The Yankees are not talking about a potential Alex Rodriguez trade with the Marlins, according to GM Brian Cashman. Cashman said Keith Olbermann’s report about trade talks is "not true," according to Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. It’d be an unusual time to discuss a trade, as the Yankees are still in the playoffs and the Marlins have uncertainty in their front office. On to today’s links…
- Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette said Jim Thome "did a nice job" in Baltimore and "added a real veteran presence,” Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com reports. Thome sounds undecided about his next step, but he could re-sign with Baltimore this coming offseason. Making room for him on the roster could require some creativity on the part of Duquette and manager Buck Showalter.
- Baseball executives Brian Sabean (Giants GM), Dan O'Dowd (Rockies GM) and J.P. Ricciardi (Mets special assistant) agree that Marco Scutaro is a talented played with toughness, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports. The Giants infielder stayed in the game to deliver a key hit after being knocked down by Matt Holliday’s overly aggressive slide in the second game of the NLCS.
- Brian McCann could miss the beginning of the 2013 season to recover from shoulder surgery, so the $12MM club option on his contract presents the Braves with a quandary, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney writes. McCann doesn’t have much to worry about in Olney’s estimation. Either the Braves bring the 28-year-old back or he hits free agency and draws interest from many teams, especially AL clubs looking at him as a catcher/DH.
- It's too soon to know if the Braves will pick up the option, but MLB.com's Mark Bowman would guess that McCann will be back.
“It’d be an unusual time to discuss a trade, as the Yankees are still in the playoffs and the Marlins have uncertainty in their front office.”
The playoffs are also an unusual time to bench your highest-paid player, but that’s the case.
@twitter-628731002:disqus
A-Rod may be the highest-paid player, but he has not been hitting at all,striking out so often, that he’s being called K-Rod, instead. Just as an example, there were rumors that in the 1st game that he was benched, his focus was on two young women that were sitting along side the Yankees dugout, instead of the game. He allegedly sent them an autographed ball with his phone # on it. He is doing so poorly, that he also struck out with them!
Well to be fair, all the big names have been doing poorly besides Jeter and Ichiro.
Cashman said Kieth Olbermann’s report about trade talks is “not true, we’re trading him to the dodgers”
Why break a streak/ Nothing else is correct he says for the Sherman of regular “journalism”
@johnsilver:disqus
You’re just PO’d because Nick Carfardo didn’t break it first! Ha!
A-Rod to the Marlins……NO.THANK.YOU. If this happens, my Marlins fan-dom may be finished.
As much negativity and possible issues A-Rod brings to the clubhouse he is still a talented player that is pretty valuable if you are paying next to nothing for.
The amount of talent he has left is not worth the distraction of having him on the team.
A player his age and his physical condition has to intelligence, humility, and logic for the team to benefit most from the player. A-Rod, unfortunately, is none of those. He might do well in a smaller market, but his statements that he’d only go to “a large market” team wouldn’t allow for that to happen. A-Rod is not humble enough to accept a reduced role (i.e. different position, lower in the batting order, etc.) to benefit the team’s success, even if he’s getting paid the same amount of money. A-Rod handcuffs a team with his attitude, his play, and his contract. Even though he’s admitted to using steroids in the past, I think he accepts his past numbers as something he’s done (without the use of any artificial substances). Even with a substantially-reduced contract, it’d be tough to justify his presence on a team, unless you’re only trying to sell tickets and not field a winning team. With the trading away of team-killer, Hanley Ramirez, I thought the Marlins were headed in the right direction, but that could change if taking on A-Rod. But, they’ve taken on other headcases for reduced prices (i.e. Carlos Zambrano).
Really? That’s what would do it? Not the constant firesales in the 90’s, not the
owners lining their pockets, not the forcing taxpayers into funding most of the
stadium, not the gutting a team after woefully underperforming, not the missing
the playoffs year after year recently? No? It’s A-Rod coming to Florida? That’s
what would do it?
Well for one, every team goes through years without making the playoffs so that’s no excuse to become a fan of another team. As far as forcing tax-payers to fund the stadium I don’t know enough about the truth of all that and even if I did it wouldn’t affect my fan-dom at all if I did, I don’t care about that. And then on to “fire sales”, I wasn’t really a huge Marlins fan back when the last one I can remember occurred (’04/’05 is the last I can remember off the top of my head) since I’m of a relatively young age and a newish Marlins fan (full-fledged since ’08). A-Rod’s the last straw for me, sorry that doesn’t work for you, but having him and his declining self of the ballclub is useless. If this team truly wants to take the next step and build a championship contender, this is not it. I’ve liked all the moves they’ve made recently, some just haven’t worked out (Heath Bell, Dan Uggla). The new willingness to spend money had them going in the right direction but trading for A-Rod just means more losing and speaks to what you mentioned about the owner lining his pockets, because that’s what this wreaks of to me.
If they Marlins get A-Rod you will no longer be a fan, but you are cool with them getting Carlos Lee?
That acquisition is not even the same realm as A-Rod would be. Apple and oranges.
I know A-Rod, is at least some what useful as a baseball player, unlike Lee
Yeah his usefulness will be so much great than Lee’s, right? I mean Carlos Lee brought in a ton of media attention and made the Marlins the center of the baseball world, didn’t he?!?!? That’s what A-Rod will do, and not for good reasons. Not worth it. Lee was. A-Rod isn’t. End of story.
The Red Sox were right to let Scutaro go away. Who needs tough players that show up every day. Give me the guy who could care less please.
Oh, and thank God they saved some cash from luxury tax penalties. We used that money.. Wait, what did they use it for?
We got Clayton Mortensen who actually showed decent potential as a reliever and we were able to sign Cody Ross who had a pretty good season. Al things considered I think the Sox got off well in that trade and I’m tired of the knee jerk reaction that says it was a bad move.
We went into the season with Aviles and hopes of Iglesias The only people who thought Aviles would hold up were the fanatics who don’t understand baseball.
I, personally, hated the trade. Scutaro was one of three players who actually showed up in September. He’s not a great SS, but he’s a quality player. The only thing they got was a AAAA player who can probably be the 4th or 5th arm in the pen, at best.
You forget something, we really had no one for right field at the time of the trade. Reddick was already traded, Crawford was expected to be out for a while, and Kalish was dealing with his own injury. Basically leaving us with Sweeney, Lin, and McDonald to take over 2 outfield positions. So basically it was a trade off of which would be worse, gambling on Aviles or on a team of Lin and McDonald.
Not sure how RF fits in here. They had that OF problem from day one. I would hope that the 3 mil they paid for Ross wasn’t off the table if they didn’t trade Scutaro… That would make me even further upset with our current ownership.
The rumor at the time was Scut was traded to free up payroll space for Ross, thus my argument about which one is worse.
Well – If it was Ross or Scutaro, I suppose the right decision was made. But that just makes me more annoyed with the decisions made in the offseason.
Eh, it’s all pretty complicated. I suppose we as fans should never really have hoped we’d match the yanks dollar for dollar and frankly with the outcome this season I’m not sure if throwing more money at the team would have made a much of a difference.
Regardless it’s time to move on from the last couple of seasons and see what Cherington can do from here on out.
Right – Let’s hope they don’t get involved with Hamilton or Greinke…
“overly aggressive slide”? That was a deliberate attempt to injure. Here’s hoping the Giants handle it the right way.
Scutaro’s comments handled it perfectly. Time to move on. We can’t have anyone suspended for retaliating. Maybe next year.