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”
We already have too many starters and not enough good relievers. Think he feels blocked at the closer spot now with Jenks on the roster? To me, letting him try to convert would just be begging for an injury to a very important bullpen arm.
I highly doubt Bard will ever start in the MLB.
Part of Bard’s issue as a starter was he couldn’t keep his fastball speed up over an extended time and confidence. With time and training he could convert back into a starter. However I think he’s going to be more successful as a set up man or closer than as a starter.
agreed, i think he just has dollar signs in his eyes
I agree 100% That slurvy slider, or whatever u want to call itand would not be as effective as it is if his FB was not 97+. It rolls over the plate and is waist high most every time..right in a hitters eyes and if he starts, his FB is going to lose a few “ticks”, so just how effective would that mediocre #2 pitch even be? His changeup he showed in a couple of games you alluded to is not much at all.. He is doing what he needs to be doing… Late inning relief and a stand up job to boot.. Boston does not need to see one of those Joba Chamberlain failure scenarios and think the management is smart enough to avoid that scenario.
With all the stuff I’ve read over the years, it would take Bard 3 or 4 years of building up his innings every year to the point where he wouldn’t be hugely at risk of major injury pulling the innings a starter does. That alone is reason to leave him in the pen.
Guthrie isn’t really that bad of a pitcher IMO, even for an AL East team, he just has the misfortune of pitching half of his games in a extreme hitters park, and being a finesse pitcher that has a habit of losing everything 1 game out of 3-4 for some reason.
Stick him in any park in the AL (outside of Camden, Fenway, or Arlington) and imagine any team gets a very solid #3 or better pitcher and wouldn’t doubt the Yankees having an eye on this guy.
That’s because we traded Craig Hansen. I do think we are better at developing pitchers, but let’s not pretend we haven’t developed some extreme disappointments before.