Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Rays Rumors

Rays Re-Claim Cesar Cabral

By | at

Just two days after losing him to the Blue Jays, the Rays have re-claimed Cesar Cabral. The Tampa Tribune reports that the Rays claimed the left-hander off of waivers from Toronto (Twitter link). The Blue Jays had hoped to work out a trade with the Red Sox, Cabral's original team, but it appears that they were unable to do so.

The Rays selected Cabral in the 2010 Rule 5 draft, so they'll have to offer him back to Boston if they don't keep him on their roster all year. The 22-year-old left-hander posted a 3.63 ERA with 9.1 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9 last year for Boston's Class A affiliates. 

Blue Jays Claim Cesar Cabral

By | at

SUNDAY, 9:08am: Manager John Farrell says the Jays claimed Cabral in hopes of working out a trade with the Red Sox, tweets Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star. If the two sides don't agree on a deal, Cabral will likely go back on waivers.

SATURDAY, 4:14pm: The Blue Jays have claimed left-hander Cesar Cabral on waivers from the Rays, according to a team press release.  To make room on the 40-man roster the club placed right-hander Dustin McGowan on the 60-day disabled list.

Cabral, 22, was selected by the Rays in the 2010 Rule 5 draft from the Red Sox, meaning that Toronto must offer the hurler back if they choose not to keep him.  In 45 appearances for Boston's Single A and Single A advanced affiliates, Cabral posted a 3.63 ERA with 9.1 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9.

Quick Hits: Cabral, Bourn, Greenberg, Aardsma

By | at

On this day in 2004, the Yankees reacquired Orlando Hernandez after trading him away just a year prior.  El Duque missed 2003 with rotator cuff surgery but returned to action in July to give the Bombers a 3.30 ERA with 8.9 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9 across 15 starts..

AL East Clubs Face Varied Challenges In 2011 Draft

By | at

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.

Red Sox Notes: Crawford, Damon, Reyes

By | at

The latest on the Red Sox, as Joe Maddon tells Tim Britton of the Providence Journal that the Red Sox have "an edge right now" and are "the number one contender in a sense," heading into the season…

  • Carl Crawford told Alex Speier of WEEI.com that he hopes Rays fans don't consider him the "villain" when he plays against his former team. Crawford, who says he still loves Rays fans, drew a mostly positive reaction from Rays fans this afternoon.
  • Johnny Damon told Speier that he vetoed last summer's trade to the Red Sox because he thought it was a "slam dunk" that the Tigers would want to retain him for 2011 (Twitter link).
  • Damon also says he thinks Crawford will win a championship during his tenure with the Red Sox.
  • John Tomase of the Boston Herald has a must-read piece on Red Sox left-hander Dennys Reyes and how dependent he is on his non-pitching hand.

Cafardo On Rays, Cameron, Gonzalez, Hale

By | at

Jim Hickey has one of the most important roles in the American League this year, writes Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe. The Rays pitching coach is responsible for rebuilding a Rays bullpen that was depleted by free agency. Hickey says he expects at least one of the team's unheralded arms to break out unexpectedly, adding that if there's going to be a 2011 version of Joaquin Benoit, he'd put his money on Juan Cruz. Here are some of Cafardo's other Sunday notes:

  • Domonic Brown has struggled this spring and is now set to undergo surgery on a broken hand. As such, Mike Cameron remains a potential fit for the Phillies. Cafardo argues that "the only problem with a Cameron-Phillies hookup is that he may be a very valuable member of the Red Sox now that he’s completely recovered from abdominal surgery."
  • Alex Gonzalez doesn't like changing teams as much as he has in the last two seasons, and would have liked to stay in Toronto. Now that he's playing in Atlanta, the shortstop tells Cafardo that he'd "love to stay here for a long time." Gonzalez will be a free agent at season's end.
  • DeMarlo Hale was interviewed for two managerial openings this past offseason, and Cafardo wonders if he'll be hired away from the Red Sox next winter. "Right now," Cafardo says, "there doesn’t appear to be an obvious place for a managerial change next season."

Is James Shields The Next Rays’ Starter To Go?

By | at

Quality starting pitching is the best currency in the game, and no team has traded more of it in recent years than the Rays. They've traded what amounts to an above-average rotation within the last 27 months alone: Matt Garza, Edwin Jackson, Jason Hammel, Mitch Talbot, and Scott Kazmir. There are a number of teams out there that would trade their starting staff for that fivesome right now. 

Tampa was able to trade away all those arms because their farm system continues to pump out top flight pitching prospects. If you dig through Baseball America's all-time top 100 prospects lists, you'll see that the franchise hasn't had a top pitching prospect bust since Dewon Brazelton, the third overall pick in the 2001 draft. That's the result of tremendous scouting and player development, as well as incredible luck. 

357100813012_Orioles_at_Rays If it wasn't for B.J. Upton's brief cameo in 2004, the longest tenured player on the team would be 29-year-old righty James Shields. He's given the Rays four straight seasons of 200+ innings with a 4.17 ERA overall, though he slipped to a 5.18 ERA with a league leading 34 homers allowed last summer. The 2011 season is the last guaranteed year on Shields' contract ($4.25MM), though he would still be under control as an arbitration-eligible player in 2012. The club also holds very affordable options for 2012 ($7MM), 2013 ($9MM), and 2014 ($12MM).

With David Price, Wade Davis, Jeremy Hellickson, and Jeff Niemann still years away from huge paydays, Shields is the obvious candidate to be the next piece of trade bait. That contract is definitely team friendly, and guys that you can pencil in for 200 innings a year don't exactly grow on trees. As an added bonus, his fastball velocity has actually increased over the last few years, quite uncommon for pitchers that have logged so many innings. Throw in AL East and playoff experience, and you've got a hot commodity. Just look at the demand for Garza. 

Alex Torres (acquired in the Kazmir trade) and Alex Cobb will begin the 2011 season just a phone call away in Triple-A, and they represent the next wave of pitching help. Behind them will be Nick Barnese, Alex Colome, and Matt Moore in Double-A, and soon enough we'll be talking about Enny Romero and Jake Thompson in the same way. All seven of those guys were ranked among the team's 16 best prospects in the latest edition of Baseball America's Prospect Handbook.

Both the Rangers and Rockies had their eye on Shields this offseason, but the market for his services certainly wouldn't be limited to those two clubs. The Yankees and Nationals are known to be seeking pitching at the moment, and the Cardinals could also join the mix in the wake of Adam Wainwright's injury. More than likely, Tampa will hold onto Shields at least for the first half of the season before deciding to move him. They also have the option of waiting until next offseason, when they could take advantage of a thin free agent pitching market.

The Rays have been very successful in recent years thanks to their never-ending cycle of pitching. They get what they can out of a pitcher, then trade him once his contract becomes prohibitive and simply replace him with another high-end, young (and cheap) arm. Shields has started the last three Opening Days for Tampa, but 2011 could be his last with the team.

Photo courtesy of Icon SMI.

Union Chief: Contraction Not A Likely Threat To Rays

By | at

Contraction is not likely to be a threat to the Rays existence, according to players union chief Michael Weiner, writes Marc Topkin St. Petersburg Times.  Furthermore, if the owners do raise the idea of eliminating teams in the upcoming labor negotiations, the union is poised to fight it.

"Having been in bargaining in baseball since the late '80s, anything is fathomable, so we don't either take anything for granted or rule anything out,'' Weiner said after meeting with Rays players . "…All I would say is if that changes, if contraction becomes a goal of the owners in this negotiation, the tenor of the talks would change quickly and dramatically.''

Comissioner Bud Selig was also asked about the issue of contraction today and said that it is not an option – even for teams struggling financially such as the Rays and Athletics, writes Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times.

Weiner added that the union is less-than-thrilled with Tampa Bay's slashing of payroll and will monitor the club's spending in order to ensure its long-term health.  The team's payroll is expected to be less than $60MM, a drop-off from $72MM in 2010.

Contraction is not likely to be a threat to the Rays existence, players union chief Michael Weiner said today, and if the owners do raise the idea of eliminating teams in the upcoming labor negotiations, the union is poised to fight it.

New York Notes: Izzy, Crawford, Perez, Montero

By | at

One year ago today, the Mets signed Kiko Calero, who was coming off of a season in which he posted a 1.95 ERA with 10.4 K/9 for the Marlins. Calero never pitched for the Mets and the team released him in May. Here are today's New York notes…

  • Jason Isringhausen will retire if he doesn't make the Mets' roster this spring, the veteran reliever tells Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
  • Carl Crawford didn't think the Yankees had much interest in him this winter, and Brian Cashman confirmed as much to Gordon Edes of ESPNBoston.com.  Crawford "didn't mesh with what we had here and my need for starting pitching" and while Cashman is a Crawford fan, "I've got someone I'm excited about in Brett Gardner, who's $142MM less."  (both Twitter links)
  • With Chris Capuano and Chris Young in line to win rotation spots, it all but confirms that the Mets will release Oliver Perez, says ESPNNewYork.com's Adam Rubin.
  • Jesus Montero appears to have an excellent chance of winning the Yankees' backup catcher job, since Francisco Cervelli will miss at least four weeks with a broken foot. Yankees GM Brian Cashman says he has no interest in delaying Montero's arbitration clock by holding him back for the first few months of the season (Twitter link).
  • Before the injury, Chad Jennings of the Journal News reports that the Yankees seem legitimately impressed by Montero's improvement behind the plate. It appeared early on that the Yankees would send Montero to the minors to play every day, but as ESPN.com's Buster Olney explains, Montero has become a better, more dedicated catcher and remains a force at the plate.
  • Francisco Rodriguez told Newsday's David Lennon that he wants to do "double" this year in order to regain the confidence of Mets fans after a trying 2010 season. Rodriguez repeated that he isn't worried about the 2012 option that vests at $17.5MM if he finishes 55 games this season.
  • Johnny Damon told Peter Botte of the New York Daily News that he was never close to returning to the Yankees, since he isn't ready to be a part-time player and the Yankees have a DH and three outfielders. In a few years, however, Damon says he'll be ready for a part-time role.

MLBTR's Mark Polishuk also contributed to this post

Two Carl Crawford Deals That Could Have Been

By | at

Boston offered Victor Martinez to Tampa Bay for Carl Crawford before the 2010 season, according to Tom Verducci of SI.com. Though the Rays were open to the deal, they told the Red Sox they’d have to pursue other trades to make the swap work. Tampa Bay’s secondary moves fell through, so Crawford and Martinez stayed put.

The Red Sox weren't the only AL East team with interest in Crawford, but they showed considerably more interest than the Yankees. Crawford told Rob Bradford of WEEI.com that he doesn't think the Yankees were seriously interested in his services last winter when he hit free agency. “If the Yankees want somebody they go out and get them, don’t they?,” Crawford asked. Cliff Lee notwithstanding, he has a point.

Show all

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top