Wednesday was a busy day for baseball's two West divisions, as the Giants lost Melky Cabrera for 50 games while Felix Hernandez threw the first perfect game in Mariners history. Here is Thursday's news and notes from the left coast…
- Hank Schulman of The San Francisco Chronicle says the Giants have a decision to make in the wake of Cabrera's suspension. The 28-year-old is due to become a free agent after the season and team seemed likely to explore a multiyear extension before yesterday's news broke.
- Giants GM Brian Sabean has not been much of an Alfonso Soriano fan through the years, so he seems unlikely to pursue him following Cabrera's suspension according to Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com (on Twitter). Yesterday we heard that Soriano is unlikely to approve a trade to San Francisco anyway.
- Joel Sherman of The New York Post wonders if the Mariners' willingness to commit to Hernandez and Hernandez's willingness to remain in Seattle will fall in line when the right-hander hits free agency after 2014.
- In a chat with David Laurila of FanGraphs, David Murphy says getting traded to the Rangers was the best possible opportunity for him and his career. Murphy was part of the trade that sent Eric Gagne to the Red Sox in 2007.
Murphy has been a major asset for the Rangers organization and I’m extremely happy to have him. He’s one of my favorite players.
Carl Crawford cleared waivers, is he not a option for the Giants?
Only if the Red Sox eat 80-85% of the contract.
Crawford is playing pretty well lately, so no chance the Red Sox pay $16-17 million a year for him NOT to play there.
that contract is ridiculous either way. I’d rather ride out this season and go for Bourn in the offseason.
Wouldn’t do more than 4 years for Bourn who is a speed guy and will be playing the first half of his 30’s during the contract.
Hopefully Gary Brown pans out and learns how to hit RH pitching because if the Giants get Bourn that would be a pretty good top of the lineup.
Bourn in CF until GB is ready then move him to LF. That would be a solid 1,2 lineup
It would be funny if the Giants somehow signed Bourn in the offseason because that would mean he would be reunited with Hunter Pence.
Crawford for Zito straight up – who hangs up first?
The Giants. Zitos deal is almost up and he is actually a servicable 5th starter. Crawford has 5 more years and has been pretty awful throughout the whole contract
I was thinking the same thing. Goes to show how ugly the CC signing is if you can’t even trade him for Zito!
Somebody on these boards, I won’t name who, was trying to justify that Carl Crawford was worth $14 million dollars. Not surprisingly it was Red Sox fan trying to trade CC to another team.
He probably meant 2 mil per year for the 7 year deal…
No, he meant the team trading for him would pay $14 million a year for him while the Red Sox only eat $5 million a year.
Here’s the direct quote, “If they ate $35M of it Crawford would only be owed $14M per year, which would be pretty reasonable.”
The thread is under Red Sox and Marlins discussed Crawford trade.
I could see if they were getting a big contract like Soriano’s in return that would expire sooner but still be a lot of money to make the money “even” but they’d have to eat a lot more than that if they wanted anything good and cheap.
Agreed. It’s not out of the question that the Red Sox at least have to pay a majority of the contract to get any type of return.
I dont see how you can say hes not going to be worth the money, hes barely even into the contract, sure the first two years weren’t good but CC also had a bunch of injuries which are for the most part beyond his control. Im also not trying to justify that they can trade him like w.e other fan you are talking about because that is just unreasonable.
Might as well get some value out of Felix and trade him to the Yankees now. It’s not like the M’s will ever have a winning team by the time he inevitably leaves, anyways. Trading him as early as possible will only increase what they get in return. Unless they make that much selling a few more tickets every 5 home games?
So….why the Yankees?
Mariners might be closer to contending than a lot of people think. They have some of the best pitching prospects in baseball currently moving up fast through Double A and Triple A. Bring in the fences a bit (which is what they’re talking about), sign or trade for a couple of bats, and it’s actually a pretty good team–they’re 13-9 since the Ichiro trade, including 12 games against playoff contenders Yankees, Angels, and Rays.
This is the same thing that the Royals have been saying for years and Pirates until recently. It took them 17 years to be in the playoffs. *knock on wood*
Seattle’s run differential has gone from -185 in 2010 to -119 in 2011 to -9 so far this season. Behind their young hitters, the Mariners’ run production has gone from 3.17 runs per game in 2010 to 3.43 runs per game in 2011 and 3.91 runs per game so far this season. The M’s rank fourth among all MLB teams in runs scored on the road. The overall Seattle numbers are skewed by Safeco Field, where opponents this season have posted a .219/.279/.327/.612 line to the
.208/.281/.301/.582 line posted by the Mariners.
Many signs suggest the Mariners are improving.
The big gorilla and elephant in the room are the Texas Rangers and the Angels the big money spenders.
Let’s not forget to mention the pitching and young hitters the A’s have shown the world this year.
It’s a very competitive division and I think the Mariners are still a good 2-3 seasons away from competing.
If the Mariners trade Hernandez you can get 2 A prospects a pitcher and hitter plus some throw in B or C prospects. That would ensure the Mariners would keep them at being competitive and at a low cost.
Another Dustin Ackley (or Jesus Montero or Justin Smoak or another A hitting prospect) and another Danny Hultzen (or another A pitching prospect), plus B or C prospects, won’t be worth as much as Felix Hernandez and would further postpone a rebuilding process that has begun to produce results.
Pretty sure you can get better value if you traded to the Padres, Blue Jays, Rays, St. Louis, and Texas.
Only reason I say Padres is because with new ownership they can pay the contract and he stays on the West Coast while benefiting pitching in pitcher friendly yards.
The Yankees aren’t the “trade monster” that they are on the open market. They generally just don’t have enough prospects to get deals done but have plenty of money. Sometimes a player’s perceived “signability issues” make it more likely that other teams stay away but I wouldn’t think the Yankees would be in the top 3 for trading partners. For example, I’m pretty sure the Red Sox would trade the entire Pawtucket Red Sox plus John Henry and a race car for Felix straight up. (I know many, many other teams have much better prospects than the Red Sox, but I’m just more familiar with the Sox and their infatuation with Felix.).
Yankees absolutely have the prospects to get Felix but whether it makes sense to empty out the farm for him makes it difficult. There isn’t a single major player that has been on the market where they haven’t had the pieces to get them (Lee, Halladay, Greinke, Johan, etc). Teams tell you who you want and it comes down to narrowing it down to mutually agreeable players.
I think that The Giants don’t need a loser like Alfonso Soriano. This guy is a typical wanna be superstar. The Cubs would love to get rid of this guy.
Rumor to report.. I heard from a reliable source that The Giants are talking to Johnny Damon and to Vladimir Guerrero. Vlad can’t play, but boy he can hit.
Damon his D is atrocious but I wouldn’t be surprised if Sabean and Co. were talking to his agent.
Vlad would only be viable off the bench if he played D in AT&T his knees would explode.
Vlad scares me. I know his legs are larger than my torso, but I have this vision of him swinging at a ball in the dirt and both knees buckling as they fly out of their sockets. Not that it would matter, because he would have hit a home run and could take his time pulling himself around the bases.
Good story. Giants aren’t interested in Soriano, Soriano’s not interested in playing on the West Coast. Extra, extra, read all about it!
Congratulations to Felix, he deserved that. I cant believe hes still only 25 and has already been dominating for years!