Links for Friday…
- Patrick Newman of NPB Tracker talks about hard-throwing Japanese reliever Ryota Igarashi, perhaps the top free agent from the country for the 2009-10 offseason.
- I did a Q&A over at Coast to Coast Baseball.
- Some doubt with the sale of the Cubs to the Ricketts family: Tribune owner Sam Zell said, "We've made it very public that the Cubs don't fit into the long-term picture of the Tribune. So if the Ricketts deal doesn't get done, I'm sure there will be other ones."
- In separate articles, Dan Uggla and Octavio Dotel comment on the possibility of being traded.
- Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle says Edgar Renteria was a good signing for the Giants, if you ignore the actual contract. Eh?
- Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch discusses various third base trades the Cardinals could make.
- SI's Tom Verducci likes Freddy Sanchez for the Rays. What's wrong with Willy Aybar and Ben Zobrist?
- Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution talked to Braves GM Frank Wren about the team's need for a bat.
- FanGraphs' Matthew Carruth asks: Where's Odalis Perez?