Stark On White Sox, Bedard, A’s, Penny
A new Rumblings and Grumblings column from ESPN's Jayson Stark…
- Even if they don't acquire Jake Peavy, the White Sox are apparently "open for business." Stark takes that to mean names such as Jermaine Dye, Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, Octavio Dotel, and A.J. Pierzynski could hit the market.
- The Mariners are not quite yet at the point of making Erik Bedard available. They figure to price him like an ace if they do so.
- If A's GM Billy Beane decides to fold on 2009, he could make veterans such as Matt Holliday, Orlando Cabrera, Jason Giambi, and Russ Springer available.
- It's very unlikely that the D'Backs shop Brandon Webb this summer, since he'll be coming off a shoulder injury.
- Indians GM Mark Shapiro seems to be leaning toward hanging on to Cliff Lee for now. Shapiro may look to add pitching by trading Mark DeRosa or an outfielder.
- The Red Sox are "actively listening" on Brad Penny. My opinion: the Phillies, Indians, White Sox, or Mets could make sense.
Brewers Acquire Jody Gerut For Tony Gwynn Jr.
1:58pm: According to Craig Elsten of 619 Sports, the Brewers acquired Jody Gerut from the Padres for Tony Gwynn Jr. MLB.com's Corey Brock confirms it.
Gerut, 31, had a fine comeback year in '08 but is off to a .221/.248/.381 start in 121 plate appearances this year. He's played center and right field for the Padres. His defense rates as a plus. Since he has decent service time he's up to a $1.775MM salary.
Gwynn cleared waivers in April, so the Padres could've had him for nothing at that time. He didn't hit much in Triple A last year.
1:24pm: Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel passes along a tweet from Brewers assistant GM Gord Ash:
The Brewers will have a press release on a player transaction in the next hour.
That message was posted at about 1pm CST. Haudricourt says it is not Jake Peavy.
Padres Promote Pitching Prospects: Plausible Peavys?
Mat Latos and Will Inman, two of the best pitching prospects in the San Diego organization, each moved up a level, according to Corey Brock of MLB.com.
Latos jumped from Low-A Fort Wayne directly to Double-A San Antonio, skipping High-A entirely. That's what a 3-0 record, 0.36 ERA will do for you.
Inman moved to Triple-A Portland after posting a 4-1 record and 3.05 ERA in San Antonio.
Why does this matter? Because both pitchers are candidates to replace Jake Peavy in the rotation should the Padres decide to move him. San Diego doesn't look like it needs to aggressively promote in order to help with the 2009 pennant chase, after all.
Odds & Ends: Boras, Francoeur, Cubs
Links for Tuesday…
- This week's chat will be held tomorrow at 2pm CST.
- MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo discusses the Scott Boras effect on this year's draft, while Baseball America's John Manuel provides a draft overview.
- SI's Tom Verducci explains why the Rangers are for real. At 23-14, they're in first place (4 games ahead of the Angels).
- Andrew Beaton of Hot Foot provides a rebuttal to The Jonathan Sanchez Paradox: Oliver Perez.
- Padres exec Paul DePodesta talks about recently acquired shortstop Josh Wilson.
- MLB.com's Mark Bowman writes about the Jeff Francoeur situation.
- According to Ameet Sachdev of the Chicago Tribune, actors Bill Murray, Jim Belushi, and John Cusack have met separately with Tom Ricketts about investing in the Cubs.
- RotoAuthority looks at the groundball rate leaderboard…did you know Gil Meche is second?
More Changes To Come For Padres?
Padres Claim Josh Wilson, DFA Duaner Sanchez
MLB.com's Corey Brock took to his Twitter account this evening for a few announcements: The Padres have claimed infielder Josh Wilson and designated reliever Duaner Sanchez for assignment.
Wilson, 28, was DFA'd by the Diamondbacks this week after starting the season with a .231/.333/.269 line in 11 games. He'll provide infield depth for the Padres, especially at shortstop. We actually discussed the club's infield situation with Brock just one day ago. The D'Backs, according to MLB.com's Steve Gilbert, signed Abraham Nunez out of the independent league partially to compensate for the loss of infield depth.
Sanchez, a 29-year-old right-hander, went 1-1 with a 9.00 ERA, 2.36 WHIP and 2/8 K/BB ratio in 11 innings after being signed by the San Diego on March 15. Those numbers were simply unacceptable, even for the 13-22 Padres.
Odds & Ends: Sheets, Blanco, Coghlan
Links for Friday…
- RotoAuthority talks about the popular fantasy pickups this week.
- Rangers GM Jon Daniels says Ben Sheets is "watching from a distance" while recovering from elbow surgery, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports.
- MLB.com's T.R. Sullivan says the Rangers "apparently are in position to sign Guillermo Pimentel, a top outfield prospect from the Dominican Republic" for $1.5-2MM.
- Amalie Benjamin of the Boston Globe says Red Sox reliever Javier Lopez cleared waivers and will head to Triple A.
- Sam Miller of the OC Register assembled a lineup/slideshow of prospects who deserve a big league shot.
- Henry Blanco isn't sure why he wasn't able to re-sign with the Cubs, according to the Chicago Tribune's Paul Sullivan.
- Nick Yohanek, the fan who caught Chris Coghlan's first big league home run, explains his side of the story in asking for the following for the ball: a signed Coghlan game bat, a signed Coghlan ball, and a Hanley Ramirez game bat. What's your take on this?
Possibilities For Padres At No. 3
The Padres have the third overall pick in the June draft, and ESPN's Keith Law has info on their preferences:
Keith Law has learned that the Padres, owners of the No. 3 overall pick, are high on Cartersville High School (Ga.) CF Donavan Tate, USC SS Grant Green, Missouri RHP Kyle Gibson and Fort Worth Cats RHP Aaron Crow.
In a mock draft released today, Baseball America projected Green as San Diego's pick.
Both articles linked in this post require subscriptions to read fully. As someone who devours tons of baseball information every day, I highly recommend subscribing to both Baseball America and ESPN Insider. You can get three months at BA for $26, and a year of ESPN Insider for $40.
The San Diego Infield
The Padres lost shortstop Luis Rodriguez to a severely sprained ankle last night and now have a fairly serious depth issue at the position. MLB.com's David Brown spoke after the game with manager Bud Black, who noted "noted the presence of (Chris) Burke, along with David Eckstein and Edgar Gonzalez as options 'in a pinch' but indicated general manager Kevin Towers would be working on bringing in someone else."
"We're working our way through that right now," Black added. "K.T., I'm sure, as we speak, is doing evertyhing he can to try to fill that void."
Odds & Ends: Bonds, Armas, Strasburg
Links for Wednesday…
- MLB.com's Joe Frisaro says the Royals received righty Eric Basurto as the player to be named later in the Ross Gload trade.
- Tom Glavine hopes to pitch in the Majors this month, according to MLB.com's Mark Bowman.
- Back on May 3rd, Bill Shaikin of the L.A. Times wrote about the possibility of Barry Bonds signing with the independent league Long Beach Armada (the team already employs Hideki Irabu and Jose Lima). But Bonds' agent Jeff Borris said, "He's not going to do that."
- It appears that Tony Armas Jr. signed a minor league deal with the Braves after the Mets released him.
- Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News says Padres beat writer Tom Krasovic of the San Diego Union-Tribune will be out of a job come August. Sorry to hear it; Krasovic does excellent work.
- MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo talked to Tony Gwynn about Stephen Strasburg.
- Johnny Damon talked about his future again, this time with MLB.com's Bryan Hoch.
- Jim Thome would like to return to the White Sox next year, based on his comments to MLB.com's Scott Merkin.