Uncategorized News & Rumors

As you may recall, I’m heading to Cincinnati for the weekend.  I didn’t think the games would mean much when I bought the tickets, but now they’re looking pretty important for my Cubbies.

Anyway, I like to keep MLBTR going strong even when I’m away.  And I’m not one to blog on the road.  So, I’m looking for someone willing to step in and write for the site when I’m gone.  For now I’m looking for coverage on September 28th, 29th, and 30th (probably from a single person).  It would be five or more posts per day, three of them coming before noon each day.  Within that any major rumor would have to be covered, and if they are slow days you’d have some liberties to choose articles or topics to write about.  Each post should be in the typical 3-5 paragraph MLBTR style.  For this particular three-day stint I’m offering $50.

Some things I’m looking for:

• In college or college graduate
• Blogging experience a plus
• Frequent MLBTR commenter a plus
• Strong writing skills (grammar and spelling are important)
• Non-biased approach to posts
• Strong baseball knowledge
• Style similar to the one MLBTR currently uses
• Availability on all three days
• Ideally it would be a person who already devours every baseball story possible throughout the day, so that important breaking rumor-related stuff could be posted in a timely manner

If you’re interested in the coverage this weekend and perhaps future days, please drop me a line at mlbtraderumors@gmail.com explaining why you’d be good for it.  Thanks.

It’s Monday morning, and that means I’m going to annoy you with some off-topic stuff.

• If you or someone you know is interested in moving to the western suburbs of Chicago, check out my condo for sale in Lombard.
• Do you have your own blog?  If so, check out BlogRush.  It’s a kind of new-wave traffic exchange that I’m trying out.  If your sports blog becomes part of the BlogRush network, then you might appear on this site on the From The Blogosphere thing on the sidebar.  Likewise, headlines from MLBTR might appear on the widget on your blog.
• MLBTR is slowly moving up the ranks in the Blogger’s Choice Awards.  Thanks to those who have voted.  If you haven’t, please consider it.  It’s not time-consuming to vote, but it is slightly confusing.  Here’s how to do it:

          1.  Sign up for an account with a valid email address here.

          2. Wait for a "Welcome To Blogger Choice Awards" email from do-not-reply@bloggerschoiceawards.com.  Click the link in the email to confirm your account.  (If you don’t get the email within a few minutes it might have landed in your spam folder.)

          3.  Go here and click the small yellow "vote" button in the middle of the page (near the faceless man’s head).  You’re done! 

Anyone want to help me out and vote for MLBTR in the Blogger’s Choice Awards?  It would only take a few seconds.  If you enjoy the site, please consider it!  Thanks.

MLB Trade Rumors is in the running for Best Sports Blog at the Blogger’s Choice Awards.  Thanks to those who have voted.  If you haven’t, please consider it.  It takes about one minute, but it is slightly confusing.  You’ll have to be careful not to accidentally vote for the blog that is currently in first place (that one is titled Mlb-rumors and is not mine. Mine is MLBTradeRumors.com).  Here’s how to vote:

          1.  Sign up for an account with a valid email address here.

          2. Wait for a "Welcome To Blogger Choice Awards" email from do-not-reply@bloggerschoiceawards.com.  Click the link in the email to confirm your account.  (If you don’t get the email within a few minutes it might have landed in your spam folder.)  After you confirm your account go directly to Step 3.

          3.  Go here and click the small yellow "vote" button in the middle of the page (near the faceless man’s head).  You’re done!

I could’ve called this the 10 Worst Trades Of 2007 or the 10 Most Lopsided Trades Of 2007, but I prefer the glass half-full approach.  It’s time to credit GMs for acquiring good players for essentially nothing, at least in terms of the 2007 season.  The time period used here is October 1, 2006 to present, which reflects the 2007 baseball season in my mind.  Also keep in mind that I am fully blessed with 20/20 hindsight here; I definitely missed on some of these at that time they occurred.

Without further ado, MLBTradeRumors.com presents the 10 Best Trades Of 2007.

10.  7/31/07: Brian Sabean and the Giants acquired OF Rajai Davis and a player to be named later from the Pirates in exchange for RHP Matt Morris. 

Granted, Sabean was just erasing his own mistake of signing Morris in December of 2005.  And he missed his chance to truly sell high when Morris had a 2.51 ERA on June 6th.  Still, Sabean managed to unload the 33 year-old Morris without paying any of the $13.5MM or so remaining on his contract.  Plus, he acquired 27 year-old burner Rajai Davis.  If nothing else, Davis has a future in the big leagues as a reserve.

9.  11/15/06: Kevin Towers and the Padres acquired RHP Heath Bell and LHP Royce Ring from the New York Mets in exchange for OF Ben Johnson and RHP Jon Adkins.

By one metric, Bell has been the sixth best reliever in all of baseball this year.  Don’t try to give all the credit to PETCO Park, either – Bell has a better ERA and strikeout rate on the road this year. Instead, give the credit to Towers.  Meanwhile, Johnson’s season was killed by injuries and Adkins has been just OK at Triple A.

8. 11/20/06: Larry Beinfest and the Marlins acquired RHP Kevin Gregg from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in exchange for RHP Chris Resop.

Would Gregg be this good back in the American League?  Of course not.  But the Angels did ditch a reliever with a 3.4 K/BB ratio in 78 innings last year.  Granted, Gregg has been lucky on hits allowed and saves are always a large part opportunity.  But Resop hasn’t done much at Triple A and the Fish have a very affordable under-contract closer to shop this winter.

7.  5/3/07: Billy Beane and the Athletics acquired Jack Cust from the San Diego Padres for a player to be named later or cash considerations.

Cust has a line of .257/.401/.510 in 343 ABs this year.  Meanwhile Padres left fielders have hit .248/.343/.449 (league average) and Orioles DHs have hit .259/.325/.424.  Both clubs gave up on Cust (though the A’s did before too).  Bottom line: this was a whole lotta somethin’ for nothin’. 

6. 7/31/2007: Jon Daniels and the Rangers acquired LHP Kason Gabbard, OF David Murphy and nonroster OF Engle Beltre from the Red Sox for RHP Eric Gagne and cash.

Gagne turned into a pumpkin, while the Rangers picked up two useful players (Gabbard and Murphy) and a young wild card with upside (Beltre).  Murphy, a former first pick, could be the Rangers’ starting center fielder next year.

Note that while it was a fine deal by Daniels, the Mark Teixeira trade doesn’t make this list.  In my opinion, it’s not as lopsided as the rest.  Teixeira has been excellent for the Braves and they have him for 2008 as well.

5. 12/7/06: Kenny Williams and the White Sox acquired Gavin Floyd and Gio Gonzalez from Philadelphia in exchange for RHP Freddy Garcia.

Should Pat Gillick take the blame for Garcia’s injury?  He did know Garcia was throwing with reduced velocity last year and had a lot of wear and tear.  Williams has taken a lot of heat this year but he might’ve acquired 40% of his rotation for the next few years with his perfect timing on this one.  The book isn’t closed yet, but Williams deserves credit.

4.  12/7/06: John Schuerholz and the Braves acquired Rafael Soriano from the Mariners in exchange for LHP Horacio Ramirez.

The move was widely panned at the time, though I was the idiot saying it wasn’t a huge rip-off.  Well, it was a huge rip-off.  The awful Ramirez will be non-tendered, while Soriano might close for the Braves next year.

3. 12/6/06: Dayton Moore and the Royals acquired Brian Bannister in exchange for RHP Ambiorix Burgos from the New York Mets.

I certainly wasn’t criticizing Omar Minaya at the time of this trade.  I saw Bannister as a fifth starter who’d be lucky to keep his ERA under 5.00 in the AL.  And there is a strong undercurrent of luck in Bannister’s ROY-caliber season.  But maybe Bannister’s intelligent approach (scroll to bottom of linked post) deserves some credit for the low BABIP and his 3.39 ERA.  Perhaps Minaya and I just underestimated Bannister.  Burgos had Tommy John surgery in August, so it’ll be a while before he gets a chance to even out this trade.

2. 12/12/06: Dan O’Dowd acquired CF Willy Taveras, RHPs Taylor Buchholz and Jason Hirsh from the Houston Astros in exchange for RHPs Jason Jennings and Miguel Asencio.

Even at the time of the deal, most folks thought Tim Purpura overpaid.  It looks much worse now since Jennings was a bust instead of the #2 some thought he could be.  The fact is that the difference between Hirsh and Jennings wasn’t huge in the first place, expect for salary and service time.  Taveras could be Juan Pierre Plus if he can stay healthy. 

1. 12/7/06: Wayne Krivsky and the Cincinnati Reds acquired OF Josh Hamilton from the Chicago Cubs in exchange for cash considerations.

Unbelievable, that so many of the best trades occurred around this date. Maybe that point in time inherently contains some sort of cosmic significance. Almost as if it were the junction point for the entire space-time continuum. On the other hand, it could just be an amazing coincidence.

Anyway, I hope the Cubs received a ton of cash, because the 26 year-old Hamilton is a keeper.  He’d look mighty fine in the Cubs’ outfield for the next five years.  What’s Jim Hendry doing performing favors for a division rival?  Hamilton mashed .292/.368/.554 as a rookie.  Maybe only Krivsky saw that coming, but that’s why we’re giving him props here.

Honorable mentions: Mets acquire Luis Castillo, Padres acquire Kevin Kouzmanoff, Royals acquire Kyle Davies, Phils acquire Kyle Lohse and Tadahito Iguchi, Nats acquire Wily Mo Pena, Padres acquire Milton Bradley, Tigers acquire Gary Sheffield

You may have noticed the link up top on the sidebar: Buy Tim’s Condo.  It sends you to this page, which is a simple website I created with some pictures and details.  I’m selling this baby by owner, so why not try some unconventional routes?

If you are looking to own for the first time and you work in The Loop (Chicago) this is the perfect place.  I walk to the train every day – I’m a Sunday driver.  My wife, by contrast, has an hour plus drive to work in Des Plaines and that’s the main reason we’re moving.  It’s a nice area in the "downtown" portion of Lombard with easy accessibility to shopping and restaurants in Oakbrook.

If you have any interest, please drop me a line or give me a call to take a look.  And if you have a friend or relative looking to buy in the western suburbs of Chicago, I’d really appreciate it if you told them about it.  Also, if you’ve sold by owner and have any awesome tips, I’d love to hear ’em.  Thanks.

Some random links tonight…

• If I was this kid, I would consider this awesome.  Even if at the expense of my favorite team.  I would just appreciate the novelty of it.
• Matt Stairs wants to play for another year or two, but he and the Jays will table extension talks until after the season.
• According to Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus, even A-Rod can’t justify a $30MM salary.
• Troy E. Renck of the Denver Post expects the Rockies to shop Brian Fuentes hard this winter, with the Red Sox and Phillies as possible suitors.  The Phils also have some interest in Garrett Atkins, apparently.  They don’t seem to have many trading chips though.
• If the Pirates go with a $50MM payroll in ’08, they may only have $4MM free to work with this winter.

If you spend a chunk of your time putting your heart and soul into a blog, you probably crave more readers.  If you didn’t want readers, you’d probably just write a diary. 

If you happen to have your own sports blog (especially a baseball one), BlogRush might be useful.  You can see the BlogRush box now on my sidebar toward the bottom.  This box basically pulls up recent posts from blogs it feels may be relevant to my readers.  Each time you refresh, it pulls up five new links.  Since I just put it in, it’s not incredibly targeted.  It’s basically just showing sports blogs that are in the BlogRush network. 

For every pageview I give to BlogRush, MLBTR gets one on another site on their network.  So it’s a way of kind of sharing traffic among related bloggers. The video on their site explains it better than I just did.  If you have a sports blog, you should consider signing up for BlogRush through this referral link.  It could bring you some more traffic and there’s nothing to lose.  Everything is free and it took me about two minutes start to finish.  I have no idea if this will be cool or worth keeping on MLBTR so feel free to give me your thoughts on it. 

We’ve seen many stories in the last few days where players stated when they planned on retiring.  Let’s review.

• Gary Sheffield will be done after his upcoming two-year deal.  That’ll take him through the 2009 season and age 40.  Sheff believes his shoulder will hold up that long, but I’m skeptical.
• Here’s an option we didn’t discuss: Moises Alou.  He says he’ll retire if the Mets don’t pick up his $7.5MM option for ’08.  Playoff heroics could encourage them to do so; Alou can still mash when he’s out there.  2008 will be Alou’s age 41 season.
• Rudy Seanez has had a good year for the Dodgers and wants to play in ’08 as a 39 year-old.  He’ll stick with the West Coast, probably the Dodgers or Padres again.
• Reggie Sanders could be Seanez’s teammate next year.  If he plays, it’ll have to be for a winning West Coast team.  The Kansas City Star also mentions that the Royals were set to receive Melky Cabrera for Sanders last year before Sanders got hurt.  Is that true?  Wow.
• As we’ve written, Omar Vizquel wants to come back to the Giants next year.
• Cliff Floyd’s a 34 year-old in a 40 year-old’s body.  He’ll probably retire if and when the Cubs win the World Series this year.  In the unlikely event the Cubs don’t win it all, they’d be Floyd’s first choice for ’08.  Otherwise he might consider a guaranteed deal to play in the AL (DH would make sense).  Family concerns might cause him to retire regardless though.
• Mike Piazza wants to return for his age 39 season.  No hard feelings if the A’s don’t want him back.  The NL is up for consideration if he’s physically able to play catcher.
• We covered the Tom Glavine options here.
• We’ve also talked about Andy Pettitte‘s plan: Yankees or retirement in ’08.

Here are some interesting links for Tuesday evening…

• Tim Marchman has a reasoned discussion of Alex Rodriguez’s possible destinations, and considers the Red Sox and Dodgers as the favorites (unless Brian Cashman goes back on his word and negotiates after A-Rod opts out).  Indeed, we learned in July that the Red Sox will make a "huge push" for Rodriguez.  We also determined that they’ll have an extra $31MM to play with even if they keep the payroll steady.  They could bump the payroll just a tad to $150MM to account for some role players.
• Lynn Henning wrote yesterday about former Pirates GM Dave Littlefield’s strong relationship with current Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski.
• Fire Joe Morgan takes on Mike Pagliarulo.
• Adrian Beltre: underpaid.