Some news items to wrap up the evening as we inch closer to the Winter Meetings….
- Carlos Pena would be a fit with the Blue Jays, Brewers, Cubs, Mariners, Nationals, Rangers, Red Sox and Yankees, opines SBNation's Rob Neyer. The Yankees tried to claim Pena on waivers last August but the Cubs pulled him back.
- Joel Zumaya said the Red Sox expressed an interest in him as soon as he hit free agency, reports MLB.com's Jason Beck. Boston will be one of the 10 or more teams present when Zumaya throws a mound session in two weeks. The right-hander underwent elbow surgery in March and didn't pitch last season.
- Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus (via Twitter) lists, in order, the Yankees, Rangers and Phillies as the top candidates to sign Cuban outfielder Jorge Soler.
- The Orioles interviewed Rick Peterson for their open minor league pitching coordinator's position, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. Peterson (former pitching coach of the Brewers, Mets and Athletics) is also a candidate to be Bobby Valentine's new pitching coach with the Red Sox.
- Also from Rosenthal, the Royals "backed off" pursuing free agent starters due to their large number of minor league pitching prospects and also because the club wants to remain flexible since they know not every young arm will properly develop. The Royals re-signed Bruce Chen and their other major starting acquistion this winter (Jonathan Sanchez) came via a trade.
- The Cardinals could make an acquisition or look internally to fill their middle infield needs, writes MLB.com's Matthew Leach, but the team won't know how much they have to spend until Albert Pujols makes his decision.
Where would Pena play on the Yanks?
loogy
DH.
Nope. That is a spot that they are keeping open to rotate players in and out of.
They were going to claim him to platoon at the end of the season last year. He has no place on the team unless it’s on the bench…
Almost thought you were Bleacher Creature writing in lowercase but then I realized youre just CreaTURD.
its simple, a DH!. or an off the bench player. Pena has to realize hes getting old, not very many teams are going to sign a guy his age to big money, so its better to get it from the yankees as a bench player then it is to take minimum lol. im a yankees fan and i still say they pay alittle to much for guys. Burnett being one of them. some would say ARod but he does perform well in the season when healthy unlike burnett.
Pena has no place on the Yankees ……. Cashman is nuts, if he signs him.
dont see how or why pena would be a good fit on the jays, red sox, rangers or yankees
1B, DH, 1B, DH. Not that I’m agreeing or disagreeing, but that is the supposed justification.
Carlos Pena is not that good..
so he doesn’t improve the Jays 1B/DH situation enough to justify bringing him in.
Pena is a “break glass” type of emergency 1B now. GG defense, gets on base pretty much by walking and has good power. Just flat out can’t hit, unless the ball leaves the yard.
Boras will have his work cut out IMO trying to get another 10m deal for him this season.
Edit:
By”break glass” I meant a team signing as a starter over another choice for a top tier team.
I agree. I don’t get the fascination with this guy. Isn’t his average usually around .230? Matt Stairs can hit homeruns too, bring him back!
And where would Jays play Pena?
what a bunch of senseless guess!
Um… how about 1B?
Pena is about as marginally better then Lind as you can get for more money and less chance of a good season.
Plus Lind can play outfield too lol so better to walk away from Pena. Now with Bell gone, not that it mattered we should try to get a deal for Bailey or Street or use someone else in our system as Closer.
Lind’s outfield days are over (thank goodness)
Yeah true but like AA says, a guy with flexiblity is valued.
I hope the Rangers land Soler.
Red sox?-AGon… Yankees?-M. Tex… Rangers?- He’d be a minimal upgrade, if any at all… Blue Jays?- No reason to waste money on him. Prince is justifiable, Pena is not.
Unless Pena secretly knows how to pitch you can cross out all three AL East teams.
The team in the East that makes most sense he didn’t even mention: Rays.
basically what he did was a list of teams that need 1B.. when he realized no one would care unless they were fans of that team, he added the red sox, yankees and rangers in to the mix to attract attention..
Back up first baseman when Tex is the dh? Other than that I don’t really see a fit, Did Pena ever play third?
No.
No, he’s left handed.
HAHA,I love Man U, but your comment makes me laugh! That said maybe the Yanks sign pena cheap. With their 2011 stats those 2 + Arod could win 11 games between the 3 for 55-60 million!
yanks and man u , really man , really
NYY is listed, I’m assuming, as a destination for Pena as a DH.
NYY and BOS were listed because they are both teams that can spend big and do not have a definite DH signed. TEX was listed because they have money to spend and could arguably improve at 1B.
I thought the Yanks wanted the DH spot to rotate guys in and out and give Jesus AB’s?
Zumaya.. The career that could have been… All those injuries to a guy who could hit 100mph at ease. Makes Bard look like he is throwing softballs even.
I am all for taking a flyer on him, even if can get a couple of months of use out of him.. A flamethrower who can throw strikes.. Extreme rarity..
Doesn’t he have a brother also in the Tiger system??
I’m hesitant to bring Zumaya to Boston considering Harmonix is practically down the street from Fenway.
i’d love to grab zumaya. one of the benefits of being a large payroll club is that you can afford big upside risks like those. he’s made of glass, but his stuff is as good as it gets
As a Tiger fan, it sucks to see Zumaya being shown the door. I still hold out hope that his arm is still there. It’s not like he’s over-the-hill, he was just misused by Jim Leyland (60+ pitches in an outing after shoulder surgery? Why?) until he was useless. The team took it real cautious with him last spring when he felt discomfort, but he still had that 100-mph zinger. He’s also worked awfully hard on his other pitches. Call me crazy (go ahead, really), but if this kid can get and stay healthy, he’s one heckuva closer-in-waiting.
Also, yes, the Tigers had drafted his little bro, Richard, but have since released him. Washed their paws of the entire Zumaya clan.
Cheers on his kid brother’s name… he played for the Tiger’s Lakeland Tigers A ball team a short while where i live and was too lazy to go and dig it up. Nice kid too.
memory on names they say is the 1st thing to go with old age
The only reason the Yankees tried to claim Pena last year was so he could face RHP. He would have been sharing time with Andruw Jones. It would have been a good rental if it had gone through. They have no interest in him unless he wants to sit on the bench.
Weren’t the Yankees looking for someone to face LHP the entire season, not RHP? That’s what Andruw Jones’ purpose was.
We needed another guy to get on base left handed swish/tex was killing us. He has ~390 obp against righties.
Pena could switch of at 1b and dh with gonzo….Joel Zumaya is a joke his arm is blownout
Every time he comes back he proves he can still throw hard it’s just his delivery that gets him in trouble.
Royals have big money to spend for the next 2 years. The two key questions, to take full advantage of their now full window of great young position players and a great bullpen, is (1) are they are just one free agent ace away from contending, and, if so, (2) does Roy Oswalt still have what it takes to be an ace? No matter what the answers, there is clearly no reason to waste prospects in a trade, when they have that kind of money laying around over the next couple of years.
I can see Carlos Pena going to the Pirates because Derrek Lee is gonna go to the Brewers after Fielder bolts.
Fielder is not going anywhere, he´ll be a Brewers for life
Are you insinuating that Fielder will die in his earlier 30’s?
The Rangers have dh all set. they can rotate Napoli, Young and whomever else in and out of 1B and DH.
The Red SOx are going to sign Ortiz again and have Gonzalez at first.
The Yankess need that spot open to get all their old players some rest but keep the bats in the game.
The Nats are going to make a big push for Fielder.
Wish the guy could’ve kept healthy, but I will be very happy to not have to see him on the Tigers DL anymore.
Joel Zumaya: Mark Prior 2.0
Still, It wouldn’t hurt to see what’s left on that fastball for a minor league deal. I could definitely see the Padres taking a look at him.
really want the yanks to sign soler, makes more sense for them than cespedes
Zumaya could be good … if