The Athletics are still among the contenders to sign free agent lefty Scott Kazmir, Joe Stiglich of CSNBayArea.com writes. Via Stiglich, A’s exec Billy Beane said earlier this month that the team might not have the flexibility to sign a free agent starter to a multi-year contract, but it appears it’s still a possibility that they will.
Late last week, CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman wrote that Kazmir had at least two offers for three-year deals, likely in the $12MM-$13MM range. Heyman also indicated that a four-year offer for Kazmir would likely be enough to sign him. Other possible suitors for Kazmir include the Royals, Orioles and Dodgers, Heyman notes. Kazmir has also recently been connected to the Astros.
The A’s have loaded up on pitching this offseason, adding Rich Hill, Ryan Madson, John Axford, Liam Hendriks and Marc Rzepczynski to their staff and also working on an incentive-laden deal with Henderson Alvarez. Needless to say, a deal to bring back Kazmir (who ranked No. 18 on Tim Dierkes’ list of the top 50 free agents) would be the biggest of those additions — Kazmir’s performance with the Athletics before they shipped him to Houston in July was one of a small number of bright spots in a tough season for Oakland.
Atta Boy
Yeahhhh buddy! Billy boy get her done!
The team is still trash. Your infield is bad, and with no left fielder it’s pretty bad.
Canha in LF is better than many teams in the AL LFers. Take the line 254/315/742. Almost the same numbers Gardner put up for NYY.
Nope Gardner hit more homeruns and got on base at a .340 clip.
Also Gardner’s defensive war is better than Canha by a mile.
Same number of homeruns my bad.
Same ops. Canha hit same many homeruns in 130 less at bats. Gardner is a better defensive OF but Canha is a much better power hitter and RBI man. This coming from a player on the upside 6 years younger than Gardner.
Hmm you do have a point there.
Thanks for the reply.
When a guy like JA Happ gets 3/36, Kazmir at 3/36-39 sounds like a steal.
Well either all the execs in baseball are dumb or that tells you something about what they think of Kazmir’s future performance
First thing, the Blue Jays are dumb. My point is that when a pitcher like Happ is making 12 million a year, a pitcher like Kazmir at 12/13 a year seems like a much better deal.
Lastly, who the heck feels good about Happ’s future performance? I’d feel a lotttttttt better about Kazmir than Happ going forward.
I think Happs deal was just because of his masterful second half, but I agree Kaz is better than Happ by a long shot
Oh, that undoubtedly played a huge role. Jays were stupid enough to pay for a fluky couple of months. As a Yankee fan, of course I’m not complaining.
Sonny Gray / Scott Kazmir / Henderson Alvarez /
Jesse Hahn / Chris Bassitt / Kendall Graveman / Rich Hill
Bad rotation
Underrated rotation to sneakily be one of the best. They just desperately need run producers
This is what I’d do if I were Beane: give Kazmir 4 years without a NTC and then grab Cliff Lee on a 1/15 deal and sit back and let that rotation do its thing, which will most likely be either “great on field performance mixed with lots of injuries”. Gray-Kazmir-Lee-Hill-Alvarez is the rotation of a contender, but especially with Hahn, Bassit, Graveman, Nolin, Parker, Brooks and Manaea all providing depth in case all the questionable aka not-Sonny Gray pitchers get hurt or fall back to earth.
Then I’d grab another reliever or any kind, even a closer seeing as Doolittle is already signed and isn’t going through arbitration – maybe Melancon? – and call it a pitching staff. Wait and see if any LF prices fall, like maybe even see if Upton would take a deal with an opt-out after 2 years, remembering that they were linked to last him offseason in a trade that was close to happening. When you look at the Giants and Royals, you don’t see a lot of superstars but you see solid rosters from top to bottom. Oakland definitely appears to looking at that kind of framework for their 2016 roster this offseason. If they can do all that and then ditch Butler for someone like Pedro Alvarez, they will look especially dangerous.
Lee wouldn’t cost you 1/15M. He’d be like 1/5M.
A guy 1 year removed from a 2.96 FIP is definitely getting paid more than Rich Hill.
Curious, why would think Lee isn’t elite anymore, other than missing 2015 with an injury?
Nobody will give lee that much money due to his age and being a year remived from baseball