Links for Easter Sunday…
- Baseball America's John Manuel provides updates on five Rule 5 picks: Carlos Monasterios with the Dodgers, John Raynor with the Pirates, Zachary Kroenke, who was optioned to the minors by the D'Backs, Kanekoa Texeira with the Mariners, and David Herndon with the Phillies.
- Peter Gammons previews storylines for the 2010 season, such as emerging stars, prospects of the future, a slew of contenders, and the ever-present unpredictability of baseball.
- Dave Campbell of the AP looks at Jacque Jones and how Minnesota's late-season surge in 2009 inspired a comeback attempt for 2010 when he was on the verge of retirement. Jones is reporting to Triple-A Rochester after hitting .366/.409/.585 with the Twins this spring.
- In an interview with Mike Wilner of the FAN 590 in Toronto, Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos said while the team hasn't officially said anything about Adeiny Hechevarria, international cases like his are often slowed by visa issues and other approval processes.
- Tom Haudricourt tweets that there will be no last-minute changes to the Brewers 25-man roster.
- The San Francisco Chronicle's Susan Slusser spoke with recently-DFA'ed Jack Cust, who is shocked and offended by the move. Cust says he will accept a minor league assignment if he clears waivers, but won't let Oakland "walk all over" him. The 31-year-old slugger has led the A's in home runs the past three seasons. Slusser takes a deeper look at the Cust move in a separate piece.
- Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times looks at what the Cubs' performance in 2010 means to Jim Hendry's job, and talks to several players about their positive relationships with the Chicago GM.
- Elliot Johnson cleared waivers and will report to Triple-A Durham, according to Marc Topkin. He adds that the Rays have set their roster and are waiting to hear from Hank Blalock on whether or not he'll accept a minor league assignment.
Jacque Jones could be a quality bench bat for Minnesota late in the year.
I’m all for it if he can still play OF. Surprisingly, he played some late inning CF during those exhib games with the Cards and honestly didn’t look like to much of a liability, especially in small doses. The Twins don’t really have a backup speedy outfielder, aside from maybe Revere, who’s still pretty green and starting the season in AAA. Aside from the closer situation, this is the biggest question mark for the Twins going into opening day.
John Manuel has no idea what he is talking about. Zack Kroenke was optioned as was Edgar Osuna and Ben Snyder. So why not add Osuna and Snyder? Second of all, Hector Ambriz is still with the Indians.
And he said Carlos Monasterios is “unlikely to stick”? That doesn’t make any sense because you never know what you will get with a Rule 5 pick.
Osuna and Snyder weren’t included because they were outrighted off their team’s respective 40-man rosters. Kroenke’s situation is actually the only incident that I can think of where a Rule 5 pick cleared waivers and was optioned rather than outrighted. Ambriz should have been included though, it seems likely Cleveland will just let him toil on the DL and give him an audition in September.
Also, I believe the only reason Manuel listed Monasterios as “unlikely to stick” is because he had only had moderate success in the low levels of the minor leagues. More often than not, it seems that the guys who have had decent success at mostly AA and AAA stick as picks, although there are obvious exceptions to that logic (paging Mr. Soria).