The Diamondbacks avoided arbitration with Miguel Montero and Ryan Roberts earlier today, which makes Craig Breslow their lone unsigned arbitration eligible player. Here’s the latest on the team…
- Yahoo's Steve Henson offers a behind-the-scenes look at the path Derrick Hall took on his recovery from prostate cancer. The D'Backs president and CEO has a knack for connecting with fans and team employees, as Henson explains in this highly recommended piece.
- Also within the piece, Henson explains that Hall is on MLB's short list of candidates to replace Bud Selig when he retires. Several bidders for the Dodgers have approached Hall about becoming their CEO, so the 43-year-old is clearly in high demand.
- Team payroll is up to $80MM, though they had anticipated spending $65-70MM, Henson writes. The D'Backs expect additional revenues to stream in via their advertising partnerships.
- GM Kevin Towers says the team is “quite a ways apart” in extension talks with Montero, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic tweets. The gap exists in terms of dollars, rather than years. Montero hopes to conclude extension talks by late March, Piecoro tweets.
Give him his money. There is no replacement
That D Hall article is great. If you haven’t read it yet, you should.
I’ll second your recommendation. Great story.
I’d also like to say that I think MLB-TR new commenting policy is a great thing. I think that once more people catch on to the fact that you no longer have to try to reason with what sometimes seemed like a bunch of 12 year olds squabbling on a playground many more commenters will join in with something meaningful to add to the conversation and there will be plenty of spirited differences of opinion expressed using reason, logic and facts instead of name-calling and petty insults.
“GM Kevin Towers says the team is “quite a ways apart” in extension talks with Montero,”
One has to wonder in casdes like this. Are the Dbacks low-balling? Is Montero looking for the moon? I mean, come on now, it’s not like there should be any guess work in terms of just how valuable Montero is to the Dbacks. Dbacks haven’t had a quality backstop in 10 years, much less one that can hit #4/5 in the lineup. Anything less than an AAV of $8MM is a joke. Anything under $10MM is probably reasonable. 4-5 years is a must. As a catcher, this is most likely Miggy’s one big payday.
Montero is one the key pieces to the Dbacks success. Apparently the Dbacks have already overshot their budget by about $10MM. That begs the question of why did they sign Kubel then? Better to have spent that same money on Montero.
I <3 Montero! Extend him ASAP!!!
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