Sunday linkage..
- A look at Royals closer Joakim Soria's contract situation shows that his $6MM option vested on July 30, when he pitched his 110th game between the 2010 and 2011 seasons. Soria's option vesting merely locks in his salary for 2012; he'd have been arbitration-eligible at any rate.
- David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wonders if the Braves should extend Michael Bourn, and what the cost of it would be. As O'Brien points out, it's hard to come by comparables for Bourn, and the best may be Juan Pierre, whose contract is widely regarded as a tremendous mistake.
- Baseball America's Matt Eddy runs down the week's minor league transactions.
- Recently, impending free agent C.J. Wilson said that now is not the time to look ahead to the offseason and his next contract. In an interview on 103.3 FM ESPN (audio link), Rangers assistant GM Thad Levine seemed to agree and said that the club isn't looking to negotiate mid-season, writes Bryan Dolgin of ESPNDallas.com.
- Infielder Felipe Lopez will report to the Brewers' Triple-A affiliate on Monday after being outrighted on Wednesday. The veteran didn't impress on Milwaukee's big league roster this year, batting .182/.245/.182 in 51 trips to the plate.
- It's time for Athletics GM Billy Beane to move on to a different challenge, writes Bruce Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle. While he's been linked extensively to the Cubs job, Jenkins wonders if Beane could be a fit for the Dodgers if GM Ned Colletti winds up being hired by Chicago.
- The Marlins have begun the process of looking at managerial candidates and there is still interest in some corners of the Florida organization in Ozzie Guillen, writes ESPN.com's Buster Olney. The White Sox skipper has another year on his current deal but it remains to be seen whether Guillen will be invited back.
MLBTR's Steve Adams contributed to this post.
Thanks to Cot's Baseball Contracts for the contract information used in this post.
Oh yeah, well-known A’s hater Bruce Jenkins wants the A’s to lose their most talented asset. Obviously. The SF Chronicle is so disgusting when it comes to a bias against the A’s.
And you just learned this haha. Jenkins has always been known for anti A’s articles..
What’s his problem with the A’s? (I’m from the East Coast, and am not familiar with this writer.)
I dunno what his problem with the A’s is specifically, but i know he’s someone i read if i want a good laugh. He’s one of the few that still highly values wins, saves, rbi’s, and runs scored.
In other words, he’s seriously old school when it comes to stats. Actually, so old that he’s almost prehistoric. Not sure that I could get into him if he values such a valueless stat as wins for a pitcher.
Which does bring up the question, is Beane as good as everyone says? Over the last 5 seasons the A’s have had zero seasons above .500 though one at .500. Sure he had success early on but any other team would start blaming the GM by now.
To be fair, Beane takes a more all-or-nothing approach than maybe any GM in baseball, in part because he has the job security to do so. If the A’s aren’t going to make the playoffs, he puts zero value in winning 81 games instead of 70.
Fair point, but Friedman has done more with similar resources against 2 of baseball’s superpowers.
Yeah, although he was helped a lot by a number one pick in Price, a top five pick in Longoria, and selling another number one pick in Young. More to the point, Friedman is just a great GM who has handled his situation extremely well, both in advantages and disadvantages he was handed. It doesn’t make you a bad GM to do a worse job than Friedman has done over the last few years.
then I guess it isn’t fair to start hating on Beane until the A’s are awful for a decade and are able to stock up on elite draft prospects
They’re still drafting and developing players extremely well.
And perhaps aside from trying to look a little better to get a few more fannies in the seats and improve team revenue, what value is there in winning 81 games rather than 70?
Regardless, the A’s are in a difficult division and position. The Angels have been good for a while and have more resources. The Rangers are starting to look like they’re going to be a powerhouse team in the AL West for a few years. And given that they’re in the AL, and it seems to take a rather special miracle for the wild card team to not come out of the AL East, the A’s have a difficult road ahead of them every year. (Plus the fact that they need a new ball park.)
I was thinking the same thing, it just seems that it’s been a while that he developed or even traded for a decent hitting prospect. year, in and year out their offense is seen as weak and he hasnt been able to develop the proper hitters to fix it. A lot of this has to do with his tiny draft and ifa budget but that’s not really a positive for him, as it would it doesnt necessarily tell us he’d be better at it with a bigger budget.
Jemile Weeks
I’m not an A’s fan in any way, but Billy Beane is my favorite GM in baseball.
With that said, if he leaves Oakland this season without getting fired, I will be extremely disappointed in him. Since the days of Tim Hudson, Jason Giambi, and Barry Zito ended quite a few years back, the Athletics have been a pretty big failure in a mediocre division, considering they finished 1st or 2nd for the first eight years that he was GM.
If Billy Beane was going to leave the A’s, wouldn’t he want to run a team that has money? And don’t the Cubs want to get away from having a GM that fetishizes mediocre veterans?
You look at a GMs job too simplistic. Billy Beane could turn the Cubs organization around in a heartbeat, I just think that there is too much chaos in the organization for him to do it though.
I was responding to the item above that suggested he could move to the Dodgers. And no one can turn the Cubs around in a heartbeat, given their contracts and farm system. Whoever they hire needs to be given time to execute a long term plan.
I think that I’d agree that Beane taking a potential Dodgers job may be a long shot as long as McCourt’s the owner. But if a new owner came in with the resources to make the team a lot more competitive again, I could see Beane seriously considering making the jump. I think that if I were in Beane’s shoes, I’d rather consider the Dodgers’ job under those circumstances over the Cubs job. Without dissing the Cubs, it seems like it’s gonna take a while to get beyond those bad contracts they’re saddled with that are probably inhibiting their ability to get better. And that doesn’t sound all that enticing, though I could be wrong.
Agent Ned has not yet completely fulfilled his mission in Los Angeles. Keep him there!
Very true, Kemp & Kershaw are still on the roster, so yep, until then, mission incomplete…
Frank Wren is patiently waiting for Kemp
CJ Wilson will be a Chicago Cub in 2012
How unfortunate for both C.J. Wilson and the Cubs.
Who would last longer? Ozzie in Florida or Jack Mckeon period?
Although I laughed out loud, that is pretty terrible
i am hoping the cubs get friedman. i am not sold on beane as a long term GM. he had a little success in getting the a’s to the playoffs, but that was about it. the cubs got a good haul in this years draft, plus with the money the ricketts are putting into the new dominican facility, korean prospects, and into signing draftees, i think it would be a good situation for friedman to get out of the a.l. east and have a better shot at perennial playoff appearences in the n.l. central.
Can Beane even take another job? Doesn’t he have minority ownership of the As? Clearly, there would be a conflict of interest there, no?
He would obviously be bought out of his stake if he were to leave the team.
Lew Wolff & ownership group are killing the Oakland Athletics franchise.
Beane, Forst….or MC Hammer…who really cares who the GM is, until this ownership group decides to actually attempt to run a baseball club?
It’s interesting that Bourn’s #1 most comparable player in B-R is former Brave Brett Butler.
It’s interesting that Bourn’s #1 most comparable player in B-R is former Brave Brett Butler.