Uncategorized News & Rumors

The MLBTR Forums are hopping, with 9,175 members to date.  If you'd like to expand your baseball discussions beyond the comments section at MLBTradeRumors.com, the forums are the perfect place.  We've got sections for actual trade rumors, speculative trade situations, free agents, the draft, prospects, general baseball, fantasy baseball, and each of the 30 teams.  Start or join a discussion in the MLBTR Forums today!

Did you know MLB Trade Rumors has a Spanish-language sister site with a focus on Latin American players?  Rumores De Béisbol features human-translated MLBTR posts every day, and can be followed on Twitter here.

As any Cubs, Red Sox, Angels, Padres or Orioles fan will tell you, the last few months have featured more than their share of general manager turnover. This summer’s trade deadline doesn’t seem so long ago, yet six teams have replaced their GMs since then. MLB's ‘new’ GMs include two first-time general managers and two others who have been at it for decades.

Thanks to Baseball America's executive database, I’ve compiled a list designed to show when and where each team’s top executive got his first GM job (not including interim positions). I'm using the term 'GM' loosely; many of the executives below have different titles on their business cards. Apologies to Michael Hill and Jed Hoyer, the two GMs who report to their clubs’ respective presidents of baseball operations. They aren’t on this list below, but interim Twins GM Terry Ryan appears because of his previous experience running Minnesota's baseball operations department.

Here's the list of baseball's longest-tenured general managers, plus the teams with which they got their first GM jobs:

1. Sandy Alderson, Athletics, 1983
2. Dave Dombrowski, Expos, 1988
3. Dan Duquette, Expos, 1991
4. Doug Melvin, Rangers, 1994
5. Terry Ryan, Twins, 1994
6. Walt Jocketty, Cardinals, 1994
7. Kevin Towers, Padres, 1995
8. Brian Sabean, Giants, 1996
9. Billy Beane, Athletics, 1997
10. Brian Cashman, Yankees, 1998
11. Ed Wade, Phillies, 1998
12. Frank Wren, Orioles, 1998
13. Dan O'Dowd, Rockies, 1999
14. Kenny Williams, White Sox, 2000
15. Larry Beinfest, Marlins, 2002
16. Theo Epstein, Red Sox, 2002
17. Jon Daniels, Rangers, 2005
18. Andrew Friedman, Rays, 2005
19. Ned Colletti, Dodgers, 2005
20. Josh Byrnes, Diamondbacks, 2005
21. Dayton Moore, Royals, 2006
22. Neal Huntington, Pirates, 2007
23. John Mozeliak, Cardinals, 2007
24. Jack Zduriencik, Mariners, 2008
25. Ruben Amaro, Jr., Phillies, 2008
26. Mike Rizzo, Nationals, 2009
27. Alex Anthopoulos, Blue Jays, 2009
28. Chris Antonetti, Indians, 2010
29. Ben Cherington, Red Sox, 2011
30. Jerry Dipoto, Angels, 2011

Brian Sabean has spent the most time running his current team. He, Billy Beane, Brian Cashman, Dan O’Dowd and Kenny Williams are the five GMs to have held their current positions for at least a decade.

Your window to make picks for MLBTR's first-ever free agent prediction contest is coming to a close.  Tonight at midnight central time, picks will be locked.  Only ballots with picks made for all of the top 50 free agents will be counted; incomplete ones will not be eligible.  Be sure to update and save your picks by tonight's deadline!

For information about the contest rules and prizes, click here.

Determining an MLB player's representation was once a challenge for baseball fans, but MLBTR's agency database changed everything.  We've compiled agency data for nearly 1,500 players, mainly through regular contact with dozens of agencies.  Updates are made every week as players change agents.  The database allows you to search for individual players and filter by team or agency.  Check out MLBTR's agency database today!

At the bottom of each post on MLBTR, you'll see the number of comments readers have made.  Clicking that allows you to read the comments in chronological order.  At the bottom, there is a blank box for posting a new comment.  Click the "Post as…" button to log in through Disqus, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, or OpenID.

Once you are logged in, you can post comments, like comments, and follow people with Disqus profiles.  Disqus  powers our commenting system.    

MLBTR has an excellent comment moderation team, but if you see something inappropriate please contact us.  Our commenting policy can always be viewed at the link at the bottom of the site.  Attacking or insulting someone in the comments is an easy way to earn a permanent ban.  Please review the full commenting policy before leaving comments, because we generally don't have the resources to worry about explanations or second chances.

Dust off your crystal ball, it's time for MLBTR's first-ever free agent prediction contest!  Predict destinations for our top 50 free agents, with the chance to win fantastic prizes and bragging rights over your friends and the MLBTR writing team.

How To Play

• Click here to make picks for our top 50 free agents.  For each player you can choose any of the 30 teams, as well as Retirement or Japan.
• A Facebook account is required to participate in this contest.  You can log in with the button up top, or by using the Save Your Picks button at the bottom.
• Feel free to leave your picks incomplete for now, as long as you save them using the button at the bottom.  The contest is open now and runs until midnight central time on Sunday, November 6th.  Make sure to have something chosen and saved for all 50 players by the Sunday deadline, or else you will not be eligible for the contest.
• The leaderboard will rank contestants by "batting average" on correct picks, once players start signing.  The leaderboard will show everyone's full names and Facebook profile picture.

Rules

• Final picks must be saved by November 6th at midnight central time – no exceptions.
• MLBTR writers are not eligible for prizes.
• One entry per person, please.
• With regard to prizes, ties in batting average will be decided by totaling the ranking number of each correctly-guessed free agent and taking the lowest total, rewarding contestants for being right on better free agents.  If people are still tied after that method is applied, prizes will be distributed at MLBTR's discretion by choosing among tied contestants randomly.
• Prize winners must respond to an email message within 48 hours.

Prizes

• $1,000 in cash prizes to be distributed among the top five finishers
• Three Baseball's Greatest Games DVD sets from A&E
• One-year digital subscription to Baseball America, 2012 Prospect Handbook, 2012 Almanac, 2012 Great Parks Calendar
• Three copies of Baseball HQ's 2012 Forecaster book, three copies of Baseball HQ's 2012 Minor League Analyst book
• $50 coupon code for American Needle headwear
• One-year subscription to Baseball Prospectus
• One year unlimited services at Fantasy Judgment
• Three 2012 Bill James Baseball IQ iPhone apps

Contacting Tim Dierkes and/or the MLBTR writing team is quite easy.  Just use our contact form, and select either "Tips, Rumors, Trades, Signings" or "Business Inquiries."  If you'd like a reply, you'll have to put in a valid email address.

Use "Tips, Rumors, Trades, Signings" to send us a link we may have missed.  Also use this option to report an error or omission.  

Business inquiries typically involve advertising on MLBTR, but not necessarily.  You can also use this option if you have a suggestion to improve MLBTR.

Let the bidding begin!  Free agents are now allowed to sign with new teams.

Activity may still be limited this month, however.  55 Type A or B free agents are eligible to be offered arbitration at the November 23rd deadline, based on the Elias rankings.  In many cases, teams will wait to see whether an arbitration offer is made before signing a free agent.  Say the Pirates want to sign Type A free agent Ramon Hernandez.  If they sign him before November 23rd, an arbitration offer becomes assumed, and the Pirates have to give the Reds their second-round pick in the June 2012 draft.  They'll want to see whether the Reds actually offer arbitration, because if not there will be no draft pick compensation. 

This concept matters less for Type B free agents, because the new team doesn't directly give a draft pick to the old one.  Teams still may not want to guarantee their competitors draft picks, though.  If the Red Sox want to sign Type B free agent Freddy Garcia, doing so before November 23rd guarantees the Yankees a supplemental draft pick.

Certain star players will be obviously be offered arbitration, for example Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, and Jose Reyes.  With these players the November 23rd deadline is not important, but stars usually don't sign in November anyway because they prefer to let the market develop into December or January.

Last year free agents were free to sign with new teams as of November 7th, and the arbitration offer deadline was November 23rd.  Victor Martinez was the only Type A free agent to sign with a new team during that period, while Joaquin Benoit and John Buck were the only Bs.  All three were locks for arbitration offers, so there was no harm in signing them early.  There were several re-signings during that period, including Aubrey Huff, Jake Westbrook, Ramon Hernandez, and Jhonny Peralta.

Every week, MLBTR conducts a live chat with either Tim Dierkes or Ben Nicholson-Smith.  Most of the time, it's me, and the chat is held at 2pm central time on Wednesdays.  That's the plan for today.

All you have to do to participate is visit MLB Trade Rumors at any point during the hour-long chat and click the chat link.  Then you'll have the opportunity to put in your name and submit a question.

With thousands of questions streaming in, I am typically able to answer about 60 of them in an hour.  If you feel like your questions are being ignored, the reason is probably just the sheer volume.  If you'd like to improve your chances of having a question answered, avoid posting it repeatedly, complaining about how your questions or favorite team are being ignored, or asking something that has been well-covered in our articles.  Instead, submit a few interesting questions that can reasonably be answered without research.

To view transcripts of past MLBTR chats, click here.