The latest out of baseball's Western divisions:
- The Giants and Pablo Sandoval had yet to talk extensions as of Friday, MLB Daily Dish's Chris Cotillo tweets. When we last checked in, the club was considering the issue but felt it had the whole of the 2014 season to put together a deal, should it decide to go that route. Sandoval is scheduled to become a free agent after this year.
- Mike Bauman interviewed Rangers GM Jon Daniels in an article for MLB.com. Daniels says that after having traded away a number of young players in recent years, the club decided this winter that it would place more emphasis on developing its own players into big leaguers. Texas lost its first-round draft choice after signing Shin-Soo Choo, but gained a compensatory pick after Nelson Cruz signed with the Orioles.
- Sam Fuld has a real shot at making the Athletics' Opening Day roster, Jane Lee of MLB.com reports, having impressed early in camp while Craig Gentry has nursed a back strain. Importantly, Fuld's minor league deal includes two opt-out dates that will allow him to part ways with Oakland if he's not on the Major League roster. The first comes at the end of the month.
Sandoval is going to enter free agency as a 28 year old. If the Giants wait too long he’s going to get VERY expensive. I assume a deal now will already look like the Pence deal. If he gets to free agency I expect him to get something similar to what Choo got.
I’m sure the weight issues complicate things. They want to see if he can keep the weight unlike last time when he lost a bunch of weight.
Once JD realizes that he’s misjudged the competitiveness of the Rangers he’s going to have to make another mid-season trade just to stay reasonably close in the race to the playoffs. Thus having to trade away more young players to get another ineffective piece. It’s really not a very good long term strategy.