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Trade Involving Blue Jays, Rangers Fell Through

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The Rangers, Blue Jays, and an unknown third team agreed on a trade about two weeks ago that would have sent Sergio Santos to Texas, reports Jon Morosi and Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. However, according to the FOX duo, the agreement fell through when another player involved in the swap failed his physical (Twitter links).

It's not clear if Texas and Toronto will attempt to revisit the deal in another form, but as Morosi notes (via Twitter), the news suggests that the Rangers are still looking to bolster their bullpen. The Jays, on the other hand, seem very open to using their crop of relievers as trade bait to improve in other areas.

Santos, 30, has missed a good chunk of the last two season with injuries, but was excellent when he was healthy this past season, recording a 1.75 ERA and 9.8 K/9 in 29 appearances.

Marlins Telling Teams They Will Trade Logan Morrison Shortly

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3:50pm: The Brewers aren't on the verge of acquiring Morrison, GM Doug Melvin tells Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (on Twitter).

3:16pm: The Orioles have also checked in on Morrison, according to Morosi (on Twitter).

3:11pm: The Rays are not close to acquiring Morrison, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post (on Twitter). Sherman takes the report a step further noting that the Rays never engaged the Marlins on Morrison.

2:49pm: ESPN's Jayson Stark tweets that the Marlins are telling other clubs they will trade Morrison shortly. Stark again lists the Rays as a possibility.

2:33pm: Jon Heyman of CBS Sports tweets that interest in Morrison is picking up and adds the Brewers and Blue Jays to the list of interested parties (Twitter link).

2:07pm: The Pirates' interest in Morrison is "mild" at this point, according to Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Twitter link). Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports tweets that the Rays are also interested in Morrison.

11:55am: The Pirates are discussing first base upgrades and the names of Logan Morrison and Adam Lind have come up recently, reports Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports (Twitter link).

Pittsburgh was first connected to Lind last week. Those reports also connected the Buccos to James Loney, but Morosi specifically notes in his tweet that they're currently looking at the trade market (perhaps the result of Loney's three-year, $30MM target on the open market). Lind struggles tremendously against left-handed pitching, but the Pirates possess an in-house platoon candidate in the form of Gaby Sanchez. Lind's left-handed pop would play well at PNC Park, amplifying his career .286/.343/.508 line against right-handed pitching.

Morrison, 26, is likely to be available on the trade market now that the Marlins have finalized their two-year deal with Garrett Jones. LoMo has clashed with the Marlins' organization on numerous occasions and is expected to be heavily shopped this week. Morrison has batted just .236/.321/.387 over his past two big league seasons after slashing .259/.351/.460 through his first two Major League campaigns.

Bartolo Colon’s Market Heating Up

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3:01pm: Peter Gammons noted on the MLB Network's broadcast that the Mariners have been in on Colon from the beginning and mentioned the Blue Jays as a possibility as well.

2:35pm: Colon's market is heating up, Jon Heyman of CBS Sports hears (on Twitter). Heyman lists the Orioles and Mets as possibilities, noting that if Colon signs a one-year deal it could be north of $10MM.

1:18pm: The Mets and Adam Katz of the Wasserman Media Group — Bartolo Colon's agent — had a meeting today, according to Sweeny Murti of WFAN (Twitter link). Andy Martino of the New York Daily News tweets that the Mets aren't considered to be serious suitors for Colon, as they feel him to be too expensive.

Colon, 40, posted a sterling 2.65 ERA with 5.5 K/9 and 1.4 BB/9 with the A's in 2013 but doesn't figure to return to Oakland now that the A's have inked Scott Kazmir to a two-year pact. Katz is also the agent for Nelson Cruz, though the Amazins don't appear to be a good fit for Cruz after bringing in Chris Young and Curtis Granderson in recent weeks.

Roy Halladay To Retire

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Roy Halladay is retiring from baseball, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. Halladay will sign a one-day contract with the Blue Jays today so that he can announce his retirement from the game as a member of the Jays, adds Heyman (Twitter links).

Halladay-Roy

Halladay, 36, has been hampered by shoulder injuries in each of the past two seasons and underwent surgery to attempt to repair the issue in May 2013. He returned to the mound for the Phillies in late August and made six more starts but still wound up posting an uncharacteristic 6.82 ERA in his final, injury-riddled campaign.

Halladay, affectionately referred to as "Doc," spent the better portion of a decade as one of the greatest pitchers of his time. From 2001-2011, Halladay pitched an even 2300 innings and posted a stellar 2.98 ERA with 7.0 K/9 and a brilliant 1.6 K/9. Despite pitching in two of baseball's most hitter-friendly environments — Toronto's Rogers Centre and Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park — Halladay yielded just 0.7 homers per nine innings in that time as well.

That peak run for Halladay saw him pile up accolade after accolade; Doc was named to eight All-Star teams, won a pair of Cy Young Awards and added in five other Top 5 finishes in the Cy Young voting — most recently finishing runner-up in 2011. Halladay finished in the Top 10 in NL MVP voting in both 2010 an 2011 as well.

Perhaps most famously, Halladay will be remembered for firing a no-hitter in Game 1 of the 2010 National League Division Series against the Reds, with a fifth-inning walk to Jay Bruce being the lone plate appearance preventing him from a perfect game. Just five months prior, Halladay had hurled a perfect game against the Marlins during the regular season.

Halladay's sudden retirement brings to close a career that will finish with a 203-105 record, a 3.38 ERA and 2,117 strikeouts in 2,749 1/3 innings pitched. Halladay's 67 complete games and 20 shutouts are a rarity in today's game of specialized bullpens, and they serve as a testament to the durability and mental acumen that allowed him to lead the league in innings pitched on four separate occasions. Baseball-Reference.com values his career at 65.6 wins above replacement, and Fangraphs is even more generous, rating him at 67.6 WAR. Halladay earned just shy of $149MM in his career, per Baseball-Reference.

Congratulations on a great career to one of the best of our generation, and best of luck in life after baseball, Roy.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Quick Hits: Astros, Papelbon, Happ, Betancourt

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As we wind up one of the busiest weeks in the history of baseball transactions, here are a few more notes as we head into the weekend…

  • Astros GM Jeff Luhnow is happy to have acquired Dexter Fowler and Scott Feldman before the Winter Meetings, but Luhnow tells reporters (including Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle) that his club has more on its to-do list.  “To have them both done before the Winter Meetings is a bonus," Luhnow said.  "So now that we can focus on the bullpen and focus on potentially another position player somewhere….We may not be done with starting pitching either.  We’re still actively talking to some other folks.”
  • With the Phillies reportedly shopping closer Jonathan Papelbon, Ryan Lawrence of the Philadelphia Daily News feels the team will have a tough time given Papelbon's large salary, signs of decline and his possible attitude issues.
  • J.A. Happ could be a trade chip for the Blue Jays if the team needed to free up some payroll space, Sportsnet's Ben Nicholson-Smith writes.  Happ is set to earn $5.2MM in 2014 with a $6.7MM team option for 2015.  The southpaw was limited to 18 starts in 2013 due to head injuries suffered when he was hit in the head with a line drive, as well as a knee injury also stemming from the incident.
  • Also from Nicholson-Smith, nothing is imminent with Yuniesky Betancourt, though a number of teams are still interested in the veteran as infield depth.  The Marlins were linked to Betancourt last month.
  • Erisbel Barbaro Arruebarruena has a good glove at shortstop, is lacking at the plate and is overall not going to provide the impact of recent Cuban signings, a scout tells MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo.  "This isn’t like watching Aroldis Chapman or Yoenis Cespedes. You’re not going to hear from 15 teams. You’ll hear from teams that are hurting a little bit at shortstop," the scout said.  Arruebarruena will showcase his skills for teams this weekend, and the Mets have been identified as one of the attending clubs.

AL Notes: Fister, Blue Jays, Orioles, Rays

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Whenever there’s a trade that fans perceive as being one-sided, fans will often wonder why their team didn’t get involved in negotiations. The beginning of a recent SportsNet.ca interview with Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos shows why that might not be as easy as it sounds. Anthopoulos says Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski told him that the Jays simply didn’t have the players he wanted in a trade for Doug Fister. Detroit eventually sent Fister to the Nationals for Ian Krol, Steve Lombardozzi and Robbie Ray. That Dombrowski apparently didn’t think the Blue Jays could beat that package might seem surprising, but it appears the Tigers simply had a very clear idea what they wanted, and it wasn’t possible for the Jays to enter a higher bid. Here are more notes on the AL.

  • The Orioles didn’t have an easy time dealing Jim Johnson, a source tells Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun. Other teams weren’t eager to trade for a closer making a hefty salary, so the offers the O’s received were underwhelming.
  • The Orioles would give up their first-round draft pick — No. 17 overall — if the right free-agent opportunity presented itself, FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal tweets. That means that, if they’re willing to open their wallets, they could be contenders for players like Carlos Beltran and Nelson Cruz, both of whom rejected qualifying offers.
  • The Rays are hopeful that they can fix newly-acquired reliever Heath Bell, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times writes. “His stuff is virtually as good as when he was a dominant closer with the Padres (2009-11),” says executive vice president Andrew Friedman. “He missed a lot of bats last year. He commanded the ball better than he had in previous years. He’s just got a lot of things in place that give him a chance to be really good, and it’s about trying to sync them all up.”

Cubs Likely To Trade Samardzija This Offseason

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DEC. 4: The Cubs are preparing to do some "serious listening" on Samardzija at next week's Winter Meetings, according to ESPN's Jerry Crasnick (on Twitter).

NOV. 27, 7:08pm: The Cubs are going to keep trying to sign Samardzija long-term despite the trade rumors, a major league source tells Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe (via Twitter).

6:30pm: Jeff Samardzija's name has been swirling about the rumor mill for quite some time, and David Kaplan of CSN Chicago reports that as many as eight teams have shown "considerable" interest in Samardzija. Kaplan lists the Blue Jays, Orioles, and Diamondbacks as frontrunners to land the pitcher often referred to as "Shark," though as Kaplan notes, the asking price is substantial.

One Major League source told Kaplan, "I don't see him throwing another pitch for the Cubs," while a second offered a laundry list of reasons that Samardzija is an excellent trade candidate: he has two years of control remaining, has no injury history, comes with relatively low mileage on his arm due to his prolific football career at Notre Dame and is an excellent clubhouse presence. "Add in the fact that this guy is a big-time competitor, and I would have no hesitation in acquiring him," said Kaplan's second source.

Kaplan points out that teams run a serious risk by waiting for resolution to the Masahiro Tanaka situation  since teams that miss out on the Japanese standout will swarm on Samardzija and other alternatives.  One NL scout suggested that if he were a GM and didn't have pockets deep enough to guarantee landing Tanaka, he'd give up more than he'd like to get the Cubs' hurler. 

The Orioles are among the frontrunners for Samardzija but most scouts that Kaplan checked in with do not expect the Cubs to trade for catcher Matt Wieters unless he was part of a much larger deal that also included young starting pitching that is nearly MLB ready.

Zach Links contributed to this post.    

Pirates, Rays Targeting James Loney

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12:29pm: Loney is also a top target for the Rays, if they can afford him, writes Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Topkin relays some quotes from team president Matthew Silverman's interview on WDAE-620 AM radio this morning: "The good thing for us is he liked it here. We liked him, he fit in well. And we're a known quantity … I'm hopeful that he can be here."

11:42am: The Pirates have contacted the Blue Jays about Adam Lind and the Rangers about Mitch Moreland, reports ESPN's Jayson Stark (on Twitter), but clubs who have spoken to the Buccos get the sense that James Loney has emerged as their top choice at the position.

At 29 years of age, Loney is a young free agent (he'll turn 30 next May). The lefty swinger enjoyed a nice rebound campaign with the Rays in 2013, hitting .299/.348/.430 with 13 homers and his typical brand of strong defense at first base. The Pirates had a hole at first base all season that they tried to fill by acquiring Justin Morneau from the Twins. While Morneau provided a solid OBP, he didn't homer in Pittsburgh and ultimately did little to improve the collective .243/.324/.402 batting line posted by Pittsburgh first basemen.

There was talk of re-signing Morneau, but that option disappeared last night when he agreed to a two-year, $13MM contract with the Rockies. That contract is likely good news for Loney and his new representatives at the Legacy Agency. Loney is three years younger than Morneau and coming off a much better season, so he should be able to top that guarantee. MLBTR's Tim Dierkes predicted a two-year, $16MM contract for Loney back in early November, and it's possible at this point that he could top that figure.

As for the other two targets mentioned by Stark, both Moreland and Lind make some degree of sense for the Pirates. Each has a strong track record against right-handed pitching but is overmatched by lefties. Pittsburgh has a solid in-house platoon option at first base in the form of Gaby Sanchez. Both Moreland and Lind can be controlled through the 2016 season.

Phillies Acquire Brad Lincoln

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The Phillies announced that they acquired right-handed pitcher Brad Lincoln from the Blue Jays in exchange for catcher Erik Kratz and minor league left-hander Rob Rasmussen.

Lincoln, 28, appeared in 22 games for Toronto in 2013 and posted a 3.98 ERA with 7.1 K/9 and 6.3 BB/9.  Over parts of four big league seasons, Lincoln owns a 4.66 ERA with 6.8 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9 for the Pirates and Blue Jays.

Rasmussen combined to post a 4.11 ERA with 7.5 K/9 and 4.0 BB/9 in 28 games (24 starts) for the Dodgers Triple-A and Double-A affiliates.  The 5-9, 160-pound left-handed pitcher was traded from Los Angeles to the Phillies in exchange for Michael Young on August 31st.  The 24-year-old is no stranger to being moved around, as he has now been involved in four career trades, including the aforementioned Young deal.

Kratz, 33, hit just .213/.280/.386 in 218 major league plate appearances last season.  For his career, the backstop owns a slash line of .220/.281/.407 across four seasons with the Pirates and Phillies.  Kratz is expected to compete with Josh Thole for the backup job behind Dioner Navarro.

A’s Likely To Trade Brett Anderson Next Week

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3:54pm: The Yankees are also interested in Anderson, according to Yahoo's Jeff Passan (on Twitter). According to Passan, the A's are likely to deal Anderson at next week's Winter Meetings.

3:08pm: The Athletics aren't going to trade Anderson today, tweets John Hickey of the Bay Area News Group (on Twitter). However, the A's are seeking bullpen depth.

1:15pm: The Blue Jays are "infatuated" with Anderson, and the Twins are interested in the lefty as well, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter links). One Major League executive told Slusser that it's likely the A's will make another trade this week, perhaps even today.

8:22am: The Athletics are discussing trades for left-hander Brett Anderson, and the Mariners and Indians are among the interested parties, according to ESPN's Buster Olney (on Twitter).

Anderson has been around for five years already, but he's still just 25 years old (he'll turn 26 in February) and is under control at $8MM in 2014 with a $12MM club option for 2015. Those final two seasons were both option years on a four-year, $12.5MM extension he signed with the A's in April 2010, coming off a season in which he posted a 4.06 ERA with 7.7 K/9, 2.3 BB/9 and a 50.9 percent ground-ball rate.

Anderson was even better in 2010, posting a 2.80 ERA with 6.0 K/9, 1.8 BB/9 and a 54.6 percent ground-ball rate, but injury problems set in that season. A pair of left elbow issues limited Anderson to 112 1/3 innings that season, and he went on to undergo Tommy John surgery in 2011. He missed most of 2012 recovering from that surgery but was brilliant in his return. In 2013, he missed most of the season with a stress fracture in his foot and pitched to a 6.04 ERA (3.85 FIP, 3.26 xFIP) in the 44 2/3 innings he was healthy.

The A's exercised his $8MM option anyway, believing him to be capable of exceeding that value in 2014, whether in Oakland or with aother team. Though he's totaled just 163 innings over the past three seasons combined, Anderson's talent and youth make him a solid buy-low candidate for teams that don't wish to pay the rising prices for free agent pitchers.

The Indians make sense as a fit after losing Scott Kazmir as a free agent (to the A's themselves, no less) and with the likelihood that they will also lose Ubaldo Jimenez. A starting pitcher is a known desire for Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik, and adding Anderson would accomplish that goal while still leaving plenty of money to pursue big bats like Shin-Soo Choo, Jacoby Ellsbury and Nelson Cruz.

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