Four years ago today, the Padres traded Josh Barfield to the Indians for Andrew Brown and Kevin Kouzmanoff. Only Kouzmanoff panned out to any extent; he was sent to the A's with Eric Sogard in January for Aaron Cunningham and Scott Hairston. With Kouzmanoff and Hairston non-tender candidates, Sogard and Cunningham could be the remaining threads of the deal. Links for Monday…
- Do you have experience in online ad sales, ideally for sports websites? MLBTR is looking to bring someone aboard to sell ad inventory on commission. Email mlbtradrep@gmail.com and explain your qualifications if you're interested.
- Edgar Renteria would prefer to return to the Giants, he told Claudia Aguilar Ramirez of El Tiempo. Thanks to Nick Collias for the translation.
- Aubrey Huff hired Ed Hayes as his agent, reported Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports last night.
- The Tigers re-signed catcher Max St. Pierre to a minor league deal, reports Morosi.
- Sanspo has the Angels in the mix for Hisanori Takahashi, tweets Patrick Newman of NPB Tracker. It seems likely that the Halos will add a left-handed reliever this winter; I went with Pedro Feliciano in my Top 50 list.
- Carlos Torres, released by the White Sox last month to pursue a job in Japan, has landed with the Yomiuri Giants according to this Newman tweet.
- Kevin Goldstein's top 11 Pirates prospect list is free to all over at Baseball Prospectus. BP is definitely worth subscribing to for Goldstein's work and much more. We also recommend ESPN Insider, which you'll need to read Keith Law's new starting pitcher buyer's guide.
- Speaking of the Pirates, SI's Jon Heyman says they seem active in early free agent calls and "are believed to be showing interest in some surprising free agent prizes such as [Adrian] Beltre."
- Dave Cameron of FanGraphs believes the Padres should trade Adrian Gonzalez now rather than in July.
Never can trust a word Jon Heyman says until other reporters hear the same story,haha.
Tomorrow Heyman will say they are looking at Manny and Werth as well… and Boras will say “the Pirates have the money to sign them all”.
Oh yeah…and then the following day Heyman will tweet that Bobby Valentine is in the lead for whichever managerial vacancy happens to be in the spotlight that day.
my pirates wishlist
gimme d. lee,francis, javier vasquez
trade for a shortstop
dump doumit
grab cheap relief help
Matt: I’m a fan of taking a shot at Brad Hawpe to play some RF…maybe even platoon with L. Milledge. RF at PNC is tiny compared to Colorado…and we may be able to steal him from the market!
As for SS, I’d like to go grab Bartlett from Tampa…they need to move salary, so for once we’d be able to deal with a motivated SELLER (that is NOT us!!!). We may be able to get them to pay some of his salary…or something!
I hope you were joking about Hawpe. He was as one-dimensional as they come until he stopped hitting.
What do you think it would take the aquire doumit? If it’s reasonalbe i could see the sox taking a flyer.
doumit should go to red sox i say pitching u cant get enough pitching lol maybe AAA guy or two at most for him idk..
My pirates wish list part 2
trade jones to rays for pitching
trade for a shortstop
lee wont come here francis i wont mine but is he really worth it?
dump doumit but get something for him
grab cheap relief i agree
I say bonderman, vasquez isnt it i was watching the yankees one day and he threw 3 pitches 3 times in a row at a batter cause he didnt want to be in the bullpen haha yea about him?? lol
So glad I subscribed to baseball prospectus.
Does Huff hiring a new agent mean he will explore the market more? Instead of signing right away with the Giants
Who knows what he’s thinking. I bet he signed with the giants before thanksgiving.
Despite the big home run in game 5 I just don’t understand the interest in Edgar Renteria. Being a Tigers fan I’ve seen how much he has regressed over the last few years both offensively and defensively. Every team has to have someone in the minors who is just as good if not better that they can bring up for the league minimum. Teams of Major League Baseball….DON’T PAY Renteria! It will be an awful and financially crippling signing. Give the young guys a shot!
renteria at $9m per year had me calling for sabean’s head (again) 2 years ago. he has limited range at this stage of his career and isn’t nearly the hitter he once was, but at $2-3m a yr he might be a useful part-time player. and there really is a dismal ss market this year and no major-league-ready ss talent on the giants farm, otherwise i’d agree to avoid him.
along with many Giants fans, I’d be a little heartbroken with Huff signed elsewhere next year. I hope hiring a new agent doesn’t have any big meaning behind it
I can’t imagine him leaving either. I mean, he loves it here, we love him here, he won the World Series with us this year, we gave him a call last offseason when no one else would, etc.
huff doesn’t owe us anything. yes, we called on him last year when nobody else did, but we also got him for $3m and he contributed at 3x the production we paid for. he’s fully entitled to test the free agent market now that he’s revived his career.
that said, i love huff. and huff loves it in sf, he wants 3 yrs but sabean has only offered 2. the new agent is to pry the 3rd yr out of the giants, or some people are saying he’ll use some other leverage such as forcing a burrell signing as part of the deal.
if sabean doesn’t re-sign huff, it’s because prince fielder is a giant. or because sabean breaks the bank on juan uribe and all the arbitration cases. or, less likely, on carl crawford.
I didn’t say that he owed us. I’m just saying, this season revitalized him. I really don’t see Sabean spending a lot of money on a Carl Crawford type of player. I mean, he didn’t want to spend anything during the season to help the team because he had faith or something. Now that we won the World Series, I really don’t see him spending money on a big contract player that we didn’t need to win the whole damn thing.
I hope Prince doesn’t become a Giant, even if we lose Huff. If anything, they’ll probably just call up Belt to play if we can’t resign him.
I don’t see why the Padres would not trade A Gone during the off season. They will be able to get more for him now and will actually be a better team without him. Not saying that A-Gone is not a great player, but they have a lot of holes on their everyday roster. I think that the Red Sox would be the ideal fit and they could offer a lot for A-Gone. If I were the Padres I would ask for Jacoby Ellsbury, Marco Scutaro, Lars Anderson. This would be a great deal for both sides. The Sox would have no need for Anderson anymore, Ellsbury would be tough to give up, but they can fill his spot and Scutaro has a replacement waiting in Lowrie. Even with Scutaro’s down year, he would give more productions than the Padres got out of 2B. Ellsbury would be a building block for years to come at the top of their order and Anderson gives them a 1B man of the future.
Oops I liked this by mistake. Anyway, I think they could do better than that.
heyman@ i don’t believe you one bit u get pirates fans all excited then nothing well happen i havent heard anything of beltre and were would he fit??? not third alvarex spot could he play first?????
Alvarez is going to move to first eventually, so why not now?