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Omar Minaya is considering many options in his hunt for a #1-2 starter.  Ben Sheets and Johan Santana we’ve already discussed today.  Who else is on the radar?  Ken Davidoff has the latest.

• Many of the trade options you’re already familiar with: Joe Blanton, Jon Garland, A.J. Burnett, Dontrelle Willis, Jose Contreras, and even Erik Bedard and Jake Peavy.  This group varies in number of years under team control, health, and ability. 
• Davidoff notes that Omar Minaya had dinner with the Indians’ Mark Shapiro Tuesday night.  It sounds like the Tribe isn’t looking to move pitching, so Cliff Lee may be off the table.
• These guys are less than #1-2s, but the Mets have interest in Carlos Silva, Kyle Lohse, and Hiroki Kuroda as fallbacks.  Adam Rubin has a Mets insider who says they aren’t keen on Livan Hernandez.  Steve Popper believes Jason Jennings may be considered, as he was a year ago when the Astros were shopping him.
• Interestingly the Mets checked in on Brad Lidge but wouldn’t part with Carlos Gomez or Fernando Martinez for one year of him.
• Strangely Davidoff says the Red Sox are in the lead for Kuroda.  There’s already talk of a six-man rotation; how would the Sox accomodate one more starter?  I haven’t seen the Yankees connected to Kuroda at all.  My guess is that they’ll pass on him simply because Kei Igawa and Hideki Irabu didn’t work out, rather than judge him on his own merits. 

Many options were declined tonight, though none were unexpected.

• The Dodgers passed on Mike Lieberthal for $1.5MM.  He only got 77 ABs this year and wasn’t worth it.
• David Riske had a $2.9MM player option.  He declined it given his stellar 2.45 ERA in 69.2 innings this year.  He’ll get a nice Bob Howry/Jamie Walker type of deal for three years.
• The Royals took a $1.5MM buyout rather than pay Odalis Perez $9MM.  It was a nice gamble at the time but they don’t need him for ’08 at effectively $7.5MM.  His season ended with a knee injury in late August.
• Darin Erstad got a lot of love in the Chicago press but he wasn’t worth $3.5MM to the White Sox.  He gets a $250K consolation prize.
• Mike Myers for $1.1MM – nope.  The Sox tried him and he was terrible. 

Through the recent reader survey, I’ve noticed that some people have problems logging in to comment or registering.  I use a system called TypeKey for commenting, because it comes with my blogging service.  If you’re having problems logging in or registering, here is their contact form.  Right now that’s the best I can offer.

The fine Cot’s Baseball Contracts site has a list of important dates for us to be aware of.  A few I want to highlight (quoting Cot’s):

Day after World Series: 15-day period where teams have exclusive rights to negotiate with own free agents.  Keep in mind that players can talk to other teams, they just can’t discuss contract details or sign.

November 5-8, 2007: GM meetings in Orlando (not the same as the Winter Meetings in December).

It’s been about six months since I last did a reader survey, so let’s give it another go.  I’d like to know what you like, what you dislike, and how I can improve the site. 

I take all reader feedback very seriously, so don’t pull any punches.  Take the three-question MLBTR reader survey here (completely anonymous, no logging in, should take you one minute).  I appreciate it.

I wrote an article for The Hardball Times entitled Why The Cubs Will Beat The Diamondbacks.  Please note that I wrote it before the announcement to go with Zambrano on three days rest rather than Marquis.

Fair and balanced: here’s Jim McLennan’s article with the opposite point of view.

Also, I know there are a lot of Braves fans on here.  Those folks, fantasy nuts, or perhaps injury buffs may be interested in my recent RotoAuthority Danger Zone post, assessing the risk of each Braves starter.

I invite you to visit our latest sponsor, The Blogs By Fans Network.  It’s a fairly new young network of sports blogs, with some solid baseball ones in the mix.

Did that headline make sense to you?  If not, don’t be scared.  I’m relatively new to RSS feeds and I think they’re an excellent way to keep up with my favorite sites.  ProBlogger does a great job of explaining RSS feeds in basic terms.  A choice quote:

What if you could tell a website to let you know every time that they update? In a sense, this is what RSS does for you.

So take a minute and read about RSS feeds and download Google Reader for free.  Then add the following feed for MLBTR:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/MlbTradeRumors

MLBTradeRumors.com is expected to generate more than 1.7 million pageviews in October, before things really explode in November and December.

I’m going to add some sponsored text links to the lefthand sidebar of the site.  You can snag a spot for your link for the rest of the month for $100.  They’ll be stacked under the Boston Red Sox Tickets link in the order they’re purchased.  I’ll be selling five spots.

If you’d like to get your website/product/whatever some exposure for the rest of October, drop me a line. 

For better or for worse, I have avoided almost all talk of manager hirings and firings here at MLBTR.  I guess it’s mainly because it doesn’t interest me.  Also because I don’t think managers have much effect on a team’s chances.  Just in case you were wondering why we’re not part of the Willie Randolph media crush today.

Let me know in the comments if you feel strongly that managers should be covered here…and maybe one day we’ll do it.