On this day in 1999 the Yankees sent Mike Lowell to the Marlins for Todd Noel, Mark Johnson and Ed Yarnall. Here are some links for tonight as we anticipate more roster shakeups..
- The Rockies signed catcher Ben Petralli to a minor league deal, tweets Matt Eddy of Baseball America. The 25-year-old was drafted five times between 2004 and 2008 and played independent baseball last season.
- Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports wonders if the Rays might consider moving Johnny Damon to first base, allowing them to sign free agent DH Vladimir Guerrero.
- Derrek Lee will make the greatest impact of any Orioles offseason acquisition, opines Brittany Ghiroli of MLB.com.
- Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer asked Indians GM Chris Antonetti and two scouts to evaluate the young talent that the club received in exchange for their three stars.
- Even though several Athletics are under contract for just one more year, MLB.com's Jane Lee doesn't expect that many of them will be dealt for prospects.
Derek Lee will if he can come back to 09 form
Rays won’t sign Vlad, he will land with the O’s
I really hate when people pull the inane “lol let’s just move (insert baseball player here) to first base” card. It’s not like 1B is a fake position like, say, DH.
DH isn’t even a fake position, they say it’s hard being a DH because when you’re in the field and make an error out in the field, you can make it up your next at bat, DHs though have to focus 100% of their time on hitting, hitting, &…HITTING!
Rosenthal isn’t just pulling it where the sun don’t shine.If you remember right before the yankees signed mark texeria,Jhonny Damon and Matsui offered to moved to first because Damon has. Dabbled there. A little bit as Matsui played second base in japan.I was actually thinking if the rays would consider moving him there and pushing for Vlad.Now I hope they don’t because they’ll have Manny Vlad Longoria and Damon a good offense there.The O’s have inproved quite a bit with Hardy,D lee,Renyolds so the the al east will be tough the yanks NEED Andy and trade for a starter like Buruhle Carpenter or maybe a idea like Johan Santana or Jake h
Peavy or the crazy pitcher of Big Z maybe he can improve with contuining working with the pitching coach, he did well last couple months last year. Well sorry for rambling. But its bad cause you have vlad or manny which is horriable left field defense maybe they could moved vlad to first and see how he plays it there. But with this move it owould add more firepower but weaken the D a lot.
Signing Vlad doesn’t make a lick of sense to me for the Rays, even if they did move Damon to first. In fact, I think that would make them even less likely to sign Vlad, as it seems that’s about the only position Vlad might be effective other than DH.
And then there’s the whole thing where they have Manny as a right-handed DH.
Even if Damon is made a full time 1B, where does Zobrist go with Vlad in the lineup? Doesn’t make sense at all.
It does if you’re playing on a video game where positions don’t matter.
Zobrist came up through the minors as a SS. Just plug him back there, move Brigniac to 2B and put Vlad in LF. It works out on paper just that Vlad is much more injury proned as an outfielder now with bad knees.
And the fact that he has to be the worst outfielder in the world now. He would lose the Rays 10 games (exaggeration) at least.
LF is really where you can hide a bad defensive OF. See Adam Dunn, Pat Burrell, Jack Cust and even guys before like Eric Byrnes, Barroid Bonds in his later days, a bunch of guys were hidden in LF and usually they went unnoticed.
why would you move Brignac to 2b??? he is a better shortstop that zobrist, and zobrist spent a lot of time over there at 2b
I was going by baseball reference and it showed that Zobrist played mostly SS so that’s why. I didn’t know he played 2nd as much.
hahahahah , we aren’t going to sign Vlad and even the idea is dumb, why are Vlad or Manny playing LF? If you have 2 horrible defenders like that, one gets DH and the other gets 1B, Damon would stay in LF but never going to happen. We have our offense(Dan Johnson) vs defense(Casey Kotchman) decision to make for 1B and do not have Vlad money, any money we have left is going towards a RP we trade for.
I can’t believe you just said that Dan Johnson is the offensive 1B option when he hit under the Mendoza line last year.
He has the potential to be offensive. Put up decent power numbers before.
He will put up decent power numbers but the average just kills you. He hasn’t put up a BA over .236 since his rookie year. I doubt he will hit over 15 again and he will put up a BA around the Mendoza line. That just kills a team.
His on-base was still pretty damn good for hitting below .200, and his OPS was still around .750. At least he’s not like Gerald Laird.
I’ll give him that. He’s always had a good eye and his slugging% is usually above .400 but that 0.3 WAR just kills a team.
He hit 30+ HR in the minors and is clutch. Ask Papelbon how clutch he is.
I know I’m an A’s fan. He still sucked every other time last year when it wasn’t a high pressure situation which was over 80% of the time.
.188 BABIP. That is all.
Who cares about that when history tells you he won’t hit above .236 more times than not? His BABIP traditionally has been around .230-.240 range so that won’t really help his BA. It might get him over the Mendoza line but it probably will still put him around the .230-.240 BA range. And yes point to his BABIP all you want but the fact that he had a 14.9% line drive percentage speaks volumes that he just simply is not making solid contact. Leage average LD% last year was 19.4%. Those are the telling stats about his true skillset.
A .230-.240 BA is more than what they could say for their everyday first baseman last year, and if he keeps close to his 17.9% walk rate he’ll still have like a .370 OBP. Just because he has a below average LD% dosen’t mean he wasn’t making solid contact – he had 47.1% fly ball rate which was well above his ground ball rate (unlike Pena, who by the way had a 14.5% GB rate last year) I don’t expect Johnson to light the world on fire, but I would be shocked if the Rays didn’t get better production from their first baseman than they did last year.
The only type of hit that are hits in the stats book more times than not are line drives. Fly balls and ground balls are outs more times than not so it just means he wasn’t making solid contact. And I don’t know how much Johnson really can contribute if he hits in that range for a BA. You’re relying on a guy who has never hit more than 18 HRs in a season and that was 4 years ago. He hits less homers than Pena which is the main factor on why it isn’t going to work out. Really the two are pretty much identical across the board except Pena has more power and Johnson strikes out less and costs less. That’s about the only differences they have.
Zobrist will play 1st, Rodriguez 2b
Yeah because Manny is going to be healthy enough to play LF everyday so they can sign Vlad……after two months Manny would fake an injury so he could DH. Plus replacing Crawford and Pena’s defense with Damon at first and Manny in left???? Come on…lets be serious…
Playing on artificial surface, Manny wouldn’t have to fake injury, he’d be on the DL by the end of May. Not going to happen though, Friedman has more brains than Rosenthal and Morosi put together.
I have to disagree with that Lee part. I think Duchsherer has more potential to do good things for the team, as does their somewhat-restructured relief corps.
Duchscherer will be an nice addition if he is healthy, his fastball is in the mid-high 80s in the AL East. We will see
Amazing…..Garcia gets ripped and ppl question his ability to stay healthy yet in 2010 he pitched almost more inning (157 IP) than JustDuch has pitched in the last 3 years (169 w/ 146 coming in 2008).
Because Garcia’s ERA was over 5.00, maybe 6.00 I don’t recall. When Duch is healthy his ERA is at or near 3.20. It’s a debate of health vs. effectiveness
Because Garcia’s ERA was over 5.00, maybe 6.00 I don’t recall.
Or maybe it wasn’t at all? Maybe it was exactly 4.64?
My point is, that Garcia has more potential to deliver a 4.50-4.75 ERA and 150 IP as a #5 than JustDuch has to pitch 50 innings in 2011.
Duchsherer is a great sign for the O’s, but I worry about him being out of the game for so long and then going to the AL East. His first action in two years and he gets to deal with Crawford, Pedroia, Gonzalez, Youkilis, and all in the same day.
cant believe Rosenthal thinks that; its a very stupid idea; maybe Rosenthal forgot about Manny, that has to be it, he cant be that dumb, can he?
I can’t see the Rays offering Vld a deal. It weakens them at 1B (Damon) and pushed either Manny or Vlad to the field. Can’t see them weakening themselves in the field that much just for offense.
I am fine with Manny and Damon thank you very much. Either Damon in LF and Johnson/Kotchman at 1B or Damon at 1B and Jennings in LF, it’s going to be rough enough watching Damon’s arm, I don’t want to see Manny or Vlad tracking down any fly balls. Having all 3 is very dumb but it looks even dumber when you put it the way he did. Vlad/Manny can NOT be in the OF, if you had all 3, you need to have Manny and Vlad split time at DH and 1B and let Damon play OF.
If Damon is moved to 1st he becomes Casey Kotchman without the defense….eww
Put Manny in left, Damon in center, Vlad in right. Problem solved!
I…wouLD…lOVE IT!!!!
if they we’re allowed golf carts out there, that would actually work
The Rays signing not only Damon and Manny, but also Vlad would be absurd
They can Trade Beckham for Pitcher they need.