Tim Dierkes | MLB Trade Rumors

Free DraftKings MMA Contest With $500 Prize Pool

By Tim Dierkes | February 13, 2015 at 12:01am CDT

Free is always good. Check out the latest MMA salary cap contest at DraftKings: it’s free to play, and has $1,000 in prize money!

The top 225 finishing positions win money, with first place getting $100. As we mentioned, it’s free to join. The deadline for entry is Saturday at 7:30pm eastern time. Also, if you do want to try a contest with an entry fee, first-time depositors at DraftKings receive a 100% bonus up to $600.

This is a salary cap style MMA contest, where you use a $50,000 budget to select five fighters. Check out my picks below:

Only hours remain, so don’t hesitate. Enter this free MMA salary cap contest at DraftKings now!

Astros Sign Roberto Hernandez

By Tim Dierkes | February 12, 2015 at 2:45pm CDT

2:45pm: The contract includes an opt-out five days prior to Opening Day, and the Major League side of the deal is worth $2.65MM, MLBTR has learned.

2:08pm: The Astros have signed righty Roberto Hernandez to a minor league deal with an invitation to Major League Spring Training, the team announced. Hernandez is represented by DPX Sports.

Hernandez, 34, posted a 4.10 ERA, 5.7 K/9, 4.0 BB/9, 1.04 HR/9, and 49.7% groundball rate for the Phillies and Dodgers last year. He had signed a $4.5MM free agent deal with the Phillies last offseason.

A legitimate chance to make the Astros’ rotation likely weighed in Hernandez’s decision. The agreement between the two sides comes after a one-year pact with Ryan Vogelsong fell through in January. Dallas Keuchel and Collin McHugh are locks for the Astros’ rotation after breakout 2014 seasons, and veteran Scott Feldman has a spot secured as well. According to an article from Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle from late January, Brett Oberholtzer is also penciled in. According to Drellich, new acquisition Dan Straily might be the favorite for the fifth spot, with Brad Peacock not expected to be ready for Opening Day after offseason hip surgery. Alex White, Asher Wojciechowski and Sam Deduno are other fifth starter candidates to watch, according to Drellich.

Check Out HoopsRumors.com

By Tim Dierkes | February 9, 2015 at 7:40pm CDT

The NBA trade deadline is a week from Thursday, and Hoops Rumors has been tracking all of the developments in what’s already been a busy trade season so far. The free-spending Nets are open to trading Brook Lopez, Deron Williams and Joe Johnson, their three most highly paid players. Lance Stephenson, Charlotte’s marquee offseason free agent signing, is the subject of persistent trade rumors. Other storylines, like the pursuit of Ray Allen and the unsettled Kings coaching situation, threaten to pop to the forefront any minute. Whatever happens, we’ll be on top of it with context and analysis, so bookmark us and check back often!

Trade Rumors App Now Has Notifications

By Tim Dierkes | February 4, 2015 at 2:19pm CDT

The world’s best app for staying up-to-date on MLB, NFL, and NBA trades and free agency just got better. I’m happy to announce that our free Trade Rumors app, available for iOS and Android, now has notifications! You can set up notifications at the sport, team, or even player level, and receive a notification as soon as a new article is posted on that topic.

We’ve also rolled out an improved, more intuitive layout to the app, with each feed represented by a vertical column on the home screen. Switch between your feeds by swiping left on the home screen. Vertical columns allow for easier one-hand scrolling.

[Download Trade Rumors for iOS and Android]

But wait, there’s more! Other features of the Trade Rumors app:

Customize your home screen. The app has feeds for MLB Trade Rumors, Pro Football Rumors, and Hoops Rumors by default, but if you’re more of a one or two-sport person, you can easily remove and reorder feeds. You can also add a feed for any of the 92 MLB, NFL, or NBA teams, as well as the thousands of players in the archives of our three sites.
We’ve also allowed for filtering of all stories versus top stories, for what is shown on the home screen as well as for notifications. This allows you to limit yourself to just the most important news for a feed, if you prefer.
Article sharing options are plentiful: choose Facebook, Twitter, email, and text message.
Once you’ve clicked an article in a feed, you can swipe to read the next article in that feed.
Did we mention the Trade Rumors app is completely free? Download today for iOS and Android.

Wondering what’s next for the always-improving Trade Rumors app? We intend to add comments, but must first switch to a native commenting system on the three websites.

Check Out ProFootballRumors.com

By Tim Dierkes | February 3, 2015 at 8:37pm CDT

Super Bowl XLIX is officially in the books, which means the NFL’s offseason fun is just getting started over at Pro Football Rumors. Free agency is only five weeks away, and stars like Dez Bryant, Ndamukong Suh, and NFL sack leader Justin Houston are among the players eligible for free agency this winter. Will the Cowboys be able to bring back both Bryant and DeMarco Murray, 2014’s Offensive Player of the Year? Will the Lions need to use a costly franchise tag to retain Suh? Will newly extension-eligible quarterbacks like Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson break records for NFL salaries? We’ll be following all of those storylines and more at PFR, so be sure to bookmark us!

Reds Extend Devin Mesoraco

By Tim Dierkes | January 26, 2015 at 1:30pm CDT

The Reds have locked up one of their core young pieces, agreeing to a four-year extension with catcher Devin Mesoraco the team has announced. With three years and 28 days of Major League service, the 26-year-old backstop had been arbitration eligible for 2015 for the first time and had been under team control through 2017. Mesoraco is a client of Jet Sports Management.

Mesoraco will receive a $28MM guarantee, MLBTR has learned. He receives a $500K signing bonus and will earn $2.4MM in 2015, $4.9MM in 2016, $7.2MM in 2017 and $13MM in 2018. The contract also contains an additional $2MM worth of performance bonuses for a max of $30MM over the four-year term.

Mesoraco’s 2018 salary will jump by $400K each time he reaches 502 plate appearances from 2015-17, and he’ll earn $150K for each All-Star nomination, Gold Glove or Silver Slugger he picks up. Mesoraco can also receive $200K for finishing in the top 5 of the MVP voting, $150K for finishing sixth through 10th, $100K for finishing 11th through 15th and $50K for finishing 16th through 20th. While there are more than $2MM worth of incentives present in that breakdown, the contract places a $2MM cap on what he can earn.

A first-round pick by the Reds out of high school in ’07, Mesoraco broke out in a big way in 2014. He hit .273/.359/.534 with 25 home runs in 440 plate appearances, making the All-Star team for the first time and earning a pair of down-ballot MVP votes. Mesoraco led all catchers in home runs and slugging percentage, and ranked fifth in wins above replacement and on-base percentage.

The Reds cleared a path to more playing time for Mesoraco last offseason by flipping longtime backstop Ryan Hanigan to the Rays in a three-team deal that also netted them lefty David Holmberg from Arizona, and the move looks to have paid off handsomely for both team and player. The four-year term on Mesoraco’s deal allows him to secure his first fortune by locking in a year of free agent money while still allowing him to hit the open market at the age of 30.

Mesoraco had exchanged arbitration figures with the Reds earlier this month. The $3.025MM midpoint of those figures exceeded MLBTR’s projection of a $2.8MM salary for Mesoraco in 2015.

MLBTR was the first to report that the two sides were nearing a deal (via Twitter). C. Trent Rosecrans of the Cincinnati Enquirer confirmed that there was an agreement (Twitter link), and Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith first reported the four-year term (on Twitter). MLBTR was the first to report the financial terms (on Twitter) and bonus structure of the contract.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Social Media Poll

By Tim Dierkes | January 20, 2015 at 8:23pm CDT

Please take a moment to help us learn about you by taking the following poll. Thanks! You can view the results here if you’re curious.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world’s leading questionnaire tool.

$100K NFL Contest At DraftKings

By Tim Dierkes | January 16, 2015 at 12:00am CDT

Take your shot at a $100K prize pool in this week’s NFL playoffs contest at DraftKings! First place will take home $10K, and the top 11,500 entrants will get paid. The entry fee is just $2, or free with your first deposit. First time depositors at DraftKings receive a 100% bonus up to $600, too.

The contest starts on Sunday, January 18th at 3:05pm eastern time. It’s a salary cap style contest, where you use a $50K budget to select nine players. The roster will be 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex, and 1 Defense. Here’s a look at my potential roster:

This is a sponsored post from DraftKings.

$100K NFL Contest At DraftKings

By Tim Dierkes | January 9, 2015 at 12:00am CDT

The contest starts on Saturday, January 10th at 4:35pm eastern time. It’s a salary cap style contest, where you use a $50K budget to select nine players. The roster will be 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex, and 1 Defense. Here’s a look at my potential roster:

This is a sponsored post from DraftKings.

Giants Re-Sign Jake Peavy

By Steve Adams and Tim Dierkes | December 23, 2014 at 2:07pm CDT

Pitcher Jake Peavy has officially agreed to a deal to return to the Giants, as first reported by Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (Twitter link). It’s a two-year, $24MM deal with a full no-trade clause, according to ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick. Peavy, a CAA client, will be paid a $4MM signing bonus and salaries of $7MM in 2015 and $13MM in 2016, writes Crasnick.

Peavy, 34 in May, posted a 3.73 ERA, 7.0 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, 1.02 HR/9, and 38.5% groundball rate in 202 2/3 innings for the Red Sox and Giants this year. The Red Sox traded him to the Giants on July 26th with cash for Edwin Escobar and Heath Hembree. Peavy posted a 2.17 ERA in 78 2/3 innings for the Giants after the trade. While his control improved with the Giants, his sharp drop in homer-to-flyball rate (3.2 percent) isn’t sustainable, even in the pitcher friendly AT&T Park.

While the level of production he showed in the season’s second half is very likely to come back down to Earth, there’s no doubt that a full-time move to AT&T Park and the NL West will be of benefit to Peavy’s numbers. He’ll provide the Giants with some much-needed stability in the rotation, as the team currently has a great deal of uncertainty behind ace Madison Bumgarner and veteran workhorse Tim Hudson. Matt Cain is coming off elbow surgery, Ryan Vogelsong is also a free agent, Tim Lincecum hasn’t been reliable for the past three seasons and Yusmeiro Petit, while excellent in 2014, has never held down a rotation spot for a whole season.

Peavy’s contract closely mirrors that two-year, $25MM contract extension that fellow 34-year-old NL West hurler Jorge De La Rosa signed in August, and it’s also in line with what both Hudson and Bronson Arroyo signed for last winter. While each of the latter two pitchers is considerably older than Peavy, they signed in a free agent market with less quality pitching available. In a free agent profile back in late October, MLBTR’s Jeff Todd correctly predicted that Peavy would top Hudson and Arroyo, though Peavy’s final deal fell a bit shy of his $28MM prediction.

This marks only the second significant move for Giants GM Brian Sabean this offseason — he agreed to terms on a two-year, $15MM deal with Sergio Romo earlier in the week — though not for lack of trying. The Giants made a legitimate run at re-signing Pablo Sandoval and have also been connected to Jon Lester, Yasmany Tomas and Chase Headley, among others, but each has signed elsewhere, leaving the Giants to seek upgrades elsewhere.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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