Tigers Sign Robinzon Diaz
The Tigers signed catcher Robinzon Diaz, tweets Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Diaz, 26, was released by the Pirates in November after hitting .279/.307/.357 in 138 plate appearances and catching 283 innings. He didn't hit much better in the minors this year. If the Tigers are happy with Diaz, they'll be able to retain him in future seasons since he's not close to six years service time.
Braves Designate Ryan Church For Assignment
The Braves designated outfielder Ryan Church for assignment, tweets Bill Shanks. The move was done to make room for Rafael Soriano, who accepted arbitration last night. Church had been considered a non-tender candidate anyway after hitting .273/.338/.384 in 399 plate appearances for the Braves and Mets in 2009. He earned $2.8MM in '09 and would've been due a raise through arbitration.
White Sox, Teahen Agree To Three-Year Deal
The White Sox agreed to a three-year deal with Mark Teahen, tweets team employee Scott Reifert. AOL FanHouse's Ed Price tweets that the deal is worth $14MM (Bruce Miles of the Daily Herald has details). Teahen hinted about the deal a few hours ago on Twitter, saying his family's Christmas wish list just got longer. The deal buys out two arbitration years and one free agent season. On November 6th, the Sox acquired Teahen and a million bucks from the Royals for Chris Getz and Josh Fields. Teahen will be Chicago's regular third baseman.
My opinion: I'd rather go year-to-year with Teahen to keep my options open, but the White Sox are saving money over what he would've earned in arbitration.
Mets Sign Mike Hessman
The Mets signed Mike Hessman to a minor league deal, reports Adam Rubin of the New York Daily News. Troy E. Renck of the Denver Post says he'll make $425K in the Majors and $15K a month in the minors. Hessman, 32 in March, hit .217/.324/.442 in 548 plate appearances for the Tigers' Triple A affiliate, playing mostly at the infield corners. He had a nice season in '08, though, slugging .602.
Olney On Rafael Soriano, Crisp, Harden
Rumor nuggets from ESPN's Buster Olney, in his morning blog post…
- Olney writes of indications that Rafael Soriano will request a trade from the Braves, as GM Frank Wren suggested before the player accepted arbitration. J.C. Bradbury credits Soriano's agent Peter Greenberg for finding a way around draft pick compensation. MLB.com's Mark Bowman does not think it will be difficult to trade Soriano, though Joel Sherman tweets that the Yankees are not interested.
- Olney has about six teams seriously interested in center fielder Coco Crisp, with a $3-4MM price range being bandied about.
- The Red Sox "do not have serious interest in Rich Harden," Olney reports.
Nationals May Non-Tender Mike MacDougal
ESPN's Jayson Stark tweets that he's hearing there's a good chance the Nationals non-tender reliever Mike MacDougal. The Nats acquired Brian Bruney yesterday, and will give him a chance to win the closer job.
Non-tendering MacDougal would be wise. After earning $2.65MM in 2009, his agent can argue for a decent raise on the basis of his 20 saves in 21 opportunities. Since MacDougal walked 38 and struck out 34 in his 54.3 innings, he's not a good bet to repeat his success in 2010.
MLBTR Has The Winter Meetings Covered
MLBTR is pulling out all the stops for our fifth time covering baseball's Winter Meetings, which are taking place in Indianapolis this year. For the first time, we've got 24/7 coverage of the Meetings. If news of a signing breaks at 4am, we'll be on it just as if it had broken at 4pm. Below is a refresher on how to use the site and important links.
If you want to take it old school, just refresh the page to see the latest stories up top. If you get to the bottom of the website you can hit Previous Entries for more. Other ways to get your MLBTR fix:
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- Click here to see who's eligible for free agency after the 2010 season.
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Curtis Granderson Rumors: Tuesday
Time for a fresh round of Curtis Granderson rumors. Yesterday we heard rumors about the Cubs and Yankees, and then learned of a possible three-team blockbuster involving the Yankees and D'Backs.
The latest from ESPN's Buster Olney: "Two of the teams involved in the Granderson discussions have moved on to other things." It's unclear which teams Olney is referring to.
Free Agents List
Here's a link to our current free agents list, which lost Brad Penny, Ivan Rodriguez, Adam Everett, Rafael Betancourt, Rafael Soriano, and Carl Pavano yesterday but gained Saul Rivera. We'll keep it up-to-date, as always.