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Padres Return George Kontos To Yankees

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The Padres announced that they returned Rule 5 draft pick George Kontos to the Yankees. 

The 25-year-old split the 2010 season between Class A, Double-A and Triple-A, posting a 3.60 ERA with 7.6 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9 in 45 innings. It was his first action since undergoing Tommy John surgery in July of 2009 and his first extended stint as a reliever. Baseball America ranked Kontos 27th among Padres prospects this offseason and suggested that his future is in the 'pen, since he hasn't developed a quality change-up and struggles to throw strikes at times.

Kontos has appeared in 97 minor league games (73 starts) since the Yankees selected him in the fifth round of the 2006 draft. Overall, he has a 3.47 ERA with 8.9 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9 in the minors. The right-hander posted a 9.82 ERA in three spring appearances.

Quick Hits: Looper, Turpen, Moyer, CBA, Nationals

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Our condolences go out to the friends and family of Mitchell Page, a former outfielder and hitting coach who passed away Saturday. Page was the runner-up to Eddie Murray in a close vote for AL Rookie of the Year in 1977 and, more recently, served as a hitting coach for the Cardinals and Nationals. Here are today's links:

Royals Acquire Robert Fish

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The Royals have claimed lefty Robert Fish from the Yankees on outright waivers, according to a team press release. In order to make room for Fish on their 40-man roster, Kansas City has moved right-hander Henry Barrera to the 60-day disabled list.

The Yankees selected Fish, 23, in the Rule 5 Draft this past December out of the Angels organization. Fish was lights out in High-A last season through 16 innings, allowing just two runs and striking out 25. He was torched upon a promotion to Double-A though, primarily due to allowing nine homers through 42 1/3 innings pitched. The result was an unsightly 8.93 ERA, but he maintained his big-time strikeout numbers, posting a K/9 of 10.4.

For his career, Fish has posted a strong 9.1 K/9 through 365 2/3 minor league innings, but he's also allowed far too many baserunners; he's walked 4.2/9 and allowed 9.5 H/9.

Rosenthal On Athletics, Montero, Utley, Ackley

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Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports shared some Sunday morning notes from Spring Training. Let's check out the highlights….

  • With Adam Rosales recovering from December foot surgery, the Athletics would like to add an affordable utility infielder. Even someone like the Tigers' Ramon Santiago would be too expensive for the A's though, so they'll probably opt for an in-house option instead.
  • The Yankees figure to start the year with Jesus Montero as Russell Martin's backup in New York. One scout cautions that the team needs to ease the top prospect into an expanded role, as he adjusts to catching at the big league level.
  • The Phillies' utility infielder candidates have been playing well this spring, so they may not have to explore a contingency plan even if they expect Chase Utley to miss significant time. According to Rosenthal's sources, the Phils can't take on much salary. If the club were to pursue a player like Michael Young, the Rangers would have to take Joe Blanton and include cash in any deal, which Texas isn't inclined to do.
  • With Kyle Drabek and Jesse Litsch the favorites to earn the Blue Jays' two open rotations spots, skipper John Farrell told reporters that Jo-Jo Reyes could crack the 25-man roster as a reliever. Earlier this week, MLBTR's Tim Dierkes examined the possibility of Reyes being a trade candidate.
  • Teammate Chone Figgins likens Mariners prospect Dustin Ackley to "a more athletic Todd Walker," a comparison Rosenthal says is more flattering than you'd initially think.

Yankees, Nationals Scouting Carlos Silva

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The Cubs have been watching Carlos Silva's spring starts closely as they decide whether he deserves a spot in their starting rotation, but Chicago hasn't been the only team following Silva's progress. According to Bruce Levine of ESPNChicago, the Yankees and Nationals are among the clubs scouting the right-hander.

When the Cubs acquired Silva in exchange for Milton Bradley last winter, the Mariners agreed to send $9MM to Chicago in the deal. Seattle will pay $5.5MM of that money this season, reducing the weight of Silva's $11.5MM salary on the Cubs' payroll. Still, given the presence of younger, cheaper starting options, it makes sense that the Cubs would move Silva for a decent offer.

Levine reported last weekend that scouts were on hand to watch Silva's earlier spring start, in which he allowed six runs in the first inning and had a dugout confrontation with Aramis Ramirez. The scouts who watched Silva pitch today presumably came away a little more impressed, as the 31-year-old turned in his best performance so far this spring.

Phillies Notes: Lee, Young, Utley

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Here's the latest from the four-time defending National League East champs…

  • In an interview today on Philadelphia's WIP Radio, Cliff Lee said that his top priority as a free agent was to join the team with the best chance of winning.  After the Phillies, his next choices were the Rangers and the Yankees, in that order.  New York was the third choice since, Lee says, "I felt like with what the Red Sox had done and it seems like some of the Yankee guys are getting older, but I liked the Rangers.”
  • It seems unlikely that the Phillies could manage to take on Michael Young's salary, but Paul Hagen of the Philadelphia Daily News outlines how the Phils could conceivably acquire the Rangers' infielder.  Hagen surmises the club can partially pay for Young if they receive some insurance money back from a lengthy Chase Utley injury, and if the Phillies can move Joe Blanton (owed $17MM over the next two seasons) to the Rangers in the trade.
  • Both Hagen and MLB.com's Todd Zolecki point out that the Phillies want to avoid having their payroll reach the $178MM threshold that would cost them a luxury tax payment.  The Philadelphia payroll currently projects to be in the $165MM-$168MM range.  GM Ruben Amaro tells Zolecki that the team believes Utley "will be healthy enough sooner rather than later," but if the team does look outside the organization for help, MLBTR's Tim Dierkes recently looked at some potential second base candidates.

AL East Clubs Face Varied Challenges In 2011 Draft

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When you hear talk of disparity in baseball, people often point to the AL East, home to two of the biggest spenders in MLB and one of its poorest teams. But as the Rays have shown, small market clubs can offset uneven payrolls by drafting and developing players successfully.

After an offseason in which Tampa Bay saw one ranked free agent after another sign elsewhere, including Boston and New York, the Rays face what could be the most critical amateur draft in their franchise's history. This June, the Rays have an unprecedented number of early picks – they select 12 players in the first two rounds (90 picks). The challenge for executive VP of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and scouting director R.J. Harrison will be selecting future major leaguers with those picks.

Though the Red Sox and Blue Jays aren't close to matching the Rays' record total, they have considerably more picks than average. The Blue Jays have seven picks before the third round and the Red Sox have five, so they face a similar challenge to the one the Rays do: convert their extra picks into potential major leaguers.

Tampa and Boston are two of the six teams (along with the D'Backs, Nationals, Padres and Brewers) that have multiple first round picks, which means seven of the draft's first 33 selections will head to what's arguably baseball's best division.

The Yankees, on the other hand, are one of four clubs that don't select before the supplementary first round (along with the White Sox, Phillies and, last but not least, the Tigers, who don't select until 75 players are off the board). The Orioles select fourth overall, but, like the Yankees, only have two picks in the first two rounds. 

That's not to say that the O's and Yankees can't acquire young talent, however. They can, in theory, spend more money on fewer players in an attempt to lure a select number of top amateurs to their organization. Or they can sign players on the international market and build their farm systems with an aggressive approach abroad (the Yankees recently committed supplemental round money to Dominican righty Juan Carlos Paniagua).

The Rays, Blue Jays and Red Sox will select 24 of the first 90 players in this year's draft (27%). That doesn't mean they'll have productive drafts or that the Yankees and Orioles won't. But for at least a couple of days this June, the Yankees will watch and the Rays will be the ones with the power to acquire top players.

A’s, Yanks Agree To Terms With International FAs

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The Athletics and Yankees have each agreed to terms with an international free agent, according to Ben Badler of Baseball America.

  •  The Athletics have agreed to terms with South Korean catching prospect Seong-Min Kim on a deal worth $510K, writes Badler. One scout told Baseball America that Kim, 17, has plus raw power as a right-handed hitter. Oakland was among the top five spenders in the international free-agent market last offseason with a budget of roughly $5MM, according to Badler. Jin-Young Kim of the Cubs was the only player from South Korea to sign with an MLB team in 2010.
  • The Yankees have agreed to terms with Dominican right-handed pitcher Juan Carlos Paniagua, 20, for $1.1MM, according to Badler. Paniagua, who had previously been suspended by Major League Baseball for one year for age and identity fraud, is 6-foot-1, 170 pounds, Badler writes. His fastball sits in the mid-90s and can touch 98 mph, while scouts are mixed on his secondary pitches. The signing of a previously suspended player for fraud is not unprecedented in MLB nor for the Yankees, for the matter, as Badler notes. Carlos Martinez of the Cardinals and Jose Rafael DePaula of the Bombers are two such examples.

AL East Links: Yankees, Anderson, Slowey

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The Yankees aren't actively pursuing pitching help now, but GM Brian Cashman told Chad Jennings of the Journal News that pitchers with no options remaining and/or bad contract tend to become available later in the spring. Here's the latest on the Yankees' rotation plus other notes from the AL East…

Yankees Not Exploring Trade Market For Pitchers

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The Yankees discussed ways of strengthening their pitching staff this offseason, but now that we're just weeks away from Opening Day, the team is no longer exploring potential deals. GM Brian Cashman told Marc Carig of the Star- Ledger that "there's nothing hot. I've got nothing going on. Zero" (Twitter links).

That's not particularly surprising since the challengers for the two jobs at the back of the club's rotation have been progressing well. Cashman declared that no pitchers were available late last month and the market figures to remain barren for months (you can forget about Felix Hernandez and Francisco Liriano for now).

Freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon, two of the pitchers in competition for the available rotation spots, have clauses in their contracts that allow them to opt out at the end of the spring. However, Colon is willing to pitch in long relief, according to Carig.

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