On this date in 2005, the Diamondbacks send Troy Glaus and highly touted infield prospect Sergio Santos to the Blue Jays in exchange for Gold Glove second baseman Orlando Hudson and starter Miguel Batista. Toronto’s active off-season convinced Glaus to waive his limited no-trade clause and head up north.  As for Santos, he never made his mark as an infielder, but instead found his success on the mound.  Here’s this week’s look around the baseball blogosphere..
- Baseball Hot Corner has Alex Anthopoulos’ five worst deals.
- Inside The Zona handicaps everyones odds on Masahiro Tanaka.
- Blogging Mets looks at the Mets’ top moments of 2013.
- i70 Baseball says the Danny Valencia deal made sense for the Royals.
- The Beanball wants to know where the love for Paul Maholm is.
- Baseball News Source stacks Tanaka against Daisuke Matsuzaka and Yu Darvish.
- Reviewing The Brew backs Marco Estrada.
- Outside Pitch looks at the five remaining major starters.
- MLB Reports makes a case against the Nats extending Jordan Zimmermann.
- Yanks Beat Blog says the Yankees need Tanaka.
If you have a suggestion for this feature, Zach can be reached at ZachBBWI@gmail.com. Â
55% seems awfully high for the cubs with so many wealthy teams expressing interest.
My thoughts exactly. Coming up with percentages is difficult enough, but you’d have to figure in Tanaka’s preferences as well, which we dont know.
The teams and odds made me laugh. No way that the Cubs have better odds at Tanaka than the Dodgers or Yankees…and not even giving the Rangers at least a marginal chance of signing Tanaka is ridiculous.
Believe it Buddy!!!!
Cubs have gone on record as saying they will “not be outbid”. Only way might be if Tanaka has a place in mind that he wants to go to and money not being an issue.
I think the Cubs are certainly in the mix, they have the need and money but to say they are the clear cut favorites with so many teams with the resources, history of using those resources and need is just absurd.
Cant see Tanaka wanting to waste his prime years playing for the cubs who are at best 2-3 years away from being a contender
Inside the Zona lost me when they said the Cubs are at 55% chance at landing Tanaka and the Dodgers are at 3%. If I had to rank, the Yankees would have a 30%, Dodgers at 25%, Cubs at 15%, Mariners at 10%, Angels at 5%, Diamondbacks at 3%, and the rest at 12%. No way should any team have more than a 50% chance at landing him since there’s a lot of attractive places to pitch (unless someone pulls a Mariners and blows everyone out of the water).
The Cubs have no SP’s in the pipeline is probably the biggest reason for the 55%.
Also, the Dodgers simply don’t need Tanaka. Thats why they’re only 3%. If the Dodgers come out and say “we’re all in on Tanaka” that percentage changes a bunch.
Putting any team at over 50% seems ridiculous to me. An extremely inexact science, but I’d go with this:
Cubs and Yankees 30% each
Dodgers and Mariners 10% each
Angels, Diamondbacks, and Rangers 3% each
Red Sox, Blue Jays, Tigers, and Astros 1% each
Everyone else less than 1%
I don’t think we should sleep on the Astros. Given his age, he could very well be in his prime when the Astros hope their prospects arrive and make them a contender. It would be interesting to have Darvish in Arlington and Tanaka in Houston.
Id rate the Mariners higher than 10% They can afford Tanaka and there is Iwakuma, his former teammate, as well as being closest to Japan. There has been a lot of Japanese history in Seattle with previous and current players (Ichiro) . Getting Cano wouldnt make sense without making another big move such as Tanaka and I dont see them being big on Cruz since he’s more of a DH type player anyways and the DH is filled with Hart and Lomo
Iwakuma wasn’t on his team and Ichiro hated Seattle his last few years
Iwakuma played for Rakuten from 05-2011, Tanaka joined the team in 2007 and hasn’t played for another pro baseball team. How were they not on the same team?
I think there is a 100% chance that whomever offers him the most $ will obtain his services. He doesn’t care about location. These NY and LA fans are so full of themselves.
Pretty sure he’s said he wants to be on the west cost
I think there is a 100% chance that whomever offers him the most $ will obtain his services. He doesn’t care about location. These NY and LA fans are so full of themselves.
I agree with u 100% except I think the yanks will be more like 40-45 %
I completely overlooked that Maholm was still out on the market too. I’m surprised he hasn’t been signed to a Kazmir-type deal yet.
I’d still like to see Maholm back in a Pirates uniform. He deserves to be on a winning team in Pittsburgh. This would also allow Locke to start in AAA.
NYY “need” for a front line starter is no greater than the Dbacks or Halos.
Perhaps it’s need + the willingness to offer a crazy contract that puts them that much further ahead.
The two people who down voted are probably Yankee fans. The huge contracts that they offer are just making the whole market more expensive. It’s really becoming sad how much money players are making. Even role players are being paid millions.
Actually, I’m a Yankee fan and I completely agree with Rook’s statement so I gave it a thumbs up. It’s no secret that the Yankees love to overpay. It wouldn’t shock me if they offered a ridiculous contract to make sure Tanaka is in pinstripes. After all, Hal Steinbrenner said that 189 was a goal not a mandate and they wouldn’t risk getting under it if it meant they couldn’t field a championship-caliber team. To be quite honest signing Tanaka is their only chance at becoming remotely close to that.
I don’t mind the down votes. We’re not all going to agree with each others views on things.
I don’t do it often myself but to each their own.
Yeah it really is a shame the Yankees gave Pujols 240M, Cano 240M, Votto 225M, Fielder 214M, and forced Texas to give Arod 252M so he’d eventually have to be traded to them. The Yankees may be giving out big contracts but they are far from the only team doing it and if you want to pick a “jumping off point” it’s hard to blame anyone other than the Rangers since they went almost 100M over the closest team in order to sign Arod back in the day.
IDK I think New York has more of a “need” than the Angels do myself. I’m not saying the Angles couldn’t use him or don’t have rotational holes but Weaver hasn’t had an ERA over 3.3 since 2009, CJ Wilson is a very good mid rotation arm, they just traded for Skaggs who though he’s struggled was Ranked Baseball America’s #12 prospect after the 2012 season, and both Santiago and Richards are 26 and 25 years old respectively. Now they are far from the best rotation in baseball, and if they could add a legit number 2 starter they’d have a much better rotation, but they are in a much better spot right now than the Yankees are with a fallen off CC, a 38 year old Kuroda, Ivan Nova, and no idea who’s going to be in the 4/5 spots at this moment.
Weaver’s velocity charts would worry me as an Angels fan, 86.8 fastball average last year and topped 90 in less than half his starts. His ERA is still shiny, but the peripherals are declining. I agree the Yanks have a bigger need for a frontline starter, but it’s not as far off as you make it out to be, especially if one believes C.C. can bounce back to 2012 levels – which I personally think he can.
Damn fine article on J Zimmermann.. Wouldn’t be surprised to see him traded next offseason. But great if he signs an extension
I do think Cubs should be pretty high on the list, but 55% is pretty damn high. All the reasons mentioned are legit, and Cubs need 1 more front line starter to go with their wealth of elite position prospects that will start hitting the majors this season.
If Tanaka just wants to go to the team with the highest $ offer, I think that ends up being the Cubs.
Yan Gomes… did he ever fix his swing? When he played in TO he was pretty rough… that silly leg kick seemed to screw with his timing.
His stance was dramatically changed and he lost the Jackie Gleason leg kick.
I don’t love AA, but that article wasn’t very good. The Napoli and Aviles trades were bad, but none of the others. Hill got his change of scenery and was set to be a free agent so you can’t really fault him. The article seems to fault the return on the Halladay because D’arnaud was used to get Dickey. I don’t see how that’s a bad thing looking at it from the Halladay angle.
Rogers trade wasn’t bad either…
Gomes wasn’t going to be a better player if he stayed in the Jays system. His batting stance was apparently completely redone.
You could argue that Aviles could have played 2nd instead of Boni and Izturis… but there was no way you could have anticipated Boni playing to a negative WAR.
Plus, Rogers could still end up being a half decent starter.
To add on, the Napoli for Francisco trade was only bad in hindsight. At the time, there was few complaints as there was no room for Napoli in the Jays plans, and they needed a closer, and back then guys like Francisco were easy targets for compensation picks (which he ended up netting). And after all, the true relief was shedding V Dubs salary. But no one knew Napoli was going to break out the way he did. And to be honest, Arencibia has good career numbers in Texas, wouldn’t be surprised to see him put up some acceptable numbers this year.
I was critical of the deal at the time since 1B/DH/C were all places where Napoli fit in depth wise. Encarncion wasn’t a full time 1B yet and Lind was coming off a down year. I would’ve kept him over Rivera especially since Juan ended up seeing time at 1B anyway. I actually wrote a B/R article when that all happened. That said, trading Napoli wasn’t the reason they didn’t contend that year and Wells gone was the big win.
You both seem to be making good points. It’s kind of surprising that AA didn’t hold onto him for the purpose of depth, though.
He was making $5.8 mill that year…not exactly someone you hold for depth.
That’s fair, but they were still pretty strong on a Lind/EE platoon at first and Arencibia at catcher. I just don’t think they were willing to dedicate a DH spot to him knowing at the time he was still capable of catching.
If you click on the Mets article one of the dates is the day Harvey got surgery. I’m just marveling at the Laz-E-Boy wheelchair that he was discharged in. Thought I would share that
Thanks for the tip, that is hilarious. It looks like he got wheeled right out of his living room.
And when did Matt Harvey wear glasses?
He’s a hipster.
Kinda makes you wanna get Tommy John
I never realized that Sergio Santos was originally an infielder (and yes, I verified that it was the same guy)
Without looking at the blog, the top two highlights of the Mets season should be:
1. The season finally ending
2. Matt Harvey changing his mind to have surgery rather than rehab
Also one quick comment. I am a Yankee fan. Tanaka is going to want to go somewhere where he can stay for years and potentially win championships. As of this year, the yanks are contenders. The Cubs have a little chance of making it out of 4th or 5th place. Do u really think tanaka will go there? The yanks prob plan on making him a no. 2 starter and offer him 6 yrs / 120 mill. Also the dodgers do not need him. Remember that the yankees contacted him as soon as he got posted which just shows their interest in him. Now tanaka knows that as well as Casey close. Comment back.
How are the Yankees a contender this year? The only way that’s possible is if they sign Tanaka and he becomes the top of his ceiling immediately, CC bounces back to full CC mode, Jeter has an unlikely bounce back at 40, and they stay extremely healthy all year. Even one of those things happening isn’t a good bet let alone all of them. The likeliest outcome for the Yanks in 2014 is a fringe playoff team, possibly a 2nd WC team.
They got ellsbury, beltran, Roberts, McCann and hopefully tanaka. Either way they should make the playoffs
How does Roberts do anything for their contender status? The guy hasn’t played more than 77 games in a season in 5 years. Ellsbury and McCann are both weak against LHP and Beltran was pretty awful against LHP this year as well. They should be a better offense than last year based on sure health but right now SS, 3B, and DH (if Jeter can’t play SS but stays in the lineup) all look like they could be black holes in the lineup and their rotation even with Tanaka has one “sure thing” and he’s 38 years old.
Tanaka is 25
Yeah but Kuroda is 38… Which is why I said even with Tanaka they only have one “sure thing” and he’s 38 years old. Do you actually consider Tanaka a “sure thing”? That’s awfully strong for someone you’ve probably never seen pitch an entire game.
No I understand it’s high risk but u have to agree that if he turns out to be the next darvish then the yanks will be great
Darvish had a 3.90 ERA in 191 innings his rookie year, that same exact production likely doesn’t make the Yankees a contender this year in any way. Also from the scouting reports I’ve read and the very limited video I’ve seen if him Tanaka is no Darvish, he doesn’t have as good a stuff, and they don’t pitch similarly at all, Darvish is also built completely differently with a much different heritage. The only connection between the two is they both played and dominated in Japan for a while.
Tanaka has a fastball that ranges from 92-95, a splitter that is said to be one of the best in the world, and he is other very good pitches and he knows how to use them. Darvish’s fastball ranges from 92-97 and has very good off speed stuff. I agree that they are similar about japan but look at what darvish did this year. They are saying that tanaka is better cause he knows how to use his pitches better than darvish.
First off I’ve read NO ONE who says Tanaka is better than Darvish, second off you are incorrect on the velocity. According to Yahoo who tracks velocities, location, and pitch selection Tanaka averages 90.6 for his career in Japan and averaged 90.8 MPH in 2013, in comparison Darvish averaged 92.9 MPH last year, that’s a full 2 MPH difference in their average velocity, which is huge. Tanaka has one pitch scouts agree is “plus” and that’s the split, the others are all average or fringe plus depending on the scout/source. He has better control numbers than Darvish but his K rates aren’t close and at the MLB level that should be a very glaring difference. Tanaka is closer to a young Dan Haren in his upside than he is Darvish, and even that seems a little lofty for a guy who hasn’t thrown an MLB pitch.
Tanakas velocity has been clocked as high as 96 maybe not regularly. And as a fellow Yankee fan, u want tanaka right?
Reaching 96 occasionally but averaging 90.8 is not the same as reaching it regularly and averaging 92.9m in fact the difference is vast. Not really not, I wouldn’t be upset since it means no plan 189 but 100+ million for a guy I think will probably be a mid rotation arm isn’t great. I think he settles into the high 7 K/9 and low 3 BB/9 area, which is middling, I could be wrong but it’s what I believe. People expecting Darvish are going to be disappointed with the return, throw that hype backlash, with a 100+ M dollar contract, in NY, and the kid may be hated very early on in the season if he struggles. Not a good environment to mature and grow.
All I know is for some reason I think he could really help the yanks. I agree with u though
Also one quick question what is ur team?
Yankees…