Former Orioles and Rays outfielder/DH Luke Scott has been “fired” from his KBO club after some harsh words for his coach, as Jerry Spar of WEEI.com writes. The 36-year-old must have been causing problems for SK Wyverns, because he was carrying a productive .267/.392/.505 line in 130 plate appearances for the club. Scott split time at the DH position last year with Tampa, slashing a slightly above-average .241/.326/.415 (108 OPS+).
Here’s the latest from the AL East:
- The Blue Jays have “checked on” recently-released outfielder Alfonso Soriano, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. Soriano, who might provide a power bat while several regulars work their way back off the DL, is “mulling his option,” according to Rosenthal.
Earlier Updates
- The Orioles will scout Cuban outfielder Rusney Castillo at his upcoming workout, tweets Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. Castillo, 27, is an intriguing player to watch; as Ben Badler of Baseball America writes, he could even have an impact on a big league roster later this year.
- Red Sox GM Ben Cherington said today that a lot of trade chatter has already happened between clubs, in an interview with WEEI’s Dennis & Callahan (audio link). He acknowledged that his struggling club is not conceding the season, but is “engaged in the conversations … to be in position to make the right decisions” at the trade deadline. But he said that the organization is not yet at the point of swapping actual trade proposals, though it is aware of what contending teams’ needs are.
- Looking back, Cherington says that he “didn’t do a good enough job building a complete offense.” Though the team felt good about things heading into the season, says Cherington, the offensive production has been missing even though the pitching has been good enough to win.
- The Blue Jays may prioritize upgrades in the lineup (a second or third baseman, most likely) and in the bullpen over acquiring starting pitching help, reports Brendan Kennedy of the Toronto Star. Of course, in spite of GM Alex Anthopoulos’s insistence that the team can add salary in the right scenario, some believe that the club lacks financial flexibility on the big league roster.
- One reason that observers doubt the Blue Jays’ ability to boost payroll this year is the club’s pre-season pursuit of Ervin Santana, which involved a reported plan involving salary deferment from several veterans. As Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.ca reports, MLBPA head Tony Clark criticized that situation, saying “it is not the players’ responsibility to sign a player or bring a player on board.” Clark said that any deferral should redound to the individual player’s ultimate benefit, but was somewhat ambiguous about what in particular concerned him in this case. “As it was brought to our attention, there were a number of conversations that were had, unfortunately with some of those players in the middle,” he said. “How that entire process was handled we don’t believe was in a fashion that was as beneficial to everyone involved as it could have been. The place we ended up suggested the players were able to make, should they decide, those deferrals in an effort to bring in those players.”
- Yankees prospect Luis Severino has received a promotion to Double-A, as Josh Norris of Baseball America recently tweeted. The 20-year-old righty had only recently been bumped to the High-A level, where he dominated in four starts. Severino landed among the top fifty prospects in the game according to Baseball America’s mid-season update, but another New York youngster — outfielder Aaron Judge — caught the eye of ESPN.com’s Keith Law (Insider link) for his own updated top fifty.
Still, that’s a good 2 weeks. Okay, if you’re right and it’s just a promotion because he’s earned it then that’s great news. But if I’m right and they’re trying to show him off to other teams, …..I don’t like it. Makes me nervous. The only way I want to see Severino traded is if the return is Cole Hamels which I give about 2% chance of happening.
How can you not blame him for not resigning ellsbury?
I still say not re-signing Ellsbury was a good call. Ellsbury is 30 years old signed through his 36th year and is owed $21M+ every year. On top of that one of his skills is speed. Say all you want about the effect of losing Ellsbury this year but you also have to take in to account the high probability that the last half of his contract will probably be a burden.
It probably was the right call. But you could say he failed to make sure he had an adequate replacement for him.
I’d say he gambled that JBJ was the right replacement.
Ellsbury was always my favorite Red Sox player and I think he is a great defensive CF and lead off hitter but there is no way he is worth 153 million dollars. Signing him to a contract like that might be fine for the Yankees but would be a big problem for the Red Sox.
Carl Crawford 2.0 waiting to happen, am I right people?
For the most part they were all ready to be promoted, and it IS call-up season after all.
Acting expensive though was a problem. Trying to sign the top expensive names nearly caused the Sox years of problems before the Dodgers trade. Cherington’s strategy has been trying to find the right players rather than the best and most expensive players.
Ellsbury wasn’t going to be resigned for anything less than top dollar. The Red Sox are on good terms with Scott Boras. If there was a chance of a discount, they would have talked. But they never did.
Exactly my point, the Red Sox probably neber engaged him so they let him go. Red Sox will learn that not every player will take a hometown discount, whatever that means.
I don’t know the dynamics in Toronto.
Being far far away from the situation, I would ask why he didn’t try to get some more pitching on the team when they had a lead. They also had the bats pretty much die on them the last 10 games or so. But it seems like they have opportunity before the deadline if they really want to make a push. Because the Orioles have some problems too. The Yankees are hurt or old or both, the Red Sox seem like dead men walking, Tampa, well, I don’t think they’re dead yet. So yeah, the Jays are missing an opportunity.
They probably did try to get more pitching, but weren’t able to get a deal done.
Yes because the Jays’ window of contention is closing. They’ve got a few more seasons with their core pieces, but it’s hard to imagine that the AL East will be more vulnerable than it is now. Now is the time to strike and AA is just sitting around doing nothing.
I’m sure he’s trying to impress management by acquiring some pieces for very little payroll impact, getting say a Martin Prado at $2-5M a season is something that he could brag about when his job is being evaluated.
Also, I’m confident Gibbons is fired before Alex.
You have no idea what he is or is not doing, unless you’re secretly Tony LaCava.
Unless the Jays lose 90 games this year, he probably will not be fired.
It only took Cherington 95 games and a last place rank in runs scored and a third-to-last batting average to realize his team can’t hit?
Yet some how we end up with ML players.., a good indicator a prospect will perform at the ML level is how he performs at each level in the minors…. But I was just pointing out that the Yankee’s need to start developing internal options, not trading each one when your team is aging fast and the FA market isn’t the same talent pool it has been in the past.
Have you heard of Matt LaPorta, Matt Bush, Brandon Wood, Andrew Brackman and or Bryan Bullington before? Andrew Brackman should ring a bell for us Yankee fans.
Not everyone who’s ranked a high prospect in the minors does well at the major league level, most people don’t understand that for every Mike Trout there’s a Matt LaPorta.
Yes, but who wants to be the fool GM to trade a Mike Trout on his way up?
Carp and Nava were pretty good bench players in 2013, not sure why people are acting like they didn’t earn a job on the Red Sox bench for 2014 especially when their isn’t a gigantic supply of players laying around wanting to be bench players that are productive as both of those guys were just one year ago.
Getting deferred money is also not a bad thing when you live in Toronto(as I do) because the taxes are very high in comparison to some other cities. For example, if a player who’s now with the Jays gets traded or retires and goes elsewhere, the deferred money owed to them will no longer be taxed as if the player was living in the city.
That’s not true. Those are still payments for services rendered in Toronto.
There is no such thing as showcasing. All teams know about him and what his value is.