It may be a bit early, but Jim Bowden of ESPN.com (Insider sub. req'd) grades everyone's offseason to date in the American League. The Yankees get a B+ for holding firm in the Robinson Cano negotiations and the A's get an A for their acquisitions of Craig Gentry, Luke Gregerson, and Jim Johnson. Teams like the Indians, Blue Jays, and Orioles, on the other hand, will need to do more if they want better marks from Bowden. Here's this afternoon's look around baseball..
- Pirates closer Jason Grilli says he would like extend his contract, tweets Travis Sawchik of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (on Twitter). Grilli, who inked a two-year, $6.75MM deal with the Bucs last offseason, posted a 2.70 ERA with 13.3 K/9 and 2.3 BB/9 in 54 appearances last season. The 37-year-old is represented by Gary Sheffield, as shown in the MLBTR Agency Database.
- Brett Tomko is pitching in the Dominican Republic and throwing 92-94 MPH, Chris Cotillo of MLB Daily Dish reports (on Twitter). The 40-year-old is seeking a minor league deal with big-league invite. Tomko last appeared in the majors in 2011 when he made eight relief appearances for the Rangers.
- R.J. Anderson, Ben Lindbergh and Bret Sayre of Baseball Prospectus weighed in on the Rays' re-signing of James Loney. The two sides agreed to a three-year, $21MM deal this week.
- The Rockies are optimistic after a productive start to the offseason, writes Tracy Ringolsby of MLB.com.
A’s won the offseason according to Jim Bowden?
That can’t bode well…
What’s the opposite of the Midas touch?
The Red Sox acquiring relievers.
I’d like to see Grilli extended.. Only for a year or 2 though. Most importantly I want Francisco Liriano and Russell Martin extended. Also Pedro should be extended, not Walker. Well, you want Walker to be healthy, but this actually might be an ok time to buy low and sign him team friendly.
Pedro is not the guy who will sign a team friendly deal. If you remember him after he got drafted
As a Boras client Pedro will definitely not come cheap
I was talking about walker signing team friendly
How confident are you in Liriano repeating his 2013 season?
That’s a lot of extensions. I doubt Alvarez will be very amicable to signing an extension. He’s probably going to want to cash in on those home runs and i’m not really sure the Pirates are going to want to pay that price.
He’s also already locked up for arb for the next 3 years, which takes him until his age 29 season. Why bother with the risk of extending him beyond that?
True, though since the Pirates bought out his early years and his 1st arb year(2014), it’ll get a bit heated perhaps over years 2015 and 2016. I’d sure like to see a guesstimate on what his arb projections look like for 2015 & 2016.
Boras may try pitching him in a mirror image of Jose Bautista.
Why risk extending him? Probably because the Pirates don’t want to spend another 20 years looking for a decent third baseman.
But if you’re willing to spend as much as it would take to extend Pedro, you can find another 3B option nearly as easily.
There’s also no guarantee Pedro will still be a decent third baseman 4 years from now.
But if they aren’t going to extend Alvarez, I’d doubt they would spend the same amount on a replacement. When a good FA walks, how often does a team spend that much money to replace him.
There’s no guarantee Pittsburgh will still have a team in 4 years, but I’d take that bet. Alvarez was the #2 pick overall, it’s not like he had a good season out of nowhere. I’d take that bet too.
The Pirates, like the A’s or the Rays, will succeed by finding undervalued assets like Martin, Grilli, and Liriano were last year. Those three won’t be so cheap if they try to extend them.
The A’s got an A? Well say it ain’t so, Jimmy
The Kazmir signing should take the A’s down from an A. That’s a pretty big risk.
I wouldn’t extend an old closer especially since closers fall off so easily
That settles it, the baseball fountain of youth has officially been discovered this off season.
Unfortunately, I now take that to mean that they’ve found a new PED that is not detectable…
“Matt Morris, Brian Lawrence and Sidney Ponson upvoted this”
If the A’s get an “A”, the O’s get an “Oh”. After all they got Chad Gaudin, And they traded a guy with 50 saves for that Jamaal Wilkes dude.
I personally like what KC did so far this offseason. I’m not a huge Vargas guy but he is what he is….180-200 innings eater w 4th sp stuff. What I thought they did well in was getting Aoki so they could move Gordon down in the lineup where he belongs. Maybe the Royals gave Infante 1 too many yrs, but KC hasn’t had a decent 2B since (frank white??). Plus he’s been a solid asset at 2B for a few yrs now. Jim Bowden gave KC a C+ yet he’s all over Billy Beanes knob??
The Yankees lose their best player so they get a positive grade! lol ridiculous.
So you would rather have just Cano instead of Beltran, Ellsbury and McCann. Letting Cano go was the best thing they did. We learned our lesson once and it rymes with Shmay Shrod.
Pretty much all the good of replacing Stewart and Ichiro/Wells with Mcann and Beltran was lost when they signed nobody to play 2nd. The Yankees are playing classic bait and switch with the fanbase and I’m not falling for it. You can’t replace glaring holes at one position only to create new ones at another and portray the illusion you’re actually spending money.
Three words for Brett Tomko: learn a knuckleball.
I think the Yankees are waiting to see if Tanaka is going to be posted. That may be their hope for the starting pitcher they need without having to trade Gardner.
I would love to know how the Red Sux let their leadoff hitter go, let their starting ss go and the starting catcher go and people think they are fine.