Cliff Lee Trade Destination Poll
Mariners lefty Cliff Lee might not be available yet, but there's a good chance GM Jack Zduriencik starts listening in coming weeks. Today's poll question:
Which team will acquire Lee by the 2010 trade deadline?
Elias Rankings Update
After the season the Elias Sports Bureau will take all players over the 2009-10 period, divide them into five groups for each league, and rank them based on various statistics. Then each player will be labeled a Type A, B, or none.
Eddie Bajek has reverse-engineered the Elias rankings, and he's providing that information exclusively at MLB Trade Rumors. Here's a look at how the players rank for the period beginning with the 2009 season running through June 9th, 2010. The Google spreadsheet below has separate tabs for each position group. The players have about four more months to change these rankings.
Yankees Not Pursuing Lee Yet
2:58pm: An official tells Marc Carig of the Star Ledger that the Yankees have yet to discuss trading for players at the deadline, including Lee.
THURSDAY, 2:07pm: ESPN.com's Buster Olney hears (via Twitter) that the Mariners and Yankees have had "zero" discussions about Lee. That doesn't mean that they won't discuss the lefty in the future, but we now know that talks have not begun. Olney reminds us (via Twitter) that the Yankees have passed on the chance to trade for top pitchers before.
WEDNESDAY, 5:49pm: A rival executive tells Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports that, despite the Yankees' effective rotation, he expects the team to be "undeterred in their pursuit of Lee on the trade market." According to Rosenthal's sources, the Phillies discussed Lee with the Yankees last winter prior to trading the left-hander to the Mariners. The Yankees had been willing to include Montero in a package for Lee, but that was before both the Vazquez trade and the emergence of Hughes.
3:56pm: A Yankees official told Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News that the team has no urgency to do anything with their rotation, which isn't necessarily at odds with King's report below. In other words, the Mariners might like the Yankees to get involved on Lee, but so far they're not.
More interesting is the team official's suggestion that only three players have been made available across baseball so far, and Lee is not among them.
8:03am: The Mariners are preparing for the Yankees to pursue ace lefty Cliff Lee, reports George A. King III of the New York Post. King says the Mariners have already scouted the Yankees' Low A and Double A clubs and aim to watch their Triple A squad soon. King spoke to a "person familiar with Seattle's thought process" who believes Jack Zduriencik will seek Triple A shortstop Eduardo Nunez as well as one of the Yankees' minor league catchers. King suggests that the Yankees would need assurances that they could sign Lee to an extension if they're required to surrender Austin Romine or Jesus Montero.
King believes renting Lee would hold appeal to the Yankees despite their strong rotation. The Yanks' boast a front five of C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte, Phil Hughes, and Javier Vazquez, and it's not clear who they'd bump for Lee. The most likely candidate, Vazquez, has a 2.73 ERA in 33 innings since returning from a break on May 12th. Trading Vazquez to clear a spot for Lee seems convoluted to me.
With Nick Johnson potentially out for the season, an offensive addition would be more fitting. To that end, King says the Yankees have scouts following the Astros in case Lance Berkman becomes available. Berkman is still owed $11.2MM heading into today's action, however.
Odds & Ends: Mets, Orioles, Cliff Lee
Links for Wednesday, as the Pirates' Brad Lincoln hopes to capture just a small slice of Stephen Strasburg's success in his MLB debut…
- Joseph Pawlikowski of River Ave. Blues is skeptical about today's rumors connecting the Yankees to Cliff Lee. Pawlikowski expects the Yanks to add complementary players this summer, rather than big names.
- Brewers catching prospect Angel Salome has requested a move to the outfield, reports Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
- The Mets appear interested in Kevin Millwood, Jeremy Guthrie, and Jake Westbrook, writes MetsBlog's Matthew Cerrone.
- Vladimir Guerrero, Troy Glaus, and Jon Garland head up Jon Heyman's list of the top free agent bargains for SI.com.
- 39th overall pick Anthony Ranaudo chatted with WEEI's Alex Speier, explaining that the plan is for him to pitch in the Cape Cod League and then begin negotiations with the Red Sox.
- Cliff Lee would prefer cooler temperatures than he'd find in Arlington if traded, reports ESPN's Richard Durrett, but the lefty knows it's out of his control. Lee told Durrett he's not worrying about the trade deadline.
- White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was disappointed to see the team draft his son Ozney way down in the 22nd round, reports MLB.com's Scott Merkin.
- Southpaw reliever George Sherrill would like to remain with the Dodgers beyond 2010, reports Dylan Hernandez of the L.A. Times. In my opinion, Sherrill will need to re-sign after being non-tendered for that to happen, much like Jonny Gomes did with the Reds.
LSU Coach Discusses Zach Lee
Louisiana State head football coach Les Miles seems to think the Dodgers will not be signing their first-round pick Zach Lee this year. In a statement on the LSU football website, Miles said:
"Zach wants to come to LSU, get a degree and play football and baseball for the Tigers. I met with Zach and his parents today and I think that they are looking at LSU as a great opportunity both academically and athletically. Zach is an outstanding student and he's excited about the college experience."
Lee begins summer classes today, though the Dodgers technically have until the August 16th deadline to sign him. Dodgers assistant GM Logan White told Dylan Hernandez of the L.A. Times on Monday that he's cautiously optimistic about signing Lee and the team did not purposely select an unsignable player to save money. ESPN's Keith Law wrote recently that the "rumor of the day had the kid saying $6 million wouldn't get him signed."
Mike Lamb Clears Waivers
Third baseman Mike Lamb has cleared waivers and has been outrighted to Triple A, tweets MLB.com's Joe Frisaro. Lamb was the casualty a few days ago when the Marlins called up top prospect Mike Stanton, who had three hits in his debut last night. Lamb's last extended Triple A stay last year in the Mets' organization produced a .261/.299/.370 line.
Potentially Available Power Bats
Several contenders could use a boost in the slugging department, especially the Padres and A's. Let's take a look at potentially available power bats for the trade deadline.
- Prince Fielder, Brewers. Fielder has shown less power than the others on this list, with a slugging percentage of just .437. Still, he gets on base and has slugged over .600 in multiple seasons. He has $6.7MM left on this year's contract and will get a raise in arbitration after the season. Fielder obviously won't come cheap, if he's even made available.
- Lance Berkman, Astros. He's not showing power yet this year and has $11.2MM left on his contract. And that's if he backs down from the idea of demanding his option be exercised upon a trade.
- Paul Konerko, White Sox. Konerko's .610 SLG ranks fourth in the American League, so in that regard he's the best available power bat. Obstacles: he's owed $7.6MM and has a full no-trade clause. With a surprising .583 SLG, Konerko's teammate Alex Rios is another consideration. Rios is having a fine year, even if U.S. Cellular is giving his bat a boost. His contract still has over $56MM through 2014, and he can block trades to six teams. Andruw Jones should be widely available, though he's fared poorly since May 1st.
- Corey Hart, Brewers. Hart somehow leads the NL with 15 home runs. Like Fielder, the Brewers might prefer to keep the arbitration-eligible outfielder around for 2011 if they want to contend.
- Kelly Johnson, Diamondbacks. Arizona's second baseman is also arbitration-eligible after the season. He's plenty valuable, but keep in mind he's hitting a more reasonable .254/.361/.429 since May 1st. Johnson's teammate Adam LaRoche should be attainable, though he's down to .250/.344/.443.
- Luke Scott and Ty Wigginton, Orioles. Both players are slugging over .500 and should be available. Scott is under team control through 2012, but he's already earning $4.05MM. Wiggy is owed $2.2MM through the rest of this season.
- Jose Guillen, Royals. He's hitting just .213/.322/.394 since May 1st. Guillen is owed the same amount as Konerko, but could probably be had for just a slight amount of salary relief. More interesting is Guillen's teammate David DeJesus, who's hitting .306/.378/.461 on the season. He can be controlled through next year, so the Royals should get something useful in return.
- Austin Kearns, Indians. Kearns is a cheap rental with less than $500K remaining, and he's hitting .306/.380/.482. Kearns' teammate Russell Branyan has a .463 SLG, if you prefer 1B/DH power.
- Ryan Doumit, Pirates. The Bucs' backstop is at .281/.366/.461 on the season. He's got about $7.8MM left through 2011.
- Others with pop: Jim Edmonds, Hunter Pence, Rickie Weeks, Garrett Jones, Ryan Raburn, Carlos Lee, Mike Lowell, Travis Hafner, Lyle Overbay, Jose Lopez, and Miguel Tejada. For now we've left the Blue Jays, Nationals, and Cubs off the list, but that could change.
Phillies Agree With First-Round Pick Biddle
The Phillies' deal with first-round pick Jesse Biddle is done, tweets Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Gelb notes that the deal can't be made official until after Biddle graduates high school Friday. Once signed the local lefty will join the rookie league GCL Phillies.
The Phillies drafted Biddle 27th overall, with scouting director Marti Wolever comparing him to Clayton Kershaw. MLB.com's Todd Zolecki notes that the Mariners signed the #27 pick last year for $1.28MM, which is around slot. Baseball America ranked Biddle 116th overall, while ESPN's Keith Law had him at 90.
How To Use MLBTR
An explanation of the many ways to enjoy MLB Trade Rumors:
- If the main site doesn't load perfectly on your cell phone, try the more mobile-friendly mlbtraderumors.mobi. It's a simple page that shows you just the headlines and lets you click through to what you want to read.
- If you want only the hard news in the form of transactions, our transactions page is the ticket. You can also get only the transactions via Twitter or RSS.
- To return to the main page at any time, just click on the title or the Home button on the navigation bar below the title.
- The navigation bar will cover many of your needs. Use the About dropdown to learn about this site or any of its writers.
- The Contact button takes you to a page where you can write an email message to the MLBTR writers. If you have a link to a rumor we've missed, please send it in through the Contact page! Also use the Contact page to inquire about advertising on MLBTR.
- The Archives dropdown shows you 15 months worth. If you need to go back further, click on Site Map at the very bottom of the page. Site Map also lists out every MLBTR post category, including players, teams, and features.
- The Widget button takes you here, where website owners can easily add a constantly-updated box to their site with all of MLBTR's headlines.
- The Forums button takes you here, to a message board community of MLBTR readers with over 5,500 members. You can discuss any baseball-related topic on the Forums, and start your own thread too.
- Feeds By Team is a very useful dropdown. Hover over it to see all 30 teams. Click on the team name to bring up a page of every post containing information about that team, with the latest on top. These are the same pages you'll find if you go to the Rumors By Team section on the sidebar and select A's Rumors, Angels Rumors, etc. Also under the Feeds By Team dropdown, you'll find RSS and Twitter buttons. Those links allow you to follow a single team's rumors via RSS or Twitter. Did you know we have a separate Twitter account for each of the 30 teams? For example you can follow @mlbtrtigers, where you would've been the first to know about the team's director of player development stepping down yesterday.
- On the far right of the Navigation bar, you'll see buttons for Twitter, Facebook, and RSS. MLBTR has almost 30,000 Twitter followers, over 18,000 Facebook fans, and over 26,000 RSS subscribers. Sign up for these and you'll be the first to receive all of our posts.
- On to the sidebar. It begins with a list of our Top Stories, which our writers update any time major hard news occurs. Go here for a quick update on the most important stories. Below that is the site's Search Box, where you can type in any player's name and get the latest on him.
- MLBTR Features has all kinds of goodies, including our free agent lists, list of Scott Boras clients, latest Elias Rankings, GM-related stuff, and list of first-round draft picks to sign. Many of the MLBTR Features are constantly updated by our writers, so be assured that our free agent lists are always fresh. The Elias Rankings have been reverse-engineered for MLBTR by Eddie Bajek, and you won't find that info anywhere else.
- Below Features you've got headlines for all the Recent Posts, in case you'd rather not scroll to see all the headlines. Then there's a box for our Mailing List, where you can sign up to receive a daily email containing MLBTR's posts. Use this option if you don't need the news as soon as possible.
- Next we have Featured Posts, where you'll find original work from MLBTR writers we consider noteworthy. For example, Ben Nicholson-Smith spoke to multiple scouting directors for his post, The Growing Role Of Video For MLB Scouts.
No Deal Yet For Indians, LeVon Washington
4:30pm: Indians assistant GM John Mirabelli told MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo that there is no deal.
"We absolutely do not have any agreements across the board," he said.
3:44pm: Heyman says the deal isn't quite complete (Twitter link) and notes that over-slot deals like Washington's don't often become official until closer to the August deadline for signing picks.
3:00pm: The Indians reached an agreement with second-round pick LeVon Washington for $1.55MM, tweets SI's Jon Heyman. The Indians drafted the outfielder 55th overall; he'd gone to the Rays at #30 out of high school in 2009 but turned down their offer of $1.1MM and attended Chipola Junior College. Washington is represented by Scott Boras.
MLB.com outlined the knocks on Washington – he might not have the arm to stick in center field, and he comes with a "perceived lack of energy." On the plus side, he brings offense and above average speed. Baseball America ranked Washington 66th overall, considering him an enigma who earned Johnny Damon comparisons before the '09 draft but had a disappointing year at junior college.