Zambrano Wants To Remain A Cub
When Carlos Zambrano said he'd waive his no-trade clause if the Cubs presented him with a deal before the trade deadline, he did so while still noting that he'd like to keep playing in Chicago. Zambrano reiterated that desire today to ESPNChicago.com's Bruce Levine, but sounded a bit firmer about using his no-trade rights to ensure that he will stay put in the Windy City.
“I don’t know [what the Cubs' plans are for him],” Zambrano said. “But it’s my option. I don’t want to leave Chicago. I want to be successful here. I want to help this team, like I always say, be in the pennant race.”
It's hard to believe that Zambrano would keep up this stance if presented with a viable trade to another contending team, given his desire to be on a winner and his often-tumultuous stint with the Cubs. The no-trade clause could be a moot point given that it will be very tough for Chicago to find a trade partner willing to take on Zambrano's baggage and, most importantly, his contract (he's owed $35.875MM in 2011-2012 and has a $19.25MM vesting player option for 2013). If the club did manage to work out a trade and Zambrano then vetoed it, the pitcher would just be hurting himself further with management.
Pirates Sign Luis Heredia For $2.6MM
The Pirates officially signed Mexican pitching prospect Luis Heredia for $2.6MM, according to Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It’s the biggest bonus the Pirates have ever given an international amateur.
Heredia’s former team, Veracruz, will keep 75% of the bonus ($1.95MM) and Heredia will keep 25% ($650K). The 16-year-old right-hander already passed a physical and completed the agreement with the Pirates, though the sides have not yet officially signed the deal.
Many teams were interested in Heredia and it appeared in July that the Blue Jays had offered him $2.8MM. However, the Pirates' offer was competitive and Pittsburgh has long-standing connections to Veracruz and Heredia himself. It's been a breakthrough week for the Pirates, who signed right-handers Jameson Taillon and Stetson Allie before Monday night's deadline to come to terms with picks.
Discussion: R.A. Dickey
R.A. Dickey may well be "the most compelling player" on the 2010 Mets (so says Ken Belson of the New York Times), and it's hard to argue that the knuckleballer has been the most surprising. Signed for a $600K minor league contract last winter, Dickey has emerged as an unlikely stalwart of New York's rotation. Dickey has a 2.41 ERA and 2.48 K/BB ratio in 18 starts this season, quite the far cry from the 5.43 ERA that the 35-year-old posted over his first seven major league seasons.
Though Dickey is working on a one-year contract, he will still be under the Mets' control since he hasn't accrued enough major league service time to qualify for free agency. As Matthew Cerrone of MetsBlog.com points out, Dickey has another year of arbitration before reaching free agency after 2011. Dickey is sure to earn a hefty raise from an arbiter, but Cerrone speculates that the veteran might be willing to forego a one-year pay boost in exchange for signing a new two-year deal with New York.
Even if Dickey keeps up his solid pitching for the rest of the season, his unimpressive past numbers and age will keep other teams from offering him anything but a one-year, incentive-laden contract in the winter should the Mets non-tender him. Letting Dickey walk doesn't make much sense, so it seems much more likely that New York will bring Dickey back at a reasonable price — say, a two-year deal worth between $3-$4MM in total, plus bonuses in case Dickey keeps up his success.
Given that Dickey only converted to the knuckleball around five years ago, his recent success may not be quite as big an outlier as it seems, but rather a sign that Dickey is mastering the art of the knuckler. Bringing back Dickey seems like a logical move for the Mets, plus it couldn't hurt to bring back a popular player who is "a center of the clubhouse" according to Belson.
The Phillies’ 2011 Rotation
The Phillies' 2011 rotation won't be hard to assemble, will be expensive and should be effective. The combination of Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels and Joe Blanton will cost the Phillies $56MM next season – more than the Padres, Pirates or Marlins will spend on their entire teams this year. That's an expensive front four, but the group should also be durable and effective.
Halladay is arguably the best pitcher in the game and Oswalt and Hamels are in the midst of characteristically strong seasons. That trio is tough to beat, even if Blanton doesn't rebound from his career high 5.54 ERA.
This year, Charlie Manuel has called on Jamie Moyer and Kyle Kendrick to fill out the rotation. Moyer, a free agent this offseason, is out indefinitely with a left elbow injury, but Kendrick has been effective in spite of his low strikeout rate (4.5 K/9). He has a 4.45 ERA thanks to his ability to limit walks (2.4 BB/9) and induce enough ground balls (44% ground ball rate).
Should the Phillies need to call on a minor leaguer next year, they'll have a few options. Right-handers Drew Carpenter and Vance Worley have been effective in the upper minors this year and both have pitched in the majors. Worley, still just 22, could become a back-of-the-rotation starter, according to pre-season analysis from Baseball America. Carpenter, who is two and a half years older than Worley, is now putting together his second consecutive solid season at Triple A Lehigh Valley, so he provides Philadelphia with another option.
The Phillies can bring their entire rotation back for 2011 and they have minor leaguers who are ready to contribute if called upon. They don't need to pursue Moyer or other free agent pitchers this winter and they already have about $144MM committed to next year's payroll, so they wouldn't have much to spend on pitching if they wanted to.
Philadelphia traded talented players away to acquire the rotation they now have. It cost Kyle Drabek, J.A. Happ and then some to acquire Halladay and Oswalt. The result is a more predictable, more expensive rotation that could easily be one of the league's best.
Odds & Ends: Aramis, Podsednik, Huff, Hawpe
Links for Thursday, exactly two years after the Padres traded Greg Maddux to the Dodgers…
- Aramis Ramirez told Bruce Levine of ESPNChicago.com that he plans to honor his contract. Presumably that means he intends on exercising his 2011 player option worth $14.6MM.
- As Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports points out on Twitter, Scott Podsednik has now reached 525 plate appearances for 2010, so he will have the power to void his 2011 option. The Dodgers have a $2MM option for next season with a $100K buyout.
- Mark Pieper of SFX now represents Aubrey Huff, according to Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com (on Twitter). Huff, a free agent this winter, left ACES earlier in the season.
- Brad Hawpe, who was officially released today, thanked the fans for his seven years in Colorado, via Troy Renck of the Denver Post. It's been a rough year for Hawpe, who was "a player who everybody would have wanted" last winter, according to a GM who spoke to ESPN.com's Buster Olney.
- Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe says he would offer Adrian Beltre a three-year $45MM deal this winter if he were running the Red Sox, but he's not sure about $60MM over four years.
- Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports suggests all parties would benefit if the Dodgers trade Manny Ramirez this month. Manny is rehabbing, but can soon be placed on waivers. He will likely clear waivers and draw trade interest.
Phillies Could Pursue Hawpe; Red Sox Unlikely
The Phillies could have interest in Brad Hawpe when he clears release waivers, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (Twitter links). A club official told Rosenthal that the Phillies will be a “maybe” on Monday or Tuesday once he can sign with any team.
The Red Sox, who were looking for a left-handed hitting first baseman before we learned that Mike Cameron and Jacoby Ellsbury were out for the season, will not likely pursue Hawpe, according to Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald. Hawpe has spent most of his career in right field, but has appeared in a handful of games at first base this year. He hasn't hit like a first baseman, as his .255/.343/.432 line shows.
MLBTR's Tim Dierkes suggested the White Sox and Rays could also have interest, before the Rockies released Hawpe.
Stark On Zambrano, Beltran, Keppinger, Torre
Owners want a rigid slotting system like the ones in the NFL and the NBA, but ESPN.com's Jayson Stark finds it hard to believe that the MLBPA would agree to hard slotting, since it has traditionally avoided caps of any kind. One National League executive compared baseball's current slotting system to “traffic lights in the Dominican,” since he doesn’t know “what they're even there for." A hard slotting system would give teams the certainty of pre-determined bonuses, but the MLBPA wouldn't like it. Here are the rest of Stark's rumors:
- One executive believes the Cubs could find a taker for Carlos Zambrano this winter as long as they take on most of the big righty's salary, but another executive says there's no way the Cubs could trade Big Z.
- Executives are similarly divided on Carlos Beltran. One says trading him is "impossible," but another would take a flier on Beltran, partly because he's headed into a contract year.
- Jeff Keppinger was claimed on waivers, so the Astros cannot trade him this month.
- A longtime acquaintance of Joe Torre's expects the manager to sign with the Mets this winter.
Padres To Sign Jody Gerut
The Padres will sign Jody Gerut to a minor league deal, according to Tom Krasovic of AOL FanHouse (on Twitter). The Brewers, who released Gerut earlier in the month, are about to face off against the Padres. Oddly enough, the Brewers acquired Gerut from the Padres last year for Tony Gwynn Jr., who happened to hit the disabled list today.
Gerut, 32, has not played in a major league game since May 22nd. He posted a .197/.230/.366 line with two homers in 74 plate appearances this year, before he missed two months with a heel injury.
Cardinals Acquire Pedro Feliz
The Cardinals acquired Pedro Feliz and cash from the Astros for pitcher David Carpenter, according to Astros director of social media Alyson Footer (on Twitter). Feliz, 35, has a .221/.243/.311 line this season with four homers in 304 plate appearances. He hasn't hit much in recent years, but has a reputation as a strong defender. UZR suggests that Feliz's defense has been excellent throughout his career (though he has a -7.9 rating in 530 innings so far in 2010).
The Cardinals acquired Feliz to help out at third base, since an injury to David Freese and a Felipe Lopez slump have left St. Louis thin at the hot corner. The Cardinals intensified their search for infielders this week, showing interest in multiple third basemen. Feliz makes a total of $4.5MM in 2010 (he has yet to receive about $1.1MM of that) before becoming a free agent this winter.
Carpenter, 25, was the closer for the Cards' Florida State League (High A) affiliate. He has 20 saves this year with a 2.36 ERA, 8.4 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9. The Cards drafted Carpenter in the 12th round of the 2006 draft as a catcher. Astros GM Ed Wade describes the right-hander as a "power arm" who could become a major league contributor.
Josh Hamilton & Kevin Youkilis
Rangers GM Jon Daniels said earlier in the season that he'd be open to extending Josh Hamilton. Now that the Rangers are under stable ownership and Hamilton is having an MVP-type season, an extension seems like a real possibility. In fact, Tom Verducci of SI.com reported this week that Rangers owner Chuck Greenberg would "love" to sign Hamilton to an extension that buys out at least one season of free agency.
Hamilton, now 29, is under team control through 2012, so he isn't scheduled to hit free agency until he's 31. Contracts in baseball are often about precedent, but it's virtually impossible to find comparable players to Hamilton, a first-overall draft choice who struggled with off-field issues and injuries before breaking out as an elite player in his late twenties. But as Verducci points out, Kevin Youkilis' extension could become something of a model for a possible Hamilton deal.
The comparison is far from perfect, of course. Hamilton plays in the outfield, whereas Youkilis is a corner infielder. Hamilton has a spottier injury history, walks less frequently and steals bases more efficiently, but the two players do have much in common.
Both are skilled defenders, late bloomers and power hitters. As the chart below shows, Youkilis had similar numbers through 2008 to the ones Hamilton has now. Youkilis, who finished third in the 2008 MVP voting then had two years remaining before free agency, just like Hamilton will after the 2010 season.
Though MLBTR generally ignores players' RBI and runs totals, those stats can figure into arbitration hearings, so we've included them here.
Hamilton still has two months to add to his numbers before he goes to arbitration or talks extension with the Rangers, but Youkilis turned his numbers into a four-year $41.125MM deal. Ryan Howard (2006 MVP) and Tim Lincecum (2008-09 Cy Young) turned major awards into record-setting salaries through arbitration, so Hamilton could look for a massive raise through arbitration this winter. But if he and the Rangers talk extension instead of going to arbitration, Hamilton can point to his 2010 season and Youkilis' extension and ask for more than $41.25MM over four years.