Angels owner Arte Moreno and president John Carpino were scheduled to meet with Yankees assistant GM Billy Eppler tonight in New York, George A. King III of the New York Post reports. This is the latest indication that Eppler could be the favorite to become the Angels’ new general manager, though the Mariners are reportedly also interested in talking to him about their open GM position. Here’s more from around baseball…
- Anibal Sanchez told reporters (including MLive.com’s Chris Iott) that he’ll see a doctor about his shoulder issue, possibly Dr. James Andrews. The righty was scheduled to return from the DL and start for the Tigers on Wednesday, but those plans have now been scrapped. Sanchez has had a rocky season, posting a 4.99 ERA, 7.9 K/9 and 2.82 K/BB rate over 157 innings and he hasn’t pitched since August 18 due to a rotator cuff strain in his throwing arm.
- In his latest subscriber-only piece, ESPN’s Buster Olney discusses some looming offseason decisions involving qualifying offers and team/player options with agents and talent evaluators. Some of the choices are pretty easy (i.e. the Blue Jays will surely pick up club options on Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion for 2016) while others are trickier. For instance, evaluators would be wary about their teams surrendering a draft pick to sign Ian Kennedy. If the qualifying offer would hurt Kennedy’s market to this extent, he could consider accepting the Padres’ QO, leaving San Diego with roughly $81MM tied up in five players (Kennedy, Melvin Upton Jr., Craig Kimbrel, Matt Kemp, James Shields).
- Brian Wilson is aiming to return to the majors in 2016 and will soon begin throwing, Yahoo Sports’ Tim Brown tweets. The Dodgers released Wilson last December and sat out the 2015 season after not catching on with any other teams. The former Giants closer missed most of 2012 and 2013 while recovering from his second Tommy John surgery, and he posted a 4.66 ERA, 10.1 K/9 and a 1.86 K/BB rate over 48 1/3 IP with L.A. last season.
- Rich Hill recently threw seven shutout innings for the Red Sox in his first Major League start since 2009, and now the southpaw is considering pitching in winter ball in the hopes of landing a job in an MLB rotation next year, WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford writes. If a Major League job can’t be found, Hill is already drawing interest from several Japanese teams.
I know it’s a bit contradictory since he’s not young. But I would love got the cubs to sign hill for the backend of the rotation behind hendricks. Maybe the epstein brain trust would go for it? I always felt piniella gave him too quick a hook and while he seemed to be a head case, this definitely wouldn’t have helped the issue.
Kennedy is a Boras client. Boras would never let him accept the QO. And as far as it hurting his value, having to forfeit a draft pick didn’t stop the Twins and Mets from throwing multi-year deals at Ervin Santana and Michael Cuddyer. And people seem to think Jeff Samardzija deserves a QO this offseason while Kennedy has been much better this year and has a better track record. I say since Preller didn’t trade Kennedy at the deadline, he really has no choice but to extend him a QO.
I don’t know if I’d say Kennedy has been much better this year than Samardzija, pitching at Petco in the NL Kennedy should have a lot better numbers than he does. His fip is also close to 5.
He has pitched better on the road than at PETCO so don’t even try it with the “He only pitches well because he plays in a pitcher’s park” excuse. Kennedy has been much better than Samardzija this year and every year except 2014. And who cares about FIP? There’s a lot of stuff it doesn’t tell you.
I do not understand the fascination with Kennedy. Take him out of what might be the best pitchers park in MLB and but him in an average park or one of the 8-10 bandboxes and talk about how good he is.
He has pitched better on the road than at PETCO so don’t even try it with the “He only pitches well because he plays in a pitcher’s park” excuse. And PETCO actually isn’t as pitcher friendly as it was before they brought the fences in. Kennedy actually has a pretty nice track record in some notorious hitters parks, including leading the NL in wins back in 2011 while pitching half his games in Chase Field.
why would SD extend a QO to Kennedy? He had one good season years ago and hasn’t done anything to merit an above average major league salary since then. If SD extend a QO, even Boras would have to advise him to accept it. It would have the side benefit for Boras of getting people to stop saying he never has his clients accept the QO.
Boras would not advise him to accept it. Kennedy is only 30 and made 10 million this year. He is going to do fine in free agency.
No, Boras would never let Kennedy accept the QO. There are worse players who have gotten QO’s and worse players who will get QO’s in the future. And if they aren’t giving him a QO then why the FXXK did they hold onto him at the deadline?
I hope the RSox put out a 2 or 3 year deal to Rich Hill. A Boston area resident–He knows how to pitch and can be a starter, long guy or short reliever. He would seem to be the ideal replacement for Breslow.
Hill has just about no shot at a major league deal, let alone a multiyear one.
That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.
Actually, Mark your comment about Anibal Sanchez being the only significant pitcher signed by Dave Dombrowski is incorrect. He resigned Sanchez after he was acquired with Omar Infante from the Marlins at the trade deadline that summer.. Also I am not entirely sure of his timeline in Miami but he they did sign Alex Fernandez prior to 1997 from the White Sox. He would surely be on the same level of talent as Sanchez, if not higher.
I assume this is in reference to the mailbag post?
Mark’s response there said exactly what you wrote regarding his trading for and then re-signing Sanchez. So I’m not sure what the complaint is, exactly.
As for Alex Fernandez, that looks to be a fair point, though it was nearly 20 years ago. Nice pull — that’s well before MLBTR (let alone our FA tracker) even existed.
This may be the year teams use the QO as a leverage tactic to re-sign Kennedy, Murphy, and Rasmus all stand to do well in FA; but with a depressed market due to a QO could be re-signed at lower rates.
Honestly I think that does happen and Kennedy stays in San Diego on a 4-year $50m deal or something like that.