Thus far, the Rangers have mostly focused on open-market additions to their pitching staff. A turn to the trade market shouldn’t be expected, GM Jon Daniels tells MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan. While there are a variety of enticing possible trade candidates floating around, Daniels says the organization is “making a concerted effort to be more disciplined and stay away from” moves that cost the team its “best young players.” Though the team’s top baseball decisionmaker wouldn’t rule out the trade avenue entirely, he said the team won’t be giving up notable future value for a short-term addition. Speaking of the Rangers’ moves to this point, Gerry Fraley of the Dallas Morning News solicited a scouting breakdown of the new arms brought onto the staff.
Here’s more from the American League:
- The Twins are “still trying to match schedules” to schedule a sit-down with free agent Yu Darvish, according to Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN (via Twitter). That’s somewhat odd to read at this stage of the winter; Darvish has already met with other teams, Minnesota has long labeled him a “priority,” and spring camp is just six weeks away. Nevertheless, at this point it seems little has changed in the situation: the Twins are still interested in the top-flight righty, though it’s difficult to determine a favorite in the Darvish sweepstakes. To that end, it’s worth noting that Jim Bowden of The Athletic wrote today that Minnesota “appears … prepared to offer a market deal” for Darvish (though it stands to reason that an in-person meeting would precede such an offer). Bowden also notes that the Astros are still in the Darvish mix, in part due to concerns over their ability to sign Dallas Keuchel long term, and he cites multiple sources in reporting that the Rangers are still alive in the bidding for Darvish as well.
- Mariners righty Max Povse is heading back to a rotation role in 2018, as Greg Johns of MLB.com writes. While there had been some expectation that Povse would thrive as a multi-inning reliever, GM Jerry Dipoto says that the youngster’s move to the pen didn’t come with “the uptick in the stuff” the team hoped. That said, the organization still likes him as a starter. Dipoto says he was encouraged by Povse’s work in the AFL — he worked to a 4.56 ERA with 8.8 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9 in 25 2/3 innings — and takes the blame for pushing Povse into the upper minors and ultimately the majors as a reliever.
- Rich Dubroff of PressBoxOnline.com examines whether the Orioles might roll with young catcher Chance Sisco out of camp. Baltimore is still looking at veterans, though it seems the organization is resolved to rely primarily upon Caleb Joseph if Sisco doesn’t run away with the job. Assuming that any players acquired from outside the organization are mostly reserve/depth options, it could well come down to a camp battle. As Dubroff writes, the MLB coaching staff has not yet had an extended opportunity to see Sisco in action.
I know there’s still 3 months till Opening day, but the O’s are gonna be real bad.
Hopefully, we will trade Machado and be even worse. If there is any hope at mediocrity for the Os this season, then they did not play the off-season well at all.
I agree, but they should have traded him, Britton, and Brach a long time ago.
Had they done that, they could have really built up their farm system and could be looking at a new wave of young players in addition to Sisco, Hays, and Mancini.
I’m not an Orioles fan but I’m still really irritated by how stubborn they are. I can’t imagine how upset I’d be if I actually was a fan of them.
I’m glad Angelos was stubborn. If it wasn’t for him rejecting the Britton deal the Astros wouldn’t have been able to get Verlander.
Amen to that!
I can see trading Machado and becoming better if they can get pitching for him I think 1 controllable starter is all you can expect though. E-Rod and XB and consider yourself lucky and better for 2018 and 2019
Zero chance of getting Erod and two years of XB for one year of Machado. You’re dreaming. Machado won’t bring back much. They waited too long.
What? Machado is a legit star and should net a significant return. Teams give up a lot for much shorter rentals every single trade deadline.
Yes but they are almost always minor league prospects, not established big leaguers. I think they can get a decent return for him at the deadline but it won’t be guys any average person has heard of like XB.
CAnt get 2 years of the stud Xander bogaerts? Those 10 hrs and 15 steals will be tough to give up. Especially since machado plays short. The real question would be why baltimore would want Bogaerts.
No matter what he signs with a division rival in free agency. Orioles make a great farm team for the Yankees and Red Sox.
What did you really expect??
No. Didn’t you know? Chance Sisco will be the next Johnny Bench and Kevin Gausman will emerge any day now into Walter Johnson.
Nope. Their starting pitching can’t be any worse than last year when they ran Jimenez, Miley, Tillman, and Hellickson out there a combined 86 times, and they still have a premium lineup. They probably won’t make the playoffs, but they won’t be really bad. Probably a 78-81 win team.
Unfortunately time and time it has been proven that things can almost always get worse.
It’d be very hard to find guys who put up worse results than hellickson, Tillman or ubaldo last season.
Who will start for the O’s other than Bundy and Gausman?
Maybe they can turn Trumbo or Davis into a SP…….
lol
Bless the easy-mode AL where trades like this are made possible
Lol
Unless Trumbo and Davis rebound significantly, I wouldn’t bet on their lineup helping their cause much. “Premium” certainly isn’t the word I would use to describe it.
It all depends on if Davis gets his TUE. He is awful without his meds. Trumbo will need to wait on his contract year in 2019
Exactly, they finished 16th in runs last year, which is the only stat that matters at the end of the year but they also fared the same or worse in any of the advanced metrics, they have an above average lineup but that’s it. The O’s have run into the problem of becoming a boom or bust lineup, which generally doesn’t workout (it does at times) as they were 5th in HR’s last year but 27th in OBP, which lead to 31.2% of their runs coming solely from a HR and by that I mean literally just the person hitting the HR’s (think of it as all solo HR’s) not even the men he drove in. That isn’t a sustainable way to score runs.
Is the lineup even that good anymore? People always trash on the rotation, but I’m pretty sure their lineup was something like 9th in the AL in Wrc+ last year.
Povse’s pitches looked well-polished at times. Other times, his command was nowhere to be found. The smart thing to do would be to leave him alone and work his way up the ladder. He probably needs another full year of minor league seasoning. Though Seattle could really use another front-line starter, their pitching depth looks better than it did just a season ago and they’re likely to add minor league free agents and more rehab projects. They probably won’t need Povse, but I think few Mariners fans are content with Gonzales as the 5th starter and news of Povse moving back into a starting role probably doesn’t do much to sooth nerves.
4 out of the 5 starting pitchers were on the the disabled list. I do not think they did much to improve their pitching staff all around. But they do need Povse. We need more depth. Felix won’t last more than 5 innings each start unless he does better conditioning for the season.
So Darvish is just dinking around with the Twins. “Yeah… we’ll talk. Soon.”
Or it’s the pohlads… “I need to be there for the meeting if our family spends that much. How about we set something up for June? No, that doesn’t work for you. I guess it’s time to tell the fans we did everything we could, and we’re in it to the end. We gotta give em something, let’s sign this Nolasco guy… oh really signed him before and didn’t work. Well who is cheap? Jake peavy is out there? Sure, tell the fans we missed out on Darvish, but signed our new #2 starter to a $2 mil deal, and we’re done shopping for the year!”
Don’t be ridiculous its Darvish. He’s happy talking the Twins and our new FO is falling for it. They should be moving to plan B at this point if they’ve had that difficult of a time setting up a face to face meeting. That screams not really interested.
I think it’s time for the Twins to move on from Darvish.. yeah he would be an upgrade but at what cost? People saying 7 year deals now and that would be a disaster for the Twins. They are finally coming up from under the Mauer deal next year and they don’t need another quarter of a payroll contract on the books for an aging pitcher. Go for a guy like Lance Lynn for half the money and darn near the same result. Also proud of the FO for not jumping into that ridiculous RP market even though there was need. Teams like the Twins shouldn’t be spending 9+ million a year on a bullpen piece. See how this plays out but hoping we don’t cripple the franchise with a bad deal this offseason.
Orioles management has nobody to blame but themselves for not knowing a bit more about Sisco at the top level. They called him up on the 1st of September and jerked around with the notion they were still in contention and didn’t give him a start until the 24th of September. They were done the day Sisco was called up and only became even more dead as the calendar rolled on. There was no intelligent reason not to start Sisco from the time he came up to give him an extended look with an eye towards 2018 and beyond. You’re not going to learn everything about a rookie playing September ball but you can find out quite a bit if you’re smart and roll him out there almost every day.
Darvish to the Astros makes them instant contenders to repeat and give a them stability in the rotation for the the future if Dallas walks.
They’re already clear contenders.
The defending world champions are not already a contender to repeat without Darvish? Yes they are.
It’s really sad that the beat writers of the Orioles have to waste time talking about the catching situation. The cheap skate and clueless need to give these reporters something to actually talk about.
i feel like being an O’s fan would legitimately be one of the hardest things to do. Just a lot of questionable decisions