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Re: The MLB Thread
More trades:
Hanley Ramirez to LA Dodgers for P Nathan Eovaldi and minor league pitcher Scott McGough.
LHP Wandy Rodriguez to the Pirates for AA OF Robbie Grossman, and minor league pitchers Rudy Owens and Colton Cain. Pirates also receive cash.
The Ramirez move could backfire on the Dodgers. They took on all his contract (around 37 million) and his performance has been down since the start of 2010 season. Defense has always been an issue for him but his bat always made up for it. He'll be better than Juan Uribe but I think the Marlins lucked out when they got someone to take that contract. Interesting rebuild on the fly by the Marlins as they acquired a bunch of prospects from the Tigers for Infante and Sanchez and they got something for Hanley. Josh Johnson could also be moved but they are asking a lot for him and I think he'll stay.
I like the Rodriguez trade for the Pirates. They gave up a descent prospect in Grossman but they needed a pitcher since some of the starters have been faltering. PNC Park favors left handed pitchers as well. They got cash too which makes it something like a 2 year 13 million dollars that they'll be paying for Rodriguez. That's pretty much the average price for a decent starting pitcher. I hope they grab another corner outfielder or a first baseman by Tuesday but the prices for position players have been high. I wouldn't mind Victorino from the Phillies.
Ryan Dempster really fucked the Cubs by essentially blocking that trade to the Braves. Now the Dodgers are lowballing the Cubs because of this. What's even more dickish is that he told the Cubs that he didn't really have any objections towards going to the Braves. Garza might not start again until after the trade deadline. I still they can still trade him at worst in the offseason but he would have made a nice consolation prize for a team that didn't trade for Zack Greinke.
Phillies sign Cole Hamels to a 6 year contract worth 144 million. It doesn't look like Cliff Lee will be going anywhere either. They've been talking about trading Jimmy Rollins or Hunter Pence and that makes sense since they have to reduce payroll somewhere.
Last note on Ichiro, it will be really interesting to see where he ends up in 2013. He is 400+ hits short of 3,000 hits and I don't think he retires if he's that close to the magic number. I could see a west coast team giving him a one year deal.
Re: The MLB Thread
Worth a gamble, doesn't seem like the White Sox gave up very much. If Liriano can have a Youkilis like impact, teams might want to stop giving away players to the Chi-Sox.
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/07/w … um=twitter
White Sox Acquire Francisco Liriano
By Mike Axisa [July 28, 2012 at 10:01pm CST]
The White Sox tried hard to land Zack Greinke before he went to the Angels, so they instead turned to a familiar foe to shore up the rotation. The team announced that they have acquired Francisco Liriano from the Twins for infielder Eduardo Escobar and left-hander Pedro Hernandez.
Liriano, 28, has been a prominent member of the trade rumor circuit for several years now. He's eligible for free agency after the season and is owed approximately $2.1MM for the remainder of the year. Injuries and inconsistency have dogged the left-hander throughout his career, and this year he's pitched to a 5.31 ERA in exactly 100 innings.
The Twins originally acquired Liriano from the Giants as a minor leaguer as part of the A.J. Pierzynski-Joe Nathan swap back in 2003. He placed third in the Rookie of the Year voting in 2006 and earned Cy Young Award votes in 2010, but he's pitched to a 5.18 ERA in 234 1/3 innings since. Liriano went from the rotation to the bullpen and back to the rotation this year, posting a 3.68 ERA in 11 starts since becoming a starter again.
The White Sox are adding one of the game's premier strikeout pitchers to their staff with the trade. Even during his down years, Liriano has always missed bats and he owns a 9.8 K/9 this season. Walks are an issue however, especially of late. Over the last two years he's walked five hitters for every nine innings pitched. He figures to join Chris Sale and Jose Quintana to make three lefties in the ChiSox rotation.
Escobar, 23, has hit .202/.276/.247 in 99 plate appearances over the last two seasons while playing second, third, short, and left field. He's a .270/.315/.351 career hitter in the minors, and before the season Baseball America ranked him as Chicago's tenth best prospect in their Prospect Handbook. "While Escobar has quick hands at the plate, he has yet to develop the strength or discipline to be an effective hitter," wrote the publication.
Hernandez, 23, allowed eight runs in four innings in his first career big league start earlier this season. He's pitched to a 2.94 ERA in 85 2/3 innings split between Double-A and Triple-A this year. Baseball America did not consider him one of the team's top 30 prospects coming into 2012. Both Hernandez and Escobar have been assigned to Triple-A Rochester, the Twins announced. A corresponding 40-man roster move will be made tomorrow.
Re: The MLB Thread
Close to September and I'll just give some random thoughts:
AL East--NYY already has a spot in hand. The shocker is Baltimore is still in contention. The Rays are the hottest team in MLB. I suspect at worst they'll get one WC spot. Jays have been wrecked by injuries and the Red Sox are a complete mess (more on them later).
AL West--Texas has the division in hand. Oakland is still in it and picked up Stephen Drew yesterday. While the Angels aren't out of it, they are sinking fast(wild card spot). Seattle has played well and could catch the Angels for third.
AL Central--Two teams--Tigers and White Sox will battle it out. I think the loser has a good chance of snagging the 2nd WC spot. The other teams are just playing out the string. I will say that Cleveland should have dealt a bunch of players near the deadline. Also, the Jimmez deal from last year looks like a disaster.
AL East--Two teamer with the Nationals and Braves. Braves got a pretty good lead for the first WC spot. Marlins did a good job with their July fire sale acquisitons and Stanton is healthy again and hit some absolute bombs on their West Coast road trip. Phillies are in wait for next year mode and to be honest they have a really short window to compete.
NL Central--The Reds have a healthy lead in the division. The Pirates and Cardinals are fighting for the 2nd WC. I have a hard time being totally optimistic about the Pirates chances. The pitching has reverted to norm and McCutchen has cooled down considerably. Also, I've realized that Clint Hurdle is an absolute dumbass with some of his manegerial decisions. The Cards are a weird bunch to figure out. By all metrics they should have a better record, but they end up losing a lot of games they should win. They lost a game last against the Pirates last week when they Pirates had zero RBI. Cubs are playing for next year and to be honest they might be an interesting team to watch because they have a lot guys up who figure into next year's plans (Rizzo, Castro, Jackson and maybe Vitters). Brewers at least got a decent return on the Greinke trade and Astros are playing to avoid 110+ losses.
NL West--Dodgers and Giants, and Dbacks lurking. Clearly the Dodgers division to win now with the Cabrera suspension. The real question is whether or not the Giants have enough pitching to withstand the Cabrera suspension.
If I were to guess today:
AL East--NYY
AL Central--White Sox
AL West--Rangers
AL WC--Rays and Tigers
NL East--Nationals
NL West--Dodgers
NL Central--Reds
NL WC--Braves and Cardinals.
I'll write about the Red Sox, Angels and the Cabrera suspension later on as those topics will take up a lot of space.
Re: The MLB Thread
Worth a gamble, doesn't seem like the White Sox gave up very much. If Liriano can have a Youkilis like impact, teams might want to stop giving away players to the Chi-Sox.
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/07/w … um=twitter
White Sox Acquire Francisco Liriano
By Mike Axisa [July 28, 2012 at 10:01pm CST]The White Sox tried hard to land Zack Greinke before he went to the Angels, so they instead turned to a familiar foe to shore up the rotation. The team announced that they have acquired Francisco Liriano from the Twins for infielder Eduardo Escobar and left-hander Pedro Hernandez.
Liriano, 28, has been a prominent member of the trade rumor circuit for several years now. He's eligible for free agency after the season and is owed approximately $2.1MM for the remainder of the year. Injuries and inconsistency have dogged the left-hander throughout his career, and this year he's pitched to a 5.31 ERA in exactly 100 innings.
The Twins originally acquired Liriano from the Giants as a minor leaguer as part of the A.J. Pierzynski-Joe Nathan swap back in 2003. He placed third in the Rookie of the Year voting in 2006 and earned Cy Young Award votes in 2010, but he's pitched to a 5.18 ERA in 234 1/3 innings since. Liriano went from the rotation to the bullpen and back to the rotation this year, posting a 3.68 ERA in 11 starts since becoming a starter again.
The White Sox are adding one of the game's premier strikeout pitchers to their staff with the trade. Even during his down years, Liriano has always missed bats and he owns a 9.8 K/9 this season. Walks are an issue however, especially of late. Over the last two years he's walked five hitters for every nine innings pitched. He figures to join Chris Sale and Jose Quintana to make three lefties in the ChiSox rotation.
Escobar, 23, has hit .202/.276/.247 in 99 plate appearances over the last two seasons while playing second, third, short, and left field. He's a .270/.315/.351 career hitter in the minors, and before the season Baseball America ranked him as Chicago's tenth best prospect in their Prospect Handbook. "While Escobar has quick hands at the plate, he has yet to develop the strength or discipline to be an effective hitter," wrote the publication.
Hernandez, 23, allowed eight runs in four innings in his first career big league start earlier this season. He's pitched to a 2.94 ERA in 85 2/3 innings split between Double-A and Triple-A this year. Baseball America did not consider him one of the team's top 30 prospects coming into 2012. Both Hernandez and Escobar have been assigned to Triple-A Rochester, the Twins announced. A corresponding 40-man roster move will be made tomorrow.
Dude was a headcase, had all the stuff of being an All-Star caliber pitcher, but couldnt mentally focus with the Twins. And hes going to be a free agent by the end of they year and we werent going to contend so shipping him out for some prospects was the way to go. Honestly we should have gotten more for him, considering the potential he possess. So far he has looked pretty good for the Sox, sometimes a change of scenery can turn it on for some ballplayers.
Re: The MLB Thread
Damn, the Red Sox are close to trading Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto to the Dodgers for P prospect Allan Webster, IF/OF Jerry Sands, P Rubby de la Rosa, IF Ivan DeJesus, and 1B James Loney.
A few days ago, if you would have asked me I would have said that Bobby V is a goner after the year. Now, they've sent most of the malcontents out of town. Shoppach got traded a week ago to the Mets. They fired pitching coach Bob McClure who was supposedly the leak that gave the info about the players bitching about Bobby V to upper management.
And they get rid of all that money owed to Crawford and Beckett. I think they're probably supposed to send some cash to LA. But I wouldn't be suprised if LA just took the contracts in exchange for sending less prospects to the Dodgers.
Yeah, they got less for Adrian Gonzalez but they had to include two guys who have very little value and a lot cash owed in Beckett and Crawford. It gives them a whole bunch of money to play with and I think Matsuzaka comes off the payroll as well. Can't see them going after Greinke in FA though, it just seems like a bad match.
They did get a couple of interesting pitching prospects in the trade in Webster and de la Rosa. Sands has some skills as well. Loney is useless though.
It will be a really interesting offseason for Boston that's for sure.
And Mark Grace is going to rehab since he got popped for a DUI last night. I hope he gets his life straightened out. He's pretty entertaining as a color analyst. And he had a really good MLB career.
Re: The MLB Thread
Yeah, I watched the Red Sox lose a ridiculous back and forth game last night. Vernon Wells hit a game tying homer in the 9th that looked to clearly hit the top of the Green Monster and come back on the field. Bobby didn't bother to argue. Then after Aceves gave up a few more runs, the Sox came back to tie the game to send it to extra innings and Bobby let Aceves back out for the 10th. True to form, he gave up a leadoff homer and a single. It was as if Bobby had given up on that game and on the season. I was ready to call it quits with him right then and there. But NOW, there's a small glimmer of hope that has been building over the last few weeks. They are FINALLY cleaning house once and for all on this vastly underachieving team.
With that being said. I'm not sure Bobby will survive. He could be part of the house cleaning. But I do think his chances are a little better today than they were a few weeks ago.
I was shocked by this deal. SHOCKED! I heard earlier in the day that Gonzalez had been claimed but didn't think much of it. Figured they were just testing the waters so to speak. Then I heard Beckett was claimed, and figured something might be up. Then out of nowhere Crawford's name emerges along with Punto. It all just happened so fast and before you knew it, it was seemingly a done deal. As long as it doesn't fall apart over night, I fully support the deal. I thought they'd be stuck with that Crawford contract for 5 more years. He was about as untradeable as they get. Somehow they got it done though. Well, obviously by giving Gonzalez away. We'll see if either of the pitching prospects pan out and what they do with all the money they saved. I just hope they don't run right out and feel the need to give a couple mega contracts out just because they can. I think they learned their lesson though.
Re: The MLB Thread
The Marlins actually wanted to pull this deal off earlier this year. AGon brought to Miami just adds to the hispanic nature, one of the Marlins execs had been in love with Crawford since his Tampa Bay days, and bringing Beckett back to the Fish would've been a major publicity stunt.
But the Marlins have literally NO farming system to trade with. Miami is in a dangerous situation. A new stadium, new team (sort of) and nothing to show for it, and no farm. Miami isn't going to accept "rebuilding". Once again they're gonna have to spend spend spend in a weak FA market to try to build a team to compete in the NL East.
Re: The MLB Thread
Rays are friggin' toast. I said it before, no way you can compete with those playoff teams with that anemic, crappy offense. People say pitching wins ballgames, but you have to put runs on the board too. And you can't rely on Longo to constantly hit HR's. Upton might hit for power, but he's not an RBI-machine. Next year, they really need to spend some money, but considering hardly nobody goes to those games, even in a playoff push -- I doubt it.
No way they make a comeback at this point. O's/Yanks are a lock for the playoffs, depending on who wins the division. A's are an even bigger force than I thought. If a spoiler shows up, it'll be the Angels.
