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Jorge Posada Links: Sunday

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The news of Jorge Posada's apparent rift with the Yankees continues to be a hot topic today following Saturday's incident, which may have rendered the veteran catcher/DH in breach of contract. It remains to be seen whether Posada will be back in the lineup today or whether the Yanks will take action against him, but in the meanwhile, here's the latest info and reactions.

  • The Yankees announced that they have accepted Posada's apology and consider the matter closed. He will not be disciplined.
  • Posada has apologized to Girardi and said he "had a bad day," tweets MLB.com's Bryan Hoch. In a separate tweet, Hoch reports that Posada will also speak to Cashman, and quotes the catcher as saying he "learned from this."
  • Joel Sherman spoke to union officials who dispute any statute or precedent that the Yankees can dock Posada two days of pay, and are "vehement" that there's no basis for placing him on the restricted list or voiding his contract even if Posada asks for another day off (Twitter links).
  • As of now, the only thing that's clear about what caused the stir is Posada asked out of Saturday's lineup when he discovered he was batting ninth, write Joel Sherman, George A. King III and Brian Costello of the New York Post.
  • The Yanks have no intention of retaining Posada beyond this season, and that has been their plan since Spring Training, according to Sherman (via Twitter).
  • The Yankees considered suspending Posada, tweets Buster Olney of ESPN.com.
  • Posada's and the Yankees' pride have made the situation unnecessarily messy, writes Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com. Also in that piece, you can watch the clip from FOX's broadcast on Saturday night in which Yankees GM Brian Cashman told Rosenthal that Posada asked out of the lineup.
  • The only thing saving Posada's job is his longstanding relationship with the Yankees, writes Olney (Insider subscription needed). Were he any other player, he'd probably be gone.
  • It's long been known that Posada and Yankees manager Joe Girardi have a strained relationship, but it's now apparent that Cashman and Posada don't get along, either, writes Sherman.
  • The Posada situation speaks to a larger dilemma for the Yankees, who are having to deal with stars during their decline phases, according to Sherman.
  • Posada acted uncharacteristically unprofessional, and the only way he can rectify the situation is if he admits he made a mistake, writes Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe.
  • Girardi failed at one of his goals: minimizing distractions and negativity, tweets Jon Heyman of SI.com.
  • Posada's explanation that he received treatment for an ailing back doesn't add up for Heyman (via Twitter).
  • Peter Gammons relays a bit of wisdom from a former GM about the risky nature of rostering declining stars (via Twitter).
  • Posada should ask for forgiveness for one mistake in what has been an otherwise exemplary career, tweets Sherman.
  • The only resolution for the situation is if Posada begins hitting immediately, tweets Olney.

Randy Flores Opts Out Of Contract

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Randy Flores has opted out of his minor league contract with the Padres according to Sarah Trotto of The Arizona Star Daily (on Twitter). The lefty reliever had a clause in his contract that allowed him to do so if he was not added to the Major League roster by Sunday.

Flores, 36, struck out 19 and walked six in 18 2/3 innings with San Diego's Triple-A affiliate this year. Left-handed batters had eight hits and two walks against him in 11 1/3 innings. Flores is left-handed and breathing, so there's likely to be a market for his services. He's held same-side batters to a .275/.345/.435 batting line in a big league career that has spanned eight seasons and four different teams.

Twins Designate Steve Holm For Assignment

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The Twins designated catcher Steve Holm for assignment in order to add lefty Phil Dumatrait to the 40-man roster according to a team press release. Dumatrait was recalled along with Anthony Swarzak, while Jose Mijares hit the DL and Jim Hoey was optioned to Triple-A Rochester.

Holm, 31, had just two hits in 18 plate appearances with the Twins this season. He was recalled after Joe Mauer hit the disabled list, and produced a .231/.400/.269 batting line with Minnesota's Triple-A affiliate this year. MLBTR's Mark Polishuk took a look at Minnesota's bullpen woes last week.

Three Months Later: Bautista’s Extension

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Perhaps no player has exploded from relative obscurity into superstardom like Jose Bautista has over the past year. It's been just under three months since the Blue Jays took a bold step by locking up last year's home run champ for five years and $65MM, but it certainly looks like it's going to pay off.

At the time, MLBTR readers agreed decisively that the contract was too great a risk: 72.42% of the 12,535 polled said they wouldn't have offered Bautista a deal of that magnitude.

Yet here we are three months later, and Bautista has hit his 14th, 15th, and 16th home runs of the season in just his 32nd game played. Entering play today, Fangraphs rated Bautista's value at a whopping 3.5 wins above replacement, primarily thanks to his video game-esque line of .358/.517/.798 (and that's prior to belting three more homers today). Over his past 192 games, he's hit .276/.402/.646., good enough for Dave Cameron of Fangraphs to question whether or not Bautista is the American League's best hitter.

Had Bautista reached free agency following this season, as he was projected to, he could have conceivably tried to exceed the seven-year contracts signed by Jayson Werth ($126MM) and Carl Crawford ($142MM) this past offseason. After all, he and agent Bean Stringfellow could point out that Werth only had three strong seasons prior to inking his deal. Bautista also doesn't have Werth's injury history, and offers the versatility of appearing at third base or in the outfield. And, assuming a 50 HR campaign for Bautista this year, they could argue that he hit as many homers from 2010-11 as Crawford had in his whole career when he signed his contract. At the bare minimum, he'd have commanded $20MM or more per season for five years or more.

Bautista's annual salary of $14MM from 2012 on is less than that of fellow outfielders Torii Hunter, Vernon Wells, Jason Bay, and Alfonso Soriano (to name a few). The total value of his deal exceeds Aaron Rowand's contract by just $4MM over the same number of guaranteed years.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but to this point, it looks like credit has to be given to Toronto GM Alex Anthopoulos and his staff for not only assessing that Bautista's 2010 was real and locking him up at a tremendous discount, but also moving Vernon Wells and his contract in order to free up payroll and make such an extension more feasible. Whether or not he's already the AL's best hitter, owning Bautista at such a discount will be a huge factor in the coming years as Toronto continues its quest to take their first AL East title since 1993.

Photo courtesy of Icon SMI.

Week In Review: 5/8/11 – 5/14/11

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A look back at the week that was here at MLBTR …

This Date In Transactions History: Mike Piazza

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8020049 Mike Piazza With the amateur draft coming up in just over three weeks, we've spent most of our time here at MLBTR covering the first round. Quality players come from every round though, and there's perhaps no more famous example of a late-round pick turning into gold than Mike Piazza. The Dodgers selected him in the 62nd round of the 1988 draft as a favor to Tommy Lasorda, who was a friend of the Piazza family and godfather to Mike's brother Tommy.

Piazza moved from first base to catcher in the minor leagues at Lasorda's behest, and he hit his way to the big leagues less than four years later. After a brief cup of coffee in 1992, Piazza opened the 1993 season as the Dodgers' starting catcher, and hit a robust .318/.370/.561 with 35 homers as a 24-year-old. He won the Rookie of the Year award unanimously, and finished ninth in the MVP voting.

Over the next four seasons, Piazza hit .342/.409/.590 with an average of 33 homers per year, being named to the All-Star team and winning the Silver Slugger Award each year. He never finished lower than sixth in the MVP voting during that time, finishing as the runner up in 1996 (Ken Caminiti) and 1997 (Larry Walker). Piazza was a star of the first order, but contractual issues began to surface.

Scheduled to become a free agent after the 1998 season, talks about a contract extension between Piazza and the Dodgers went nowhere. Furthermore, Peter O'Malley and Terry Seidler were in the process of selling the team to FOX. Afraid that they were going to lose their star to free agency and not have anything to show for it, Los Angeles took a drastic step.

Thirteen years ago today, the Marlins and Dodgers pulled off a seven-player swap that sent Piazza and Todd Zeile to Florida in exchange for Gary Sheffield, Charles Johnson, Bobby Bonilla, Jim Eisenreich, and Manuel Barrios. To say the trade wasn't well-received in Southern California would be an understatement.

Piazza's time with the Marlins as short lived, very short lived in fact. He had five hits in five games with them before being traded to the Mets for Preston Wilson, Ed Yarnall, and Geoff Goetz. Piazza spent parts of eight years with the Mets before moving to the Padres and Athletics late in his career. He retired as a .308/.377/.545 career hitter with 427 home runs to his credit, unquestionably the best hitting catcher in baseball history (min. 1,000 games caught).

We see players traded right before reached free agency every season, but it's not often a player of Piazza's caliber is involved, and he was traded twice in one week.

Photo courtesy of Icon SMI.

Quick Hits: Dodgers, Cardinals, Inglett, Broderick

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Saturday evening linkage…

  • Frank McCourt told Dylan Hernandez of The Los Angeles Times that the Dodgers' roster would look the same even if the team didn't have financial problems. He was also vague about future payroll plans if the multi-billion dollar deal with FOX were to be approved (Twitter link).
  • B.J. Rains of FOXSportsMidwest.com points out that the Cardinals will have to make room for Brian Tallet when the lefty comes off the disabled list next week (Twitter links). He doesn't think they'll cut ties with the struggling Ryan Franklin, but he says it's "debatable." 
  • MLB.com's Brian McTaggart reports that Joe Inglett has accepted his outright assignment and will join the Astros' Triple-A affiliate (on Twitter). Inglett could have elected free agency after clearing waivers earlier in the week.
  • Nationals GM Mike Rizzo believes that pitcher Brian Broderick has a bright future in the big leagues, despite being DFA'd by the club earlier today, writes Bill Ladson of MLB.com.
  • Manager Dusty Baker is curious to see if the newly activated Jose Arredondo can provide the Reds with the kind of pitching they expected upon signing him.
  • Dave Gershman of Beyond The Box Score examined the market for Padres pitcher Dustin Moseley.

Pirates Release Scott Olsen

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The Pirates have released Scott Olsen according to Colin Dunlap of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (on Twitter). He has not pitched this year due to a hamstring injury.

Olsen, 27, signed a one-year worth just $500K this winter, though he could have earned another $3MM through incentives. GM Neal Huntington told Dunlap: "We believed we were not going to have a good opportunity for Scott and made this move to allow him to find a better situation."

Jorge Posada May Be In Breach Of Contract

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8:17pm: Rosenthal tweets that Posada sat out with back stiffness tonight, which contradicts what Cashman said on the air, that this was not injury related.

7:31pm: Mired in a season-long slump, Jorge Posada pulled himself from tonight's lineup according to Yankees GM Brian Cashman on the FOX Saturday Night broadcast. Posada had been penciled into the ninth spot in the order for the first time in 12 years, and ESPN's Buster Olney says (on Twitter) that he refused to play for that reason. He has given no indication that he's retiring.

Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports and Joel Sherman of The New York Post note that Posada may be in breach of his contract, and that the team could dock him pay (all Twitter links). The Yankees could also attempt to terminate his contract, which has approximately $11MM left on it this season. That will be met with reaction from the union, however.

Posada, 39, is in his first season as a full-time DH. He is hitting .165/.272/.349 with six homers in 125 plate appearances, primarily batting seventh.

Rosenthal’s Full Count Video: Astros, Twins, Braves

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Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports has a new Full Count Video up, so let's recap…

  • Hunter Pence is getting expensive – he'll earn $6.9MM this year with two more arbitration years ahead of him – but Astros GM Ed Wade said that he wants to build around his young players, namely Pence, Brett Wallace, J.A. Happ, and Bud Norris. As much as they need to rebuild, it's unlikely that new owner Jim Crane will want to blow up the nucleus as his first act.
  • If things don't turn around for the Twins, this could be the year that they become sellers. Jason Kubel, Michael Cuddyer, Jim Thome, Matt Capps, and Joe Nathan are all among the team's upcoming free agents, though some in the organization would like to see them re-sign Capps.
  • The Braves' starting pitching depth could give them an advantage at the trade deadline. They could move a veteran like Derek Lowe or a younger starter because they have more arms on the way. Lowe is the perfect piece to dangle to a contender such as the Yankees, but Atlanta doesn't have an obvious need right now.
  • Starting pitching depth is the Red Sox's one glaring weakness, and Rosenthal says an injury to one of their top five starters would leave the team "seriously unsettled."

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