The Red Sox and Mariners are among the teams interested in Paul Maholm, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. The Cubs and Orioles are still in on the free agent left-hander and the Pirates remain in touch with him. The Padres have also been linked to Maholm, a Bo McKinnis client.
Maholm, 29, posted a 3.66 ERA with 5.4 K/9, 2.8 BB/9 and 49.9% ground ball rate in 162 1/3 innings for the Pirates in 2011. He spent the end of the season on the disabled list recovering from a shoulder injury and the Pirates chose a $750K buyout over a $9.75MM club option in October.
The Red Sox could use rotation depth behind Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz and Daniel Bard. The Mariners, who locked up Hisashi Iwakuma yesterday, are open to the idea of adding another veteran arm if the price is right, according to Rosenthal.
second!
Yay! You win… a COOKIE!
You got me! As it turns out, I think its so dumb when ppl write “first” kind of a joke to those guys. Sarcasm something you are new to?
if the sox are truly in on Maholm, they will already be over the luxury tax threshold, so why not get a RF so we don’t have Sweeney starting the season platooning with Macdonald
Why get a right fielder? Sweeney is consider a fairly decent defensive right fielder add to that .340 OBP at the bottom of the order and I say keep right field cheap. It’s not like we need another solid bat in the lineup.
Aviles has been playing RF in the winter league, too.
I forgot about Aviles..but still add a Soler, or Nady/Fukodome to RF and we have a RH bat with reputable power
Soler would likely start in double A ball.
Or lower
It’s not like we need another solid bat? A-gon is set in the 3 spot, Pedroia is a given, I don’t think Ells can repeat what he did last year, but is still well above average, Youk is always hurt, who knows if Crawford will bounce back, Ortiz will produce but not like last year, Salty is viable at C but not the greatest option, Scutaro works at short, but only have 2-3 sure things (a-gon, Pedroia, Ells, maybe Ortiz) adding a rh bat is a good idea if you ask me, even if it is only 2/8 on Fukodome
fukudome is left-handed
Fuk-u-dome
The Red Sox were (at worst) a top 3 offense last year with little to no production out of right or left field. Sweeney in RF (or a Sweeney/McDonald platoon) is by no means going to kill their offense.
If they thought there was no chance of Kalish being ready to play RF at any point next year I could see adding someone (they still wouldn’t need to, but I could see doing it), but with Kalish likely ready to take over by mid-season I really don’t see any reason to add someone at this point.
I just don’t get the “we don’t need a bat” thing. Another good bat is ALWAYS a good thing. Winning 15-14 is just as good as winning 2-1.
every bullpen in baseball could tell you why that isn’t true
the point is that resources are limited. “we don’t need a bat” doesn’t mean “more offense is useless, just let john henry keep the money”; it means spend that money on something else (e.g. pitching, the greater need)
And we spent a ton of dough on the ‘pen last year and it, as usual, didn’t help a ton. We spent a ton on Lackey (and DiceK before that) and it was huge money flushed down the toilet. Yeah, we need pitching but with an offense as good as we have, we don’t need it that badly. Another bat would be just as good to add as another pitcher who stands a 50/50 shot of getting hurt during the season.
As for resources, they are always limited. This year they seem more limited than normal because the Sox appear to be really reluctant to go over the luxury tax threshold. I believe this is where I insert a “Theo was hugely over-rated and really screwed us in the long run before he left town before the chickens came home to roost” comment.
Sox should lock up somebody to platoon with Sweeney other than Darnell to be honest. Otherwise im not sure its worth breaking the bank for whats out there. Plus I think the sox have plenty of internal options that could match Maholm’s production imo
They need pitching and defense, not offense from the RFer
let’s break down likely production
ells- .300, 25 hrs and 80 rbi
pedroia- .300 20 hrs 80 rbi
a-gon- .320 30 hrs 100+ rbi
youk- .270 25 hrs and 70 rbi
Crawford- .280 15 hrs and 70 rbi
Ortiz- .280 25 hrs and 80 rbi
scutaro- .270 10 hrs 50 rbi
salty-.260 15 hrs 55 rbi
…you figure about 650 rbi without RF , that will put you about 5th/6th( NYY, TEX, DET, LAA, TOR/BOS) figure about 60 combined rbi from RF and that would put us in a clear 5th, with our pitching, we’ll need a top 3 lineup to produce atleast 5 runs/gm, and at this rate, we’re slightly over 4
25 hrs from ells is not “likely production”. Just grabbing numbers out of the air doesn’t exactly help your argument.
he hit 30 last year, i don’t expect him to top 30 again this year so i put it around 25
Ooooor you go with the more obvious option and focus on getting a pitcher to keep our RA at less than five runs per game.
An offense that put up 5.4 runs per game on average doesn’t need to be fixed.
First of all, making up numbers and calling them “likely” is silly, and second Boston’s pitching is actually expected to be pretty good so saying that they need to score “at least” 5 runs per game to be any good is beyond ridiculous.
Red Sox were 1st in offense last year and got basically nothing from RF on offense. They’ll be fine… and Ortiz and Youk will both finish with around 100+ RBI. Pedroia will probably be up around 90+ depending on if Crawford hits in front of him.
yeah plus maholm in fenway…..ouch
Why over the threshold? How much could this guy actually cost?
do you know how close they are to it right now, i believe they have between 5-10million before entering the threshold, and Maholm will sign from anywhere between 2-10 and 2-14
You realize that a 2/$10 deal leaves them below the threshold, right?
DIVISION = HARD
Boom!
Excited about this Mariners season. A retooling of the Starting Rotation is exactly what we needed to jump immediately into contention.
Well if you mean by posting 3.66 ERA with 5.4 K/9, 2.8 BB/9 and 49.9% ground ball rate in 162 1/3 and ending up 9-17 with that epic Seattle run production of course
I think he was being sarcastic.
100% aware, Which is why I spoke in my “ole timey” combating sarcasm voice of course
You’re on drugs or being sarcastic, right?
Or, and, same thing really.
Glad to see that the M’s have interest in Maholm. He would be a good fit in an already improving Seattle rotation.
It seems like the M’s are finally considering moves outside of Prince Fielder. Iwakuma was a good addition, and adding Maholm would provide enough depth to consider moving a top pitching prospect for a quality hitter. I also would like the M’s to consider Ryan Ludwick.
None of the players we’ve added are “good additions”. We need BATS, and so far we’ve let Willingham, Cuddyer, Sizemore, Doumitt, Kubel and Quentin go for spit while Z fiddles watching Rome burn. This epically crappy offense won’t get a dime of my money as long as these idiots are in charge.
No one cares. Go root for the Orioles, they score a ton of runs.
take the orioles offense, seattles pitching and woola!! a team is made
Where does Beavan fit in if Maholm is there? Beavan works fine as a fifth starter – similar numbers as Maholm for a fraction of the price. Either way, they’re just holding down the fort until one of Hultzen/Paxton arrive in the later half of the season.
Only way another vet makes sense is if they’re planning on trading Vargas sometime soon, which probably isn’t a bad idea.
I like Beavan, but he has the right body type and is young enough to interest other teams (possible trade for a bat). It is also possible that he could replace Vargas if Jason is traded. And we don’t know how Iwakuma will perform at the MLB level, Beavan getting playing time at AAA and providing depth isn’t the worse scenario either.
The idea of Doubrant/Mller filling that 5th sot becomes a whole lot better over this soft tossing lefty.
Price of replacement bulbs on the LF scoreboard will skyrocket if they sign this guy.
According to Cherington he wants to bring in a bunch of low cost pitchers to compete for the 4th and 5th spot in the rotation…. which scares me… especially since they already signed Carlos Silva to a minor league deal.
Maholm has a career FIP of 4.21, which is plenty for the fifth spot. If he pitches 150 innings at an ERA of 4.40 or better, I’d call that worth $4 million at this point.
If he can at Fenway. You probably know how junk balling lefties have fared at Fenway.. Tananna, Moyer.. Lee was good, but the exception.
Not against it for a serious low ball figure, but otherwise would rather see that 4m spent on RF, or towards any RH with the same repertoire.
I bet the M’s are hoping to sign Maholm with then intention of trading him in July.
I agree with this sentiment because of what the Mariners did with Cliff Lee, Erik Bedard and Doug Fister the past two seasons.
Danny Hultzen and/or James Paxton could be ready by July, so the pitching excess should be expendable at the deadline. A free agent pitcher knows that if he performs well for a few months at Safeco Field that he’ll likely to be traded to a contender at the deadline. That’s a decent incentive.
I hope he goes to Boston, It will be a chance for him to become a star.
You could say the same thing about basically every major league baseball player.
Seems to me like the Rotation is already in good shape. Let’s hear rumors of acquiring some bats please.
At Boston/Fenway being a LHP, he’s gonna get lit up. Pitching at the Safe/Seattle, he’s built for that stadium! Come on over Paul… =)
JFC M’s… *sigh*
For the Red Sox, Maholm should be like… Plan E, at best.
Maholm in Safeco would help his career but a lefty like him would not be pretty in Fenway.
Have we learned nothing from the last few years? Pitching depth is always a necessity in my book.