Rays GM Matthew Silverman says that he remains confident in his club despite its recent slide, and indicated that he does not see the need for significant deadline additions, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports. “If we’re a healthy team there isn’t a glaring need for us at the deadline,” said Silverman.
- The Rays expect to welcome back both outfielder Desmond Jennings and lefty Drew Smyly in August, Silverman added. While the former has been expected to return this year, it was not at all clear that Smyly would do so. Per a Topkin tweet, there is some chance that the labrum tear identified in Smyly’s pitching shoulder is an old injury, and the team is reasonably optimistic of getting him back in 2015.
- Among the teams watching Johnny Cueto throw yesterday were three AL East clubs — the Yankees, Orioles, and Blue Jays — per a tweet from Joel Sherman of the New York Post. All three line up as possible acquirers of pitchers, of course, so it’s not at all surprising to hear that they would be interested in taking a look at the prized righty (as, no doubt, are plenty of other teams). Who’ll land Cueto remains a hot topic; be sure to check out MLBTR’s Instagram post on just that topic.
- Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos continues to publicly address his teams’ needs with some regularity, this time in an appearance on Sportsnet 590 The Fan (via Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca; Twitter links). Anthopoulos certainly did not leave the impression that he is plotting a run at Cueto, saying that the market for pure rental players is “the last aisle that I’d want to shop in.” Rather than going after a single player, it seems, Toronto is exploring a number of possible options. “Anybody that’s going to be out there in trades, we’re going to have interest in,” he said.
- Mike Napoli increasingly looks like an odd man out with the Red Sox, but it’s far too soon to tell where things are headed. Tim Britton of the Providence Journal writes that the first baseman has already lost time with the team playing David Ortiz and rookie Travis Shaw at first, while colleague Brian MacPherson explains the appeal of utilizing Ortiz at first in order to slot Hanley Ramirez as the DH. Manager John Farrell says that he is “not turning from” Napoli, as WEEI.com’s Justin Pallenik reports. And Ortiz himself hardly seems interested in anything more than spot duty in the infield, as Rob Bradford of WEEI.com reports. While it remains at least theoretically possible that Boston could look to move Napoli, his $16MM annual salary and lack of an obvious replacement make that a complicated proposition.
Well, the O’s could look to Napoli for next year.
As for this year, Cueto would be nice. However, I would rather see someone like Carlos Gonzalez acquired. The O’s don’t have anyone that creates fear in the line-up and while Car-Go is just having an okay year, he just might do the trick.
Plus, I think Car-Go could teach the rest of the O’s about sacrifice flies.
Why would you want CarGo?Over the last 2 years, his OBP is under .300, BA is .240 and hasn’t been good defensively.
Left out injury prone and his stats should be better because he plays in Colorado.. Maybe he meant Carlos Gomez?
I think Car-Go needs a change of scenery. The Orioles would do that for him.
Also, no I don’t mean Carlos Gomez from the Brew Crew.
Lefty has had a man crush on CarGo for a while now. The fact that he’s below average defensively, constantly hurt, and puts up terrible offensive numbers away from Coors Field hasn’t deterred him as yet.
Why in the world would we want Napoli or Car-Go? Napoli is plain horrible out there and even more with the glove.
Gonzalez is just as horrible though at a even worse salary per year. Injury prone, plays bad defense. Plus he’s hitting horrible at Coors, what’s to say he’s all of sudden going to hit at OPACY? Anyway sacrifice flies are far from Baltimore’s problem, OBP is. They need to work on a SP and someone that can help there OBP. A corner OF for sure, but not Gonzalez.
Don’t think much value in Napoli. With the expanded strike zone this year, he has been really exposed. Outside pitches, just off the plate he just can’t touch and they have been called strikes too often with him. He’s taken it onto the field some as well, affecting his overall game.
Sox probably should have DFA’d him several weeks back when some team might have picked up a tiny portion of his salary, doubt anyone would pay any now.
I’m not sure what top of the rotation starters are available with team control AA (outside of Hamels, who isn’t coming to TO). Package Norris, Pentecost and Pompey and lets get Cueto and Chapman!!!!!!
Napoli to Tigers or Cardinals?
Napoli to be DFA’d and sent to Pawtucket after he goes unclaimed
Napoli was suffering from sleep apnea before this season. Maybe the Red Sox should just hire someone to keep him awake all the time? Evidently, the extra sack time isn’t helping.
If AA trades away his top three prospects for two months of Cueto and Chapman, he should be fired immediately for incompetence. For those top three, AA would have his choice of Kuechel, Sale, Walker, Miller, Degrom, Syndergaart, Harvey, Cole, Lynn, Gray, Carlos Martinez, etc. NO rental players should ever be obtained for a teams top three prospects, regardless of who they are, since there are NO guarantees that they sign for a team-friendly contract past the end of the season. The Jays were burned badly when they traded Syndergaart and d’arnaud for Dickey and he was a disaster from day one. A GM that doesn’t learn from his mistakes is an unemployed GM.
That’s a fair deal, when you trade for the best pitcher and reliever available, its going to hurt. Plus, it seems like they are higher on Hoffman over Norris, so essentially your keeping your best prospect and not touching the 25 man roster.
The point you are missing is the Jays will need to replace Dickey and Beurhle in 2016. If you throw away Hoffman, Norris, plus your future catcher for a two-month rental, you have destroyed next year, as well as rolled the dice in 2015 that the team wouldn’t end in failure. The Jays are now in this situation because 2012 decimated their farm and the players are now starring on other teams, not Toronto, and of course Toronto are now trying to fill the same holes that the prospects would have filled. I pointed out in an earlier post on another board that Hamels has thrown 65 innings against the AL in the last four years. In those 65 innings, he has given up 45 runs and more importantly, he has been shelled for fourteen home runs in 65 innings. Those stats would see a player released, not traded for at 22.5 million per season. The Jays already did that with Dickey and Syndergaart would have looked nice in the rotation now. As fans have pointed out, any GM that sells the farm for a two-month rental should be fired, because teams can sign them for only cash at the end of October. There are many closing options and if San Diego continue to fall in the standings, Kimbrell is already signed for four years and would cost a lot less to acquire than Chapman. He could probably be had for a Tirado and Mitch Nay package. The Jays could obtain Niese and Parnell from the Mets, for Smoak, Goins, and Jimenez. The Jays could then trade Dickey and replace him with Norris in the rotation, which would be an instant upgrade, having Parnell, Osuna, Cecil, and Kimbrell anchoring their bullpen for the stretch drive. Castro could be called up to replace Loup and the bullpen would be a strength. Loup and Dickey could go in the same trade and the team would instantly improve 100 percent.
Why wouldn’t you take a chance with the best offense in MLB over the last decade? Your trade proposals are unrealistic, you can’t package utility players and expect to get something useful, this team needs more than a Norris/Neise injection in our rotation. Kimbrel alone probably cost Pompey & Castro
LOL Fantasy trading online does not work IRL
Those three guys listed above don’t land you any of those guys. All of those guys you just listed are cost-controlled aces. Add Hoffman to the mix and you might get some interest. Cueto is a rental, and those guys always have to be overpaid to land. Chapman is arguably the best reliever in baseball, with an extra year of control. He is gonna cost a ton too.
Houston, St. Louis, and New York Mets are all contenders or close to it, so I highly doubt they would want to trade any of their best pitchers for prospects.
Sale is unlikely but it would cost much more than that to get Chicago to listen. Sale is under control for a few more years and is an elite pitcher.
Gray is the most likely target of those you said, and it is hard to say what Beane would ask for but he does like his pitching.
I think, in my opinion, a package for Sale would look like:
Sale for Norris, Pentecost, Pompey, Sanchez, Castro, Reid-Foley
Gray for Norris, Pompey, Castro, Pentecost
That’s just my opinion though.
Hope the Yankees don’t make a trade for Cueto. He’s great but the price to get him would be too high for just two months, I’d rather they make a run in the offseason when he’ll be FA.
A $16MM salary on a guy hitting below .200 is a problem. There’s no lack of an obvious replacement for Napoli. That is one thing that is not an obstacle. We have Nava coming back off the DL, Travis Shaw coming up from AAA (and looks marvelous), and Pedroia will soon return from the DL, meaning Brock Holt will move over and play first. We have 4 or 5 options to replace Napoli at first and in the lineup. What we don’t have is any eager takers for his large pay grade.