Uncategorized News & Rumors

Unfortunately, I am not.  Good ol’ Chicago for me.  But I am happy to link to any interesting reports from Orlando if you are in attendance.  Drop me a line and I’ll link to your blog or article to help pass along any good info.

And if you’re not there, why the hell not?  What, you have a job?  Please.

ESPN’s winter meetings article is being constantly updated with new info. Highlights:

Joe Borowski could sign with the Tribe if his medical reports check out.  Confirmed at MLB.com.

The Angels may have some interest in Mike Piazza.

The Cubs are close on Ted Lilly and Jacque Jones seems plenty available.

The Reds will likely snag David Weathers for two more seasons.

Baseball beat writers blogging is all the rage these days, and I love it.  It’s great that these guys can post news the second they get it without editors and that most of them engage in lively conversation with fans in the comments.

I thought it would be cool to compile a list here of all the newspaper columnist blogs that are updated regularly.  Here are a few; I will update the post with more as we come up with them.

On The Yankees Beat – by Jim Baumbach of Newsday

The LoHud Yankees Blog – by Peter Abraham of the Lower Hudson Journal News

Cleveland Plain Dealer Blog – by Paul Hoynes

Extra Bases Red Sox Blog – by various Boston Globe writers

Surfing the Mets – by Adam Rubin of the New York Daily News

Roch Around The Clock – by Roch Kubatko of the Baltimore Sun

BravesBlog – by David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mariners Weblog – by John Hickey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The Heater (Devil Rays) – by Marc Topkin of St. Petersburg Times

Bird Land – by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Here’s some commentary on deals and signings I missed while I was off in Cancun.

– Yanks win Kei Igawa bid for about $26MM.  Ugh.  This is ugly.  Why are the Yankees so enamored of this guy?  Just because he’s a fresh face?  I’m going to reprint Keith Law’s scouting report.  But I’ve made one minor substitution, see if you can find it.

"John Smith, who is not from Japan, is primarily a two-pitch pitcher, with a below-average fastball in the 84-88 mph range with a little run, and a plus 74-79 mph curveball with a late two-plane break."

Not that I’m any huge fan of Adam Eaton, but how is talking to Igawa worth more than three years of Eaton?  Oh well, it’s only money.

– Orioles build expensive bullpen.  People said the Cubs were dumb for spending most of their money last winter on Scott Eyre and Bob Howry.  Well who’s laughing now?  Eyre and Howry, mostly…both guys pitched as well as anyone could’ve hoped and the Cubs were still awful.  I keep saying this – one can draw a lot of similarities between the buffoonery of the Orioles and Cubs this decade.  This connection is almost as brilliant as the time I wrote a college paper about the similarities between 12 Monkeys and Terminator.  Two of my top five movies, by the way.

– Cards sign Adam Kennedy and Kip Wells.   Ah, there’s something I like.  Nice work Walt!  Kennedy throws down some league average hitting and quality glovework at a decent price.  Love the Wells signing even more – four mil for one year?  He must’ve wanted to pitch in St. Louis because someone should’ve topped that.  Reading this scouting report, Wells sounds like the ideal Dave Duncan fixer upper. 

– Dodgers sign Randy Wolf (hometown discount).  And we thought the Padres had cornered the hometown discount market.  Wolf at one year guaranteed is a steal and could be the best Tier 2 free agent starter from this winter’s crop.

– Indians sign Dellucci.  You really can’t go wrong on this signing.  Platoons are the new OBP.

– Phils sign Eaton.  I read this and said aloud, "Eh."  My wife looked at me funny for grunting at the computer.  If I were a Phillies fan, I’d be kind of annoyed by this signing.  It seems as if Pat Gillick couldn’t find a way to spend the money he had earmarked for a big bat so he went with Eaton and Wes Helms.  This is not exciting.

– Davis, Eveland, Krynzel to Arizona; Estrada, Vargas, Aquino to Milwaukee.  I have to echo what Jeff said – advantage Brewers.  Davis was getting pricey and less effective and surely planned to leave via free agency.  Vargas is a comparable, cheaper guy.  I like a rotation of Sheets, Capuano, Bush, Vargas, and Gallardo next summer. 

– Astros sign Carlos Lee, Woody Williams.  No worries about the Williams signing.  But that is a large chunk of change and years for C-Lee.  By most accounts Lee’s defense is average on a good day, so almost all of the money is for his bat.  That’s not a $16.6MM bat.  Not to defend the Soriano signing, but Sori should age better and could play a premium defensive position.

– Dodgers sign Juan Pierre.  It’s hard to find an original way to bash this signing.  Others have bashed it already in more humorous ways. 

– Angels sign Gary Matthews Jr.  Most analysts hate this.  Fortunately I am just some guy and not an official analyst, so I can disagree.  I don’t hate it.  For this deal to be a true stinker, I’d have to be convinced that Matthews is not a good defensive CF.  The panel of ten experts from Bill James’s Handbook this year ranked him fourth in the game for defense at the position.  The bar isn’t too high to be an above average offensive CF.  Sum it up, and I see a player who’s above average in both aspects of the game.  Would you rather have a dinosaur like Dave Roberts or Kenny Lofton chasing flies out there?  The Angels can afford to overpay in terms of years.

– Rangers sign Catalanotto.  Sure, three years is a lot for a platoon guy.  But Cat’s affordable and this should work out just fine.           

I just updated the list of free agent starting pitchers, which can be found at this link.  I will keep this and the other free agent position links found on the sidebar up to date as players sign this winter.  Think of it as my own primitive free agent tracker.

Hi everyone.  I’m Tim, the owner of this site.  Remember me?  I’m back from my honeymoon, which was phenomenal.  Just a perfect week in Mexico.  The extent of my baseball monitoring during that time:

– Went on Internet for 15 minutes.  Saw that Juan Pierre signed a five year contract.  Winced and made my way back to the beach.

– Paid three bucks for a day late special "Cancun edition" of the Miami Herald.  Learned that the Astros signed Carlos Lee at an average of $16.6MM annually.  Winced and made my way back to the beach.

Good times.  I’ll run through the other hot stove I missed in another post, for those interested.

Many, many thanks and a big round of applause to the five guys who helped me out while I was gone.  It was fun reading through the November archive when I got home today to see all these different voices.  Jeff, Jake, Koch, and Mark kept us updated on all the latest news, supplied cutting edge analysis, threw in some humor, and introduced us to all sorts of interesting baseball links.  That’s all you could ask for.  Thanks guys.  Please visit their websites today and bookmark them.  We haven’t seen the end of guest posts at MLBTradeRumors – this was cool.

Jeff Sackmann owns Brew Crew Ball and Minor League Splits.

Jake owns Bucco Blog.

Koch owns CubDumb.

Mark Healey owns Gotham Baseball.

And one more shoutout to Adam Howe, who writes for GameFour.  Adam stepped in to keep my fantasy baseball blog, RotoAuthority, rolling.

Cubs people tell me the mysteriously lingering "interim" tag on Cubs President John McDonough will be dropped after the New Year.  Apparently, that’s when Andy MacPhail’s "handshake deal" expires. 

No worries, Cub fans. McDonough will be keeping the job for good (and possibly shelling out more dough).

Also, here is the most recent fantasy scouting report on Juan Pierre, as well as some other things.

–Koch at CubDumb

A source has indicated the Phillies have come to a tentative agreement with Carlos Lee.  This is all I know.

Hi everyone, Tim here.  I’ve been out today preparing for my wedding, but popped in just now to see some rumor-related confusion.

As you know, Jeff Sackmann is covering this site for me while I’m gone for the next week or so.  Jeff’s done a fine job so far and has posted informative info.

However, it appears that today some false radio reports made their way onto the site.  I’m not sure exactly how it all happened, as Jeff was going on the word of some trusted friends.

In my experience it’s pretty easy for a rumor to get lost in translation or even made up as it gets passed along, kind of like a game of telephone.  I only have a few guys I will listen to for the ever-present "radio rumors" as these are the toughest to confirm.  We will probably stick to links and not radio reports for the next few weeks here.

I apologize for the error.  Echoing what Matt Cerrone at MetsBlog said today…we can’t listen to all the radio stations or Buster Olney spots ourselves, so there is a certain level of trust when reporting them.  However, this is the Internet, so one has to be 100% confident before posting.  We regret the mistake here at MLBTradeRumors.   

Here’s a fun exercise over at Bucco Blog: looking at just these graphs, with no research, which pitcher would you prefer and what premium would you pay him compared to the other two? 

Weigh in with your thoughts in the comments and Jake will reveal the pitchers later on.