The Mariners are in active trade discussions involving closer Tom Wilhelmsen and reliever Oliver Perez, tweets Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports. The Orioles are actively pursuing Perez and Mike Morse, tweets Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun, and would like to acquire both. The Rays are interested in Morse, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.
Mariners Rumors
MLB Preparing 50-Game Suspensions In Biogenesis Case
12:33am: Cruz has not decided whether he will serve his suspension or appeal it, according to Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (on Twitter).
7:17pm: Major League Baseball is preparing 50-game suspensions for Biogenesis-linked players who have not been disciplined in the past, writes Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.
Players such as Nelson Cruz, Jhonny Peralta, Everth Cabrera, Jesus Montero and Francisco Cervelli are among those facing these 50-game suspensions, as are minor leaguers Fernando Martinez, Cesar Puello and Fautino de los Santos. Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports writes that the vast majority of players connected to these 50-game suspensions — including playoff contenders Cruz and Peralta — are believed to be willing to accept the punishment rather than file appeals. Doing so will allow suspended players to play toward the end of September and into the playoffs, though their teams would be at a significant disadvantage down the stretch
Passan also tweets that MLB has threatened to double the penalty for players who do not cooperate with the suspensions, making cooperation a much more appealing option. Additionally, he adds that players who lied during the investigation could receive an additional 15 games on their suspensions, similar to Ryan Braun's case (Twitter link).
Bartolo Colon, Melky Cabrera and Yasmani Grandal are not likely to receive additional suspensions, having already served 50-game bans, according to Heyman. Both Heyman and Passan agree that Alex Rodriguez remains firm in his refusal to cooperate with a deal, as was reported earlier today. MLB would like Rodriguez to serve a suspension through the 2014 season but could pursue a lifetime ban if he does not cooperate.
Orioles Trade Targets: Byrd, Oliver Perez
The Orioles currently stand to take the second wild card spot in the American League, and they've already bolstered their pitching staff with the additions of Scott Feldman and Francisco Rodriguez. Here's the latest on their trade targets, courtesy of Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun:
- Connolly feels the Phillies' Michael Young is the best fit for the Orioles at DH, but the team hasn't made an aggressive push for him at this point. Connolly expects Young to go elsewhere if traded.
- The Orioles are interested in the Mets' Marlon Byrd. However, Andy Martino of the New York Daily News writes today that Byrd is "highly unlikely" to be traded. Connolly also believes Mariners lefty reliever Oliver Perez is the most likely player to be acquired by the Orioles.
- Connolly says to forget about Cliff Lee and Jake Peavy. Instead, the O's have coveted the Astros' Bud Norris and Chris Sale of the White Sox.
- Connolly expects the Orioles to pass on the Twins' Justin Morneau.
- Orioles minor leaguers Mike Wright, Tim Berry, and Christian Walker have piqued teams' interests.
- Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette feels he has the money and prospects to make a deal, if the right one comes along.
Rangers Not Planning More Significant Moves
Four straight losses have dropped the Rangers to 1.5 games out in the wild card. Here's the latest:
- The Rangers aren't planning on making any major moves prior to the deadline, writes Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. General manager Jon Daniels doesn't think his team will acquire a significant right-handed bat, nor does he plan on trading Joe Nathan. Daniels told Wilson that the idea of trading Nathan never gained much traction: "We'll talk about anything," Daniels said. "That's our jobs, but talking about something and having it happen are very different things." Wilson adds that the Rangers haven't had any serious talks about Alex Rios, Hunter Pence or Kendrys Morales recently, and they were never that big on the idea of re-acquiring Michael Young or Marlon Byrd.
Earlier Updates
- The Rangers are strongly considering standing pat, writes Yahoo's Jeff Passan.
- Manny Ramirez doesn't have an opt-out in his minor league deal with the Rangers, writes Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, but the team "never intended to keep him dangling." They haven't yet decided whether they'll keep Manny in the organization, though they aren't expected to promote him. The 41-year-old is hitting .269/.347/.418 in 75 Triple-A plate appearances.
- "I've never had to worry about this stuff before and I'm not going to start now," closer Joe Nathan told Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News regarding his rumored availability. It's hard to picture which contender could offer a quality bat for a closer, anyway.
Why Aren’t There More Sellers This Year?
Major League Baseball should consider moving the non-waiver trade deadline to August 10 or August 15, Jon Morosi of FOX Sports tweets. The current trade market has many potential buyers and not many clear sellers, and the idea is that, by extending the trading period an extra two weeks, there will be greater clarity about which teams are out of the playoff hunt.
Whether or not Morosi's suggestion is the right idea, it does seem to be a response to a real phenomenon. At least three GMs of contending teams (the Cardinals' John Mozeliak, the Tigers' Dave Dombrowski, and the Indians' Chris Antonetti) have recently said that this year's market includes few sellers.
It's undoubtedly true that, if the deadline were extended, teams would have more information to make a decision about whether to buy or sell. But this year, at least, many teams appear to be basing their trade deadline behavior not on their realistic probability of making the playoffs, but on other factors.
There are five playoff spots for each league. According to Baseball Prospectus' Playoff Odds Report, four National League teams (the Cardinals, Braves, Pirates and Reds) have better than a 90% chance of making the playoffs, while the Dodgers have an 85.5% chance. The only other team above 10% is the Diamondbacks.
In the American League, four teams (the Rays, Tigers, Red Sox and Athletics) have at least a 90% chance of making the playoffs. Four other teams (the Rangers, Orioles, Indians and Yankees) have at least a 10% chance.
That makes 14 teams with a realistic shot at the playoffs, and 16 teams who are out of the race completely or would need to go on a serious tear to get back in it. And yet it's not as if there are 16 sellers. The Nationals (7.4%), Rockies (1.9%), Royals (1.8%), Mariners (0.5%), Mets (0.4%), and Blue Jays (0.2%) show few indications of becoming sellers in the traditional sense, while the Angels (1.4%), Giants (0.9%) and Phillies (0.8%) seem to be only now opening themselves to that possibility.
So why is the market so slow? Here are a few reasons.
- There are fewer players to deal. Mozeliak pointed out yesterday that as more young players sign long-term contracts, there are simply fewer talented players approaching free agency, and therefore fewer interesting players to trade.
- There are two Wild Cards now. The second Wild Card currently has no impact on the number of contenders in the National League — the Pirates and Reds have fairly strong grips on the two Wild Card spots, and both would be contenders even if there were only one Wild Card. In the American League, though, the Yankees would be 7 1/2 games out of the playoff race if it weren't for the second Wild Card, and the Rangers and Orioles probably wouldn't feel particularly good about their playoff chances, either. That might not change the number of sellers, but it would at least reduce the number of buyers.
- Players traded at midseason no longer come with draft-pick compensation. Teams used to be able to receive compensatory draft picks for players they acquired in midseason trades. Now, such players are not eligible to receive qualifying offers, so the teams that acquire them lose out on that extra bit of value.
- Buyers are increasingly reluctant to overpay. Many of this year's buyers are teams that must depend on their own young talent to contend. The Rays, for example, tend not to be big players at the trade deadline, because it's usually not in their interest to give up on prospects (and perhaps also because of financial reasons). The same can be said, this year, of at least the Pirates and Athletics. And even beyond the fact that this year's crop of contenders includes several small-payroll teams, most organizations are increasingly aware of the quantitative value of the moves they make, and midseason trades generally tend not to create many extra wins, as ESPN's Mike Petriello recently pointed out (Insider-only). Zack Greinke produced 1.4 WAR down the stretch for the Angels in 2012, and didn't pitch in a single postseason game for them — and the Angels gave up Jean Segura to get him. That's an outcome that should terrify contending teams.
- Bad teams simply have few players to trade. Teams that have poor records tend not to have many players performing well. This is true every year, of course, but this year, two teams that have shown a willingness to sell veterans and rebuild — the Marlins and Astros — have already largely done so, and have few talented veterans left to offer.
- This isn't fantasy baseball. As ESPN's Buster Olney recently pointed out (Insider-only), becoming a seller essentially means telling your fans the season is over. A team's baseball interests might dictate that it should sell, but its business interests might dictate otherwise. This year, this idea might apply to the Phillies (who have an aging core), Royals (who are currently .500, and who have had one winning season in the past 19 years), Blue Jays (who invested heavily in the 2013 season last winter) and Mets (who are planning to dramatically raise their payroll next year).
For some teams, several of these factors are in play. For example, Jeff Sullivan of U.S.S. Mariner recently showed that the Mariners, who are 50-55, simply aren't likely to improve themselves much at the deadline. Most of their better players, like Kyle Seager and Felix Hernandez, are younger (and Hernandez, after signing an extension, is under team control for the foreseeable future). Of their veterans, Kendrys Morales isn't a great fit for most of the playoff contenders, Raul Ibanez is a 41-year-old defensive liability, Michael Morse is also poor defensively and hasn't played since June (although he's about to return), and the M's have Hisashi Iwakuma signed to a cheap contract through 2015. The result is that they don't have many players other teams would want and that they should be motivated to deal. There's reliever Oliver Perez and perhaps Morse, and that's about it. If the Mariners were to go on a trading spree, they likely would not get much back in return, and so it may, in fact, be better for them to mostly sit tight, even though they aren't contending, and allow their fans to enjoy the last two months of the season.
The result of the current market is that there are only a handful of teams who are motivated to sell, and those don't have much a contender would be motivated to buy, particularly now that the Cubs have already completed several trades. Whether or not this is a problem that ought to be fixed is debatable, but let's assume that it is. Moving the deadline to mid-August might increase trade activity to a degree, but not primarily because the playoff races will be clearer by then. Rather, it's because the baseball-vs.-business problem Olney mentions will be less of an issue. From a business perspective, it's easier for a team to throw in the towel with six weeks left in the season than with eight weeks left. Moving the deadline to August would help teams on the fringes of contention maintain fan interest for two more weeks of the summer, allowing them to trade off their popular veterans for young talent in August, right before the start of the football season. Regardless of the exact date of the deadline, though, the number of teams that look, on paper, like sellers will probably be larger than the number of teams that are actually motivated to sell.
Orioles Notes: Young, Morneau, Morse
Earlier tonight, we learned that the Orioles could be fairly serious about making a play for Jake Peavy. Here's more out of Baltimore..
- Gordon Edes of ESPNBoston.com names the Orioles as a primary team involved in talks for the Phillies'Michael Young, along with the Rangers and Red Sox. The versatile Young appears to make the most sense for Baltimore as a DH, Edes says. T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com reported earlier this evening that the Rangers aren't planning to reunite with Young.
- A top Orioles scout was in Seattle this week as the Mariners took on the Twins, who have made Justin Morneau available, Dan Connolly of The Baltimore Sun reports. An industry source tells Connolly that the Orioles have asked the Twins about the former MVP, who will earn about $6MM over the rest of the season, though the talks are considered "preliminary." As Connolly notes, DH might be Baltimore's biggest hole.
- The O's have liked Seattle's Mike Morse for years, Connolly adds. Morse, 31, is currently rehabbing a quadriceps injury in Triple-A, but has hit .251/.313/.454 in 227 plate appearances so far this year, appearing mainly in the outfield. Connolly also says the O's could add still another arm, potentially a lefty for a late-inning role, noting that the Mariners'Oliver Perez could fit that bill. However, "the sense within the organization" is that the Orioles might be done shopping, as the team is hesitant to add payroll and won't send top prospects in a deal for a rental player.
Aaron Steen contributed to this post.
Phillies, Rangers Have Discussed Michael Young
7:17pm: The Rangers have no plans to bring back Young, major league sources tell T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com. A trade for the infielder "is not going to happen."
12:56pm: The Phillies and Rangers have had discussions about a trade shipping infielder Michael Young back to Texas, reports ESPN's Jayson Stark. We learned yesterday from CBSSports.com's Jon Heyman that the Rangers were considering Young internally. Talks have been "exploratory" in nature, says Stark, and the clubs are not close to an agreement.
For the Rangers, Stark echoes recent reports that the team is focused on acquiring a right-handed bat. With Texas focused primarily on nabbing a player who can man the outfield, he says that Young is more of a back-up option. In addition to other players previously linked to the Rangers — such as Alex Rios of the White Sox, Hunter Pence of the Giants, Justin Ruggiano of the Marlins, and Kendrys Morales of the Mariners – Stark notes that Seattle's Michael Morse is on Texas's radar.
On the Philadelphia side of the ledger, sources tell Stark that the Phils have indicated an increasing willingness to listen on veterans after the team's recent slide. The names that could generate attention include — unsurprisingly — Young, catcher Carlos Ruiz, closer Jonathan Papelbon, and ace Cliff Lee. (We learned about Lee's potential availability yesterday.) As has long been been the case, Young is believed to be the most likely among those players to swap teams before the deadline. Other potential suitors for Young include the Yankees, Red Sox, and Reds.
Mariners Sign Humberto Quintero
The Mariners have signed catcher Humberto Quintero, Chris Cotillo of MLB Daily Dish tweets. Quintero has taken the 25-man roster spot formerly occupied by Mike Zunino, who is currently on the disabled list with a fractured hamate bone after being struck on the hand by a foul ball yesterday.
Quintero recently became a free agent after the Phillies designated him for assignment and he cleared waivers. He has a career .238/.268/.327 line in 11 seasons with the Padres, Astros, Royals and Phillies.
Jake Peavy Rumors: Friday
Jake Peavy made what could have been his last start as a member of the White Sox yesterday, beating the Tigers after he allowed four runs on four hits and two walks with seven strikeouts in seven innings. He was done in by a trio of homers, but Peavy also fired 118 pitches, which has to be seen as a positive sign following his recent stint on the disabled list. The Cardinals, Braves, Dodgers, Orioles and Reds were all reported yesterday to have scouts in attendance for the start. Here are Friday's Peavy-related rumors…
- The Braves could become a wild card in the Peavy sweepstakes, Jon Heyman of CBS Sports confirms. The current frontrunners for Peavy appear to be the A's, Cardinals and Red Sox at this time, adds Heyman.
Earlier Updates
- Following Thursday reports that the Braves will look to upgrade their rotation in the wake of Tim Hudson's season-ending injury, David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets that Peavy is a "legit possibility" for Atlanta. Danny Knobler of CBS Sports reminded readers in yesterday's column the the Braves have had interest in Peavy and attempted to trade for him in the past.
- The Mariners had high-level scouts present at Peavy's start yesterday, tweets Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports. Recent reports have said that the Mariners aren't planning to sell, and they improved to 9-1 in their last 10 games by squashing the Twins last night.
Prospect Rumor Roundup: Early Draft Returns
The 2013 amateur draft is now fully in the rearview mirror and a new wave of talent has filtered into the professional ranks. Some of the '13 draftees have been riding the buses for more than a month now, while others have only recently pulled on their spikes. Below is a look at first round picks who are off to impressive starts with their new organizations. Standard warnings about reading too much into small sample sizes apply.
Mark Appel, RHP, Astros (1st overall): The top selection in the 2013 draft has made four starts in the minors and has already earned a promotion, moving from the New York Penn League to the Midwest League. Despite a bit of a layoff between the college season and his first pro appearance, the Stanford alum has displayed good control with just one walk in 13 innings while striking out 13 batters. Curt Rallo, writing for MiLB.com, recently caught up with Appel and spoke to him about the adjustments he's making as a professional baseball player.
Kohl Stewart, RHP, Twins (4th): The highest drafted prep product, 18-year-old Kohl has acclimatized well to his new life as a pro ball player. Stewart, a Texas native, features a 1.80 ERA with nine strikeouts in 10 innings of work over four appearances (two starts).
Clint Frazier, OF, Indians (5th): The 18-year-old Frazier is stinging the ball through his first 18 pro games. He's hitting more than .300 with nine extra base hits. On the down side, he's whiffed 24 times, including nine strikeouts in his last four games. Clearly, he has some further adjustments to make if he hopes to see continued success on the diamond.
Hunter Dozier, SS, Royals (8th): The Royals' first pick received a lot of attention for being an overdraft so the club could later afford pitcher Sean Manaea, who slipped out of first round consideration due to injury concerns. Dozier, though, is making the decision to pick him eighth overall look inspired. He has an .856 OPS and 20 of his 37 hits have gone for extra bases during his time in the Pioneer League. Dozier has also walked more than he's struck out (19-16). His first professional baseball club, the Idaho Falls Chukars, recently published an audio Q&A with the first rounder.
D.J. Peterson, 3B, Mariners (12th): Peterson was promoted from the Northwest League to the Midwest League on Tuesday and he will leave behind some impressive numbers. The third baseman popped six home runs and posted a .915 OPS in 29 games. He also showed solid contact skills with a strikeout rate of just under 15%, which is impressive given his power output.
Reese McGuire, C, Pirates (14th): The Pirates had two first round selections in 2013 and McGuire has gotten off to a quicker start than his new teammate Austin Meadows. The young catcher is hitting more than .400 with a 1.012 OPS through his first 15 games. He's also impressing behind the plate by catching 50% of base runners attempting to steal. John Lembo of the Bradenton Herald spoke to both McGuire and Meadows about their thoughts of growing up in the Pirates organization.
J.P. Crawford, SS, Phillies (16th): Philadelphia has been snakebitten over the past few years when it comes to their first round draft picks, and the organization is clearly hoping for bigger and better things from Crawford. He's off to a good start in Rookie ball where he's compiled 25 hits and seven walks in 18 games, good for a .427 on-base percentage. By getting on base at such a good clip, it should allow him to pile up some steals thanks to his above-average speed.
Tim Anderson, SS, White Sox (18th): Anderson is the third shortstop on this list who's off to a quick start to his career. Playing in low-A ball, he's getting on base at a solid clip (.371 OBP) while nabbing 12 bases in 15 attempts through the first 32 games of his pro career. One red flag, though, is his strikeout rate of 25%, especially given that power is not a big part of his game right now; an improvement in his contact rate would likely help him improve his on-base percentage even further. Anderson could move quickly through the Sox system, which could help to explain why the club may be willing to part with incumbent shortstop Alexei Ramirez. Michael Teague of MiLB.com spoke to the young prospect shortly after he was named the top junior college athlete in the country for 2013.
Jonathon Crawford, RHP, Tigers (20th): Crawford has opened his pro career in the New York Penn League and he's expected to be one of the first college-groomed draft picks to reach the Major League level. Through six appearances, he's looking good with a 2.03 ERA and 16 strikeouts in 13 1/3 innings of work. He was downright unhittable in three of those appearances (totaling six innings). Lynn Henning of the Detroit News spoke to Crawford's manager in Connecticut about the recent draft pick's positive start to his career.
Billy McKinney, OF, Athletics (24th): After batting just .242 with a .558 OPS in June, McKinney has heated up in July and currently has a .367 average and .861 OPS. The left-handed-hitting Texas native has improved his game in part by making more contact and lowering his strikeout rate. He's also holding his own against southpaws, which is impressive to see from such a young hitter.