Athletics executive vice president of baseball operations Billy Beane is elite at maximizing players’ values, opines the Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo, who writes that Beane is in prime position to shine as this year’s trade deadline approaches. The last-place A’s, who are likely to sell, have appealing trade chips like outfielder Josh Reddick, starter Rich Hill and relievers Ryan Madson, Sean Doolittle and John Axford. None will be as intriguing as 26-year-old right-hander Sonny Gray if the A’s put him on the block, though. The A’s are unsure about whether to make Gray available, per Cafardo, who reports that double-digit scouts from contenders take in each of his starts.
More rumblings from Cafardo:
- The Giants are aggressively shopping for relief help and a middle-of-the-order hitter to fill the void left by the injured Hunter Pence. Bullpen possibilities include Twins righty Kevin Jepsen and southpaw Fernando Abad, both of whom the Giants have recently scouted. As far as the outfield goes, any of Ryan Braun – whom the Giants have discussed with Milwaukee – struggling Padre Matt Kemp or free agent Carl Crawford could end up in San Francisco. Kemp has recovered at the plate from a nightmarish May this month, but he remains a defensive liability who’s owed $21.5MM annually through 2019.
- Jepsen and Abad aren’t the only Twins who might change uniforms this summer. Third baseman Trevor Plouffe and infielder Eduardo Nunez could also pique contenders’ interest. Nunez is surprisingly excelling this year, hitting .318/.348/.485 with nine home runs and 16 steals – the fifth-highest total in the majors – through 249 plate appearances. He’s on a mere $1.48MM salary this season and is scheduled to make one more trip through arbitration.
- The Red Sox, Royals and Blue Jays are potential landing spots for Padres center fielder Jon Jay, who’s batting a solid .299/.345/.410 through his first 287 PAs of a contract year. Jay, 31, is earning $6.23MM this season.
- With Colorado having designated him for assignment Wednesday, 33-year-old shortstop Jose Reyes will soon be looking for a new home, and the scuffling White Sox are a team to watch. Chicago already released one veteran shortstop, Jimmy Rollins, earlier this week. His replacement, 22-year-old prospect Tim Anderson, has gone 9 of 34 with four extra-base hits, nine strikeouts and no walks.
I don’t see Jepsen getting traded. They won’t get anything for him. He has had a terrible year. It’s more likely that he get DFA’d this year than having trade value.
Agreed. It seems as if anytime he’s come into a game when they were leading that lead would soon evaporate.
jon jay to jays? how is that useful at all???!
Yeah, I don’t quite understand that move either. Assuming the Jays don’t end up with Joey Bats after the end of this season, there have to be better options than Jay, other than the phonetic marketing advantage. Ha! He plays mostly centre and left, with some right field and we have those positions covered with Pillar and Saunders. Jays’ stats are decidedly meh – fielding and offense. He would make an extremely poor replacement unless someone sees something magical that isn’t showing up in metrics?
If we do lose Joey, Reddick would be a way better option if not just for the OBP.
They could be assuming Bautista will be out for awhile. Jay would be a more reliable long-term producer than Carrera if that was the case.
Kind of putting the cart before the horse with beane at the deadline.
Reddick and hill are on the shelf and gray has been nothing short of awful along with a DL stint.
The other guys will all get nice returns. We will just have to see.
And at end of day I say the same for gray. If athletic ever do it be this off season .but I just see it happening . To athletics he the Freeman . The one big draw they have
Do you have two screen names?
Let’s hope the other screen name cares more for prepositions.
Why trade Nunez? He’s one of our bests. Trade Plouffe for sure.
Just like Suzuki was 2 years ago, same with Hughes, you can’t bank on them repeating career years
You trade them when they’re good, not when they’re bad. If you want anything back, that is.
Gray will not be traded its just wishful thinking by these reporters wanting their team to get a great pitcher. Hill and Reddick are on the trade market but not cheap since both of them could be a QO player. Of the relievers Axford is the most tradeable.
As much as I agree with all this, if Boston got serious and threw Moncada and Benintendi, two blocked/top 10 mlb prospects on the table, I’m pretty sure Beane would let them take whoever they wanted, like any combo of Gray, Doolittle, Hill, Reddick, anyone.
Who is Benintendi blocked by? Chris Young, LOL. Brock Holt, LOL. He will probably be the starting LF next year. And Moncada is probably gonna be moved to 3rd and Shaw will go back to 1st and Hanley to DH.
Sigh, the blocked part isn’t the point. But sure, go ahead and LOL with your weak pitching staff and great offense – you will be getting bounced in the first round over and over and over…
Why in the world would Boston go for a outfielder…… They need pitching….
Holt and Swihart are both injured why else?
They just called up an outfielder and an infielder.
They have no good bench players.
And we need another good outfielder to platoon with Young and Reddick would be a perfect fit.Seeing as we need a lefty hitter.
If we sign Hill and Reddick we can kill 2 birds with 1 stone.
But if we want the best chance to win this year. We would trade E-Rod,Devers,Benintindi and who ever else for Fernandez. Since the Marlins most likely won’t sign him in 18′
Anybody but Moncada and Espinosa.
I would love for the Giants to get Miller…… But at what cost…
Elite at maximizing value, like JD for Sean Nolin, Kendall Graveman and Brett Lawrie? Lol
Maximized on Billy Butler for 3 years at 30 mill
You forgot tomention Barreto the prize that Beane was after. One of the top prospects in baseball. Still favors the BJ heavily but Barretto makes the trade a little easier to take in. Plus the surplus of JD the BJ threw the A’s a free 3b in Valencia.
Sorry, ya, Barretto, the 20 year old who’s striking out a tonne and hitting .250 in double AA.
Redsox can trade anybody but Moncada and Espinosa for Jose Fernandez.
Give them anyone else in the farm and include E-Rod in the trade to slot in his place.
Trade for Reddick to platoon with Young and the Sox could win it all this year.
If we don’t trade for Teheran or Fernandez. It is not worth giving any of our top propects.
Anyone else does not give us a great chance to win a championship. So to trade our top propects would be stupid.
You are in no position to be declaring any of your prospects untouchable if you’re trying to trade for a pitcher of Gray or Fernandez’s caliber.
Looks like the Marlins want to contend this year so I’m not sure they’re going to be looking to move Fernandez until the offseason anyway.
It would be really nice if the Padres found someone to take kemp off of their hands.
The Giants are not trading for Kemp or picking up Crawford. They aren’t good baseball players anymore.
Kemp is a streaky hitter as always and started poorly but any team would be happy to have his batting line from the last month or so. That said I would be happy myself if the Giants think like you do.
.271 OBP. 8 walks all year. -.4 WAR. Can’t play defense. He makes a team worse, not better.
Streaky hitter batting who started the season in a slump, but is hitting .314/.333/.520/.853 over the last month and .356/.392/.511/.903 over the last two weeks. But you force me to repeat myself.
And yet he is still below replacement level even with the recent hot streak that will no doubt come to an end at some point. He isn’t worth the contract, and then they would be stuck with him clogging up a roster spot for the next 3 years or whatever he has left. Expensive, aging players who have fallen way off from their prime are not who the Giants should be targeting. If they are then Braun makes way more sense as he isn’t as far removed from his peak.
Obviously they’re not gonna trade for Kemp! No NL team is going to be interested in that guy.
All three Padres outfielders are/should be available.
We have Jankowski, Margot, and Renfroe pretty much all ready to take over the starting gigs.
Love to see them get a real chance instead of riding on the bench most of the time like Hedges last year and Jankowski this year.
Speaking of Hedges, I’d like to see them trade Norris for anything and have Hedges up when he gets back healthy and I love Bethancourts role right now.
I agree, they should be listening in on offers for many players. This means the whole outfield, Norris, Rodney, Pomeranz, etc. Cashner and Ross should have been traded this past offseason, when their value was highest, but that ship has obviously sailed. Overall, I’m just hoping Preller will be active at the deadline this year compared to last.
Isn’t Hedges injured? I agree with you on Norris, I’d be happy with a bucket of balls for him at this point. They should also think about finding somewhere for Upton before he remembers that he’s Melvin and not Justin.
I guess mr beane maximized on mr Donaldson … Really