Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports has a new Full Count video up, so let's round up the rumors…
- The chances of the Phillies trading Shane Victorino may be greater than the chances of them trading Cole Hamels. The Dodgers, Reds, and possibly the Yankees could be fits for the outfielder, who originally asked Philadelphia for a five-year extension. They're unwilling to give him a contract that long.
- The Red Sox are likely to be one of the most active teams at the trade deadline. If they keep Franklin Morales in the rotation, they're likely to seek another left-hander for the bullpen. They could also acquire a starter and shift Morales back into a relief role.
- The Braves are not as adamant about not trading their top young pitchers as they were at this time last year mostly because there are more appealing choices on the market. They're looking for consistency and could part with one of Mike Minor, Julio Teheran, or Randall Delgado if they view someone like Matt Garza as a difference-maker.
- The Brewers remain more likely to sell than not, but they would still like to return to contention quickly. They could ask for big league pitching instead of prospects for Zack Greinke, plus Francisco Rodriguez figures to have value on the trade market. GM Doug Melvin is getting calls about John Axford and Jose Veras, and the trio of Randy Wolf, George Kottaras, and Shaun Marcum (if healthy) remain trade bait.
Currently, the Red Sox have six starters (Beckett, Lester, Morales, Cook, Doubront, Matsuzaka) excluding Buchholz, who is on the DL. I suppose Morales, Cook, or Doubront could move back to the bullpen, though I’d like to hope that they’d eat salary and move Dice-K for a prospect.
that would make no sense. They are barely a contender for the wild card and Dice-K only has a contract through the end of the season.
1 game back of the O’s for the second wild card spot is equivalent to “barely a contender for the wild card?”
Well, given that Morales was already a reliever this season, returning him to the pen seems most likely. As for trading DiceK, it seems unlikely because he has a full no-trade clause, and my guess is that there are a limited number of teams which would want him and to which he’d be willing to go.
It’s also worth pointing out that Beckett is now a 10/5 player and is supposedly quite likely to veto any trade.
All that said, the Sox are going to have quite a dilemma deciding what to do with 7 starters and only 5 spots.
Although Morales has looked great in his starts, he’s not a starter by trade and will probably start to fizzle out in the next few weeks (heat will play in too). Lester, Beckett, Buchholz, Doubront and Cook/Dice-K should suffice, with Morales and Miller in emergency.
I’d love to have Victorino in Cincy. We need a leadoff hitter bad and he would also be the only switch hitter on the roster. Doubt we make the trade after the haul we gave for Latos though. He’d be a nice rental to help pull away from the Cards and Bucs.
I just hope the Braves don’t trade one of Delgado, Minor or Teheran for someone like Ryan Dempster. I also hope they don’t give up Teheran for anyone other than Greinke.
Wait I’m confused. Do you mean Mark Teahen? Cause if you did, You’ve just disgraced every single Braves scout in their franchise.
Julio Teheran #4 best prospect in baseball best RHP pitcher figures to be staff ace at his prime
Given Teheran figures out what the heck is wrong with him, he couldn’t be much worse this year.
Inconsistant, had back problems in his last start gave up like 9 runs, before that, he had a 3.15 ERA
I hope the only pitcher we’re considering is Greinke, but knowing Frank Wren…
But only 3 month’s of Greinke don’t require a prospect of the caliber of Teheran.
Greinke is under team control through 2013. So that’s a year and three months.
EDIT: Er wait… that’s Garza.
thats not true, hes a free agent at yrs end
If MIL decides it can’t re-sign them, they could get a better deal if they let interested teams talk with him about the possibility of an extension before a trade is finalized. Similar to what ATL did with Uggla, though everything was written in sand.
Where have you been? Cy Young quality pitchers always cost top prospects, even for 3 months. New to baseball are you?
Not anymore with the new rules. B prospects maybe but doubtful any “A” prospects are moved for a rental. Texas may be the only team willing to do this due to their thinking that one player could get them that elusive World Series title finally.
Mike Minor, Zeke Spruill, and Edward Salcedo for Matt Garza.
Or
Mike Minor, and Nick Amhed for Zack Greinke
I think you have the packages reversed. Two prospects is not going to bring Greinke to Atlanta.
Because Garza is under team control he is more valuable. Greinke is the better pitcher yes I agree, but he is a free agent and he’ll be asking for at least 20 mill per year. Garza on the other hand will get his finall year of arbitration next year and it will be 12 million max.
With the new CBA agreement, if a player is traded mid season in his free agent year, that team doesn’t get compensation picks if they don’t sign him.
So it’s basically a 3 month rental from the Brewers, same situation as the Mets were with Carlos Beltran last year when they traded him to the Giants, for Zack Wheeler. Mike Minor may have lost value with some growing pains this year, but as I remember, Braves were interested in Beltran as well and they were asking for Mike Minor and a prospect. Also Beltran was making 18 million last year, while Greinke is making 12.5 million so Greinke has more value.
Mike Minor a major league ready pitcher that will get better probably top out as #3 starter, and Nick Amhed a top 10 prospect that plays a real good SS(Brewers need that don’t they :))
Ok. As far as I know Mike Minor is a guy who aloud 18 home runs in only 14 games. But Ahmed is believable. Please make it Ahmed and whoever Zeke Spruill is (and maybe Bourn).
Bourn? No chance.
I know. Him, Ahmed, Minor and Heyward are the only Braves I know (as you can see I don’t follow the Braves).
Well I hope you’d at least know Chipper Jones o.0
Yeah he’s the guy who owns lays right?
Why Bourn, he is a free agent.
Minor has had some growing pains,bbut has also showns signs of brilliance, he just needs to keep pitching and find some consistency. Minor has more potential than Spruill
So you think Garza is a more attractive option than Greinke?!?! And yes, I know Garza would be under contract for 2013 if an option is picked up.
That’s crazy.
More atractive, no, more valuable for Atlanta yes, because they just don’t have the money to sign Greinke long term, that’s not the Brewers problem I know, but IMO that’s what they should offer or another package with similar value.
Remember the Mark Texeira deal? Neftali Feliz, Elvis Andrus, Matt Harrison, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and Beau Jones for Mark Texeira and Ron Mahay. They couldn’t sign Texeira to a long term deal and traded him away to the Angels for Casey Kotchman and Stephen Marek(who didn’t throw 1 big league pitch). Then traded Kotchman for Adam Laroche, which was the only semi-good trade on all that.
Well that is one thing I don’t want to see happen again.
Yes I remember the deal. I have it tattooed on my chest so I don’t forget it. We (ATL) will have almost $40 million available this offseason and there’s a lot of reasons why we could make a very good place for Greinke to re-sign (playoff contention almost every year, mid-market, close to hometown, good offense/infield defense, pitcher’s park, broad fanbase, good organization, etc.
Garza is an average pitcher, at best. He’s not the top-flight starter that we need. I would not want Hoyer/Epstein as a trade partner. They find a way to win the deal.
Agreed about Garza. While I could live with him to solidify our underperforming/injured rotation, I’m scared of the cost. For a mid-to-occasionally-top of the rotation starter controlled for 1.5 more years, I’d rather not surrender too much (which is exactly what Hoyer/Epstein is looking for in this market). If we’re going to give up our best or top prospects, it might as well be for someone truly worth it. Besides, I’d rather see some tinkering in the current rotation than overpaying for anyone not named Greinke/Hamels at this point (i.e. give Teheran the chance to succeed, which means letting him have more than one 4inning start ruined by an over the hill reliever).
Also, I don’t think any Braves fan forgets Scheurholtz’s disastrous deal to TEX. The Rangers remind us everyday with their ML best record.
I’ll say this, almost as bad as Schuerholz’s deal with TEX (Feliz, Salty, Andrus, Beau Jones, Harrison for Tex, Mahay) is Wren’s disastrous decision to trade Tex to LAA for Kotchman/Marek rather than keep him and obtain 2 top picks in the 2009 draft when he signed with NYY. LAA only got Mike Trout with that pick (#25) and Tyler Skaggs (#40) (key to the Haren trade). We took Mike Minor (#7) in that same draft. Wish we could have a do-over.
Very, very true. I was just going to say that doesn’t it hurt to know that we had the chance, in theory, to get Trout on two occasions? 1) if we kept Tex and he dropped to us late in the 1st round, 2) we chose him over Minor. Oh, hindsight…
Yes, Trout wasn’t the 1st OF taken, but knowing how shallow we’ve been in the OF and how many tools Trout possessed and a reasonable comparison to Heyward, I’d think our scouts would have zoned in on him. But we’ll never know.
That $40 million should go entirely to re-signing Prado/McCann/Bourn and extending Heyward
I agree in part with that except for McCann. Pick up his option for 2013 and let him walk after that. We have too much catching depth to lock someone like McCann up unless we decide to find him another spot on the field (which isn’t practical given Freeman at 1B and McCann’s limited mobility). If we had the DH in the NL, then I’d have a different answer, but McCann is getting too old and too feeble to devote 18-23% of the team’s annual budget on him until he’s 34-35 years old.
Yes but those 40 million are very mis-leading, McCann is a free agent after next season, many expect he will get more money than Yadier Molina’s 5 year 75 million deal. Then there’s all the arbitration eligible players, Jurrjens, Prado, Heyward, Venters, Hanson, O’flaherty, Medlen, and Minor looking for raises next year. Kimbrel’s arbitration is gonna be scary, the Braves might end up with a 9 million dollar closer in 2 years. Beachy, and Freeman will also join the fun.
So giving 20 million per year for the next 3-5 years to Greinke, when you don’t even have a CF and a LF, and all these player looking for raises and facing free agency, is not really a wise decision from a mid-market team like them.
Garza if you can get him without trading Medlen, Delgado, Teheran, Kimbrel, Simmons, Heyward, Freeman, and Vizcaino, then go for it. He is making 9.5 million this year and in worst case scenario 12 million next year. That’ll give Brandon Beachy time to recover from TJ surgery and give the Braves a top of the rotation starter.
He may not be an ace like Greinke is, but that Cubs defense and Wrigley field certainly don’t help his inflated 4.06 ERA. He played in the AL East and wasn’t half bad, that tells me the guy can handle pressure, and most importantly he’d be an Ace in the Braves current staff
If the Red Sox cannot land a true #1 starter, I suspect they will play a pat hand, with the talent they have, until September.
I think “holding” might be the best coarse of action for them at this point. In fact, I could see them trading away some of their redundant pieces (relievers, outfielders, and maybe even a back end starter or two) – kind of selling without really selling.
Agreed. The Sox problem right now isn’t really that they lack a particular player, it’s they’ve had untimely injuries, inconsistant offense, and several pitchers who haven’t been living up to expectations.
Exactly, and with Beckett just back, Buchholz back sometime after the AS break, and Ellsbury and Crawford both on rehab assignments, they should be getting a pretty big boost without actually having to trade anything.
Cafardo suggests trading Ellsbury and Lester to Seattle for King Felix. His trade proposal would help both teams but I think the Red Sox might have to sweeten the pot even more by adding in a of prospect like, say, Tazawa and cash….or Dice-K… to get a deal done.
King Felix isn’t going anywhere (he’s under contract through 2014), especially not for a fragile outfielder and a pitcher with an ERA of 4.5.
Well, Cafardo’s a hack, so don’t listen to anything he suggests. Plus, that is one of the rare trade suggestions that doesn’t make sense for either team: Lester is a very good pitcher (obviously not on Felix’s level, but very good nonetheless), and Ellsbury was a very legitimate MVP candidate last year – and both are relatively cheap (which Hernandez is not). That’s more than Boston would want to give up for him, but neither guy is the young guy with lots of team control left that Seattle would be looking for.
If the Braves trade for Garza we might as well go back to the early 80s uniforms because that’s how sorry the team will be.
Burn!
Tyler Pastornicky, Randall Delgado, Jair Jurrjens/Mike Minor, Matt Lipka, Anthony Varvaro, 1-2 mid level prospects for Zack Greinke and K-Rod but a 48-72 hour timetable to work on extending grienke if he doesnt take the extentision move on. Yes i know this is extremely over paying but if we get Grienke all of these players wouldnt make it in Atlanta anyways your rotation would be 1.Greinke 2.Hanson 3.Hudson 4.Beachy 5.Teheran in the long run. this season would be that minus Beachy and replace with whoever stays in the deal out of Jurrjens/Minor
Why would the Braves want K-Rod though? Don’t they already have three relievers as good or better?
I don’t know what you consider the “long run”, but to me, Hudson won’t be there.
ATL will pick up his 2013 option and that’s it.
If brewers were offered that trade, I’d cry
Tears of joy? lol
Jair Jurrjens/Mike Minor? I didn’t realize Monday was trash day around here.
K-Rod and his salary?!?! Are you kidding? Guy will make $4M+ the rest of 2012 (free agent in 2013) and has a 4.24 ERA! Jurrjens trade stock isn’t that high (and I’m starting to question Minor’s). Yes, I think this is overpaying, but I like that we’re not giving up Teheran in this scenario. I wouldn’t mind giving up Lipka, but we’re already thin in OF and that’s provided we’re not losing Bourn at the end of the season.
Is Pastornicky supposed to be everyday LFer when Prado shifts to 3rd next year?
Simmons has to be involved in any trade with Atlanta and we don’t need you to give us a OF. We’ll go with what we have now and what is in our minor system.
They SHOULD NOT trade Hamels, no matter what. At worst, they get two high picks. They likely could not do much better than that on the trade market, given the fact that the team “renting” Hamels would not be able to obtain picks for him.
Are you saying that any team trading FOR a player who is hitting free agency at the end of the season doesn’t get the draft picks if that player still leaves for free agency? If true, that would seem to make the market for trading such players absolutely terrible. Is this still true if the player is traded before his final season prior to free agency?
Yep, that was new in the CBA signed this offseason. Its a small detail that many people seem to have glossed over. It almost makes no sense to trade a player anymore who is a pending big name free agent IMO. Take the comp picks, those high picks are likely to be a better payoff than what you get in return for a trade, again, IMO.
Victorino on the other hand has said he would entertain the qualifying offer, that is enough for me to trade him now, and hedge the risk that he may take the offer which would remove any compensation from the equation.
Why K-Rod?
If we’re talking Teheran we better be talking about either Greinke or Hamels!!!
Victorino would be a nice stabilizer in the yankees outfield, he could fill in left until gardner comes back, and then play in rf alot and cf occasionally. But I doubt he is cheap, and wouldn’t be worth it, gardner has been out all year and the yankees are 5 games up, why would they trade for victorino when he will be back soon; Ken?
That’s what I thought, but only if Gardner doesn’t return this year. Otherwise Swisher has to be moved also.Victorino is not a platoon player and wouldn’t be able to handle that coming to a new league in mid-season.
Trading Teheran for a few months or a year of any of these guys would be idiocy.
How about the Braves focus on extending Bourn and grab Jason Vargas or Wandy for cheaper than Greinke or Garza? Hudson and Hanson are great #2s and I’ll take three #2s versus a more conventional ace and slowly worsening starters afterwards.
Ideally we’d get Brandon Lyon and Wandy if you ask me.