Yankees officially announced that they signed Luis Ayala, Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, Warner Madrigal, Ronnie Belliard and Eric Chavez to minor league deals. Here are some notes on the Yanks and the rest of the AL East…
- Jordan Parraz, who was designated for assignment by the Yankees, cleared waivers, according to MLB.com's Bryan Hoch (Twitter link).
- Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun asks if you'd extend any of the seven Orioles who were arbitration eligible this offseason.
- If you answered Jeremy Guthrie, think again. The right-hander, who avoided arbitration with the Orioles today, told Jeff Zrebiec of the Sun that the Orioles appear to have ruled out an extension for him, though he wouldn't rule one out himself and doesn't have hard feelings about the team's decision.
- Here's a fun fact from Zrebiec on Twitter: Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail has never gone to an arbitration hearing with a player in 25 years of running baseball teams. Pretty astounding.
- Daniel Bard told Rob Bradford of WEEI.com that he would like to try starting again and has not discussed an extension with the Red Sox.
- Joel Sherman of the New York Post has the latest on some creative discussions between Kevin Towers and the man he worked for last year, Brian Cashman.The Yankees, who considered completing a sign-and-trade with Arizona to acquire Carl Pavano without surrendering a draft pick, discussed a similar deal with the D'Backs about Grant Balfour. The Yankees were moving toward Balfour before they signed his former teammte, Rafael Soriano.
- Justin Ruggiano and Leslie Anderson both cleared waivers and were outrighted to Triple-A, according to Marc Topkin of the St. Petersburg Times. The Rays designated the players for assignment to create roster space earlier in the week.
So that’s the Yankees revenge for the 2001 World Series. Force the Diamondbacks to give up their picks so they (Yankees) can sign players.
Well played Steinbrenner.
I don’t believe the sign and trade with Arizona. There’s no way they had that lined up with Grant Balfour. If they did, why wouldn’t they do a sign and trade for Soriano then too? That doesn’t make any sense.
I was going to post the exact same thing.
Because CASHMAN was trying to setup a sign and trade… OWNERSHIP stepped in and said sign Soriano. Do you understand now?
No I still don’t understand. If he had something in the works with Arizona why couldn’t he pick up the phone and say “Hey it’s me again, you remember what we were gonna do with Grant Balfour? Yeah we have to do it with Rafael Soriano now, OWNERSHIP is saying I have to.” It’s not that hard, the ownership would have said “Hey, good job on doing what we say, as well as keeping our first round pick.”
I bet Guthrie would love to get out of the AL East and head to larger confines of San Diego or LAD.
Guthrie would sign an extension if offered by the Orioles, assuming Angelos does not try his usual tactics.
That can be said of any pitcher
(unless they want to win)
Guthrie is a solid #2 pitcher. In the 4 seasons he has pitched for Baltimore he only had one season with an ERA over 4. Usually settling into the 3.70-3.85 range. He will pitch 30+ Games and strike out a little over 100.
I think that goes for about $11 mil a year.
Off topic a bit: I am sorry to see M.Young up for trade and the O’s having no where to put him. Can;t go after the guy and not have a spot for him. He had a lot of good things to say about Baltimore after Buck took over.
I wouldn’t say those stats really justify being called “a solid #2 pitcher”