Wood another shot. Then the Angels should have Jordan Walden become the closer instead of Rodney who is trash.
no
Trout’s all of 19 years old. Yeah, he had ridiculous numbers, but he did it in A ball against A ball level opponents. His prospect status is so high because he projects, roughly, like Grady Sizemore. Give Trout another year and two months (to avoid Super Two status, if it still exists) and he’ll be roaming CF in Anaheim.
No
Your last sentence was the only thing that made sense.
Rodney is pretty bad …but you can get more then one quality inning out of walden….I’ve mentioned this before…
Why limit him to closer only?
“Steve Sax… made five All-Star teams, and holds a special bit of pop culture history…”
He also is the only 2B to be an All-Star Starter while LEADING THE LEAGUE in errors.