By Tim Dierkes | at
Many of us could use a little extra boost heading into an all-important fantasy baseball draft or two this week. Check out our latest at RotoAuthority:
By Tim Dierkes | at
After more than four years and thousands of perfectly-crafted posts for MLB Trade Rumors, Ben Nicholson-Smith is joining Sportsnet.ca as their new baseball editor. Sportsnet has hired one of the industry's best up-and-coming journalists. Ben's professionalism, hard work, and top-notch writing will be sorely missed here at MLBTR, and we wish him the best. He's made my job much easier over the years. If you've enjoyed Ben's work here, give him a follow on Twitter. Though this is Ben's last day at MLBTR, we'll surely be proudly linking to his work for Sportsnet.ca.
By Ben Nicholson-Smith | at
If you prefer your MLBTR fix limited to only your favorite team, we've got you covered. Below are links to our team Facebook, Twitter, and RSS pages and feeds.
AL East
AL Central
AL West
NL East
NL Central
NL West
By Ben Nicholson-Smith | at
An explanation of the many ways to enjoy MLB Trade Rumors:
By Zachary Links | at
To entice veterans into signing minor league contracts, teams will often dangle opt-out clauses. These clauses allow players to push the eject button on their deals if they are not on the big league roster by a certain date. However, the collective bargaining agreement makes such deals mandatory for players who meet certain requirements.
Last season, there were more than 30 players, known as "Article XX(B) free agents," who qualified for these agreements and signed minor league deals. The 2012 list, as broken down by our own Mark Polishuk, included some prominent names like Vicente Padilla, Omar Vizquel, Jason Isringhausen, Juan Pierre, and Jeff Francis.
Matt Eddy of Baseball America compiled a list of this year's group of Article XX(B) free agents. So who qualifies for this designation? Any player who had a Major League contract expire at the end of the previous season and with at least six years of Major League service time who signs a minor league deal. Then, the team must make a decision about that player's fate by five days before Opening Day. The player has to be placed on the 25-man roster, released outright, or given a $100K bonus if sent down to the minors. If the player is sent to the minor leagues, he'll also have an opt-out date of June 1st that will allow him to bail if he is not on the varsity squad by that stage.
As Eddy notes, 16 of last year's Article XX(B) free agents made an Opening Day roster, 11 were cut loose prior to the deadline, two began the year in Triple-A (Francis and Aaron Cook), and two others (Russell Branyan and Corey Patterson) re-worked their contracts so that they could sign straight minor league pacts.
Here's a look at the 33 veterans on minor league deals who could be free to find new jobs or $100K richer before Opening Day. Players who also appeared on last year's list are denoted with an asterisk..
Diamondbacks: Rod Barajas
Red Sox: Lyle Overbay
Reds: Miguel Olivo
Indians: Matt Capps, Jason Giambi, Daisuke Matsuzaka
Rockies: Miguel Batista*
Royals: Endy Chavez, Xavier Nady*, George Sherrill
Angels: Bill Hall
Dodgers: Mark Lowe
Marlins: Austin Kearns, Casey Kotchman, Chad Qualls
Mets: Tim Byrdak, Pedro Feliciano, LaTroy Hawkins
Yankees: Matt Diaz, Juan Rivera
Phillies: Aaron Cook*
Pirates: Brandon Inge, Jose Contreras, Jonathan Sanchez
Padres: Freddy Garcia
Giants: Chad Gaudin, Ramon Ramirez
Rays: Juan Carlos Oviedo, Jamey Wright*
Rangers: Jeff Baker, Yoshinori Tateyama
Nationals: Chris Young, Chris Snyder
By Ben Nicholson-Smith | at
Teams and players often agree to contract extensions during the spring, after the top free agents have signed and arbitration cases have been resolved. Extensions are all about comparables, especially when it comes to arbitration eligible players. Coming up with the relevant position, salary and service time data would have been a serious obstacle for most observers until MLBTR introduced an Extension Tracker.
The tracker shows all contract extensions, whether they cover the player's arbitration years, free agent years, or both. All the extensions are listed by date, and our filter button allows you to change the date range. You can also filter by any combination of team, position, guaranteed years, amount in millions, number of options, service time, super two status, and agency. The service time filtering allows you to choose one or both boundaries of a range. Service time is denoted as years.days, so 4.148 means four years and 148 days. The player name is hyperlinked to MLBTR's post on the story of the extension.
For example, if you wanted to put Chris Sale’s recent extension in context, you could search for all of the starting pitchers with two-plus years of service time who signed five-year deals of $25MM or more since 2008. That search turns up many similar deals, since Sale’s deal fits within a pre-established template for pitcher contracts.
The extension tracker can be found under the Tools menu in the navigation bar up top, along with our, Arbitration Tracker, Agency Database and Transaction Tracker. MLBTR also has iPhone/iPad and Android apps.
By Ben Nicholson-Smith | at
If you're a regular MLBTR reader, you'll be familiar with our chats, our Week In Review posts and Zach Links' Baseball Blogs Weigh In feature. Here's some more detail on when you'll see our weekly features and exactly what to expect from them:
By Ben Nicholson-Smith | at
MLBTR is increasing efforts to enforce our commenting policy. The goal is to raise the level of discourse in the comments, part of which involves eliminating inappropriate language and insults.
Comments of this nature are not allowed:
If you see comments that violate our policy, please flag them and/or contact us. Bans may be handed out liberally by our moderators, without second chances or warnings. Remaining civil is not that difficult, though, and most commenters have no problems doing so as well as helping rein each other in. We at MLBTR are grateful for long-time commenters and readers, though this policy applies equally regardless of tenure. This policy is always available at the bottom of the site, and will be re-posted monthly.
By Ben Nicholson-Smith | at
Teams looking for reinforcements can turn to the waiver wire as Opening Day approaches. Each club faces tough roster decisions at the end of Spring Training, and talented out of options players are sometimes available on waivers as teams try to sneak them through to the minor leagues.
The Braves (three open spots), Angels (one open spot), Phillies (one open spot), Nationals (one open spot), Cardinals (one open spot) and Giants (one open spot) are the MLB teams that presently have open 40-man spots, according to MLBDepthCharts.com. These clubs are well-positioned to claim someone should an intriguing player be placed on waivers. They could also offer free agents Major League deals without having to cut another player (if they have enough money and projected 25-man roster space).
The Braves are known to be seeking a left-handed bench bat, and could consider options on waivers in the next month or so. The Nationals could be looking for left-handed relief, depending on how their internal options perform this spring.
Keep in mind that many of the 24 teams with full 40-man rosters will create roster space by moving a player to the 60-day disabled list or by releasing, outrighting or designating for assignment a rostered player. For context, eight players were claimed on waivers during the week leading up to Opening Day in 2012.
By Zachary Links | at
Most clubs have addressed their significant roster questions by the time players report to Spring Training, but there are always moves to be made. We know that we're likely to see at least one significant move go down as Kyle Lohse remains on the open market, but what else can we expect this month? Let's take a look back at notable transactions made last March with help from our handy Transaction Tracker…
MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com
Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information
hide arrows scroll to top
