After having agreed to terms with catcher Tyler Flowers, the Braves seem likely to trade Christian Bethancourt, David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal Constitution tweets. With Flowers likely to share the Braves’ catching duties with A.J. Pierzynski, Bethancourt now appears to be on the outside looking in. The 24-year-old hit just .200/.225/.290 in 160 big-league plate appearances in 2015 (although he did fare much better at Triple-A, batting .327/.359/.480) and struggled with passed balls. He’s still young and spent several years regarded as a top prospect, so one would think he would be an interesting option for a rebuilding club. Of course, the Braves themselves are rebuilding, and the Flowers signing suggests quite strongly that they’re skeptical, at the very least, of Bethancourt’s long-term prospects. Here are more notes from the East Coast.
- The Orioles have turned to the trade market to find a starting pitcher to replace Wei-Yin Chen, MLB.com’s Britt Ghiroli writes (Twitter links). They have “a few” standing offers out to teams in return for starting pitching. With Chen gone, the Orioles’ top four currently includes Chris Tillman, Miguel Gonzalez, Ubaldo Jimenez and Kevin Gausman, all of them righties. Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun reported this week that the team would prefer to add a lefty, although one option could be using lefty reliever Brian Matusz as a starter. “We’d be OK with five righties, but ideally we’d like to get some balance to our lineup and our rotation,” Orioles exec Dan Duquette said.
- Other teams have asked about Orioles minor leaguers Jomar Reyes, Chance Sisco and Tanner Scott in trade talks, MASNsports.com’s Steve Melewski tweets. Reyes, an 18-year-old third baseman, ranks fourth on MLB.com’s list of the top Orioles prospects, with the writeup noting his terrific raw power; Sisco, a catcher, ranks eighth, and Scott, a lefty, ranks 21st.
- The Yankees’ current plan is to trade Brett Gardner or Andrew Miller for a starting pitcher, or to keep them both for next season, Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweets. Yankees exec Brian Cashman said last weekend that the most likely outcome is that the team will keep both players.
Any chance bethancourt is the Mariners PTBNL?
Does a Brett Gardner and James Shields make sense?
I think Gardner is worth more
ya i’d have to agree with you, i like Shields and hope he says but the returns are always interesting
Jesse Hahn plus for Andrew Miller
to be honest I’ll take Vincent Vazquez and some prospects for Miller from the Astros. I’d do that trade in a heart beat.
New York could be surprised, if not already in the shopping of Andrew Miller this winter. Carson Smith only brought Wade Miley in return. Not a good omen in return for controllable SP for affordable salary in exchange for a shut down reliever.
Andrew Miller is 10x time better … he got reliever of the year even when he was injured for a month….
Andrew Miller ERA+ 194, Carson Smith ERA+ 164. Andrew Miller Salary $9 million, Carson Smith $510k. So he needs to be 17x the pitcher to justify the salary difference.. Not to mention Miller’s long injury history and being on the wrong side of 30 now. Players making market value contracts like Miller don’t have huge trade value, Cheap controllable talent is what has big trade value.
If the Arizona-Atlanta trade from December 8th at the MLB winter meetings is the template for getting a trade deal done, then listed below are five other similar opportunities and one is with the Yankees. The Braves can send pitchers Julio Teheran (Better than Miller) and Jose A. Ramirez (Received in trade from Mariners earlier this year, better than Gabe Speir) to the New York Yankees for a package of Gary Sanchez (not quite Inciarte) and prospects Aaron Judge, OF, #1 (not quite Swanson) and James Kaprielian, P, #3 (no where near as highly rated as Blair). The Yankees get their rotation help without touching the MLB roster and the Braves may be getting in better shape for the future.
I’m not trying to be a jerk but why would the Yankees trade Gary Sanchez, who boosted his value in the AFL and two of our best prospects for Julio Teheran, 11-8 4.04 ERA and has never pitched in the American League? And Ramirez pitched for the Yankees last year and people were calling for his head. I think that’s a really dumb deal.
I don’t mean to be rude, but that’s a really dumb deal. Why would the Yankees trade prospects #1, #5, and #8 for Teheran, who’s never pitched in the American League, and also went 11-8 with an ERA close to 4 last year. And they had Ramirez last year (the Yankees did) and people wanted him gone. Why would they bring him back?
I’d prefer the yanks give up Gardner rather than judge. This team wants to make a new young core and judge is a main part of that.