Former White Sox manager Robin Ventura and current Mets hitting coach Kevin Long are the favorites to replace Terry Collins as the Mets’ manager, Mike Puma of the New York Post tweets. Collins, of course, still has the job, but is widely expected not to be retained when the season ends, and the Mets have reportedly already begun the process of reaching out to replacements. Ventura, Long, and other rumored candidates (including Alex Cora, Bob Geren and Chip Hale) have ties to the Mets. Rays third base coach Charlie Montoyo is another potential candidate. Here’s more from the NL.
- Infielder Yangervis Solarte acknowledges that the Padres could trade him, but says he wants to stay in San Diego, Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes. “If they want to trade me, what am I going to do? If I’m playing all these positions, I know there’s going to be teams that have interest in that versatility,” he says. “I want to stay here, I want to be here, but if they decide to trade me, I would just be thankful for the opportunity they’ve given me.” The 30-year-old Solarte has batted .255/.315/.419 while playing all four infield positions this season. He’s under contract for $4MM for 2018, and he has $750K buyouts on relatively cheap team options for both 2019 and 2020. His versatility, and the flexibility his team will have with his contract, could make him an attractive trade target this winter.
- Marlins outfielder Ichiro Suzuki wants to play until he’s “at least 50,” he tells Tim Healey of the Sun Sentinel through an interpreter. Ichiro adds that he would like to play for the Marlins again next season. The team has a $2MM option on him for 2018. Ichiro will be 44 next month and struggled badly in April and May, but he recovered to post a .396 OBP in the second half and ended up with a .259/.322/.337 line over 212 plate appearances. With the Marlins having three very capable (and healthy) starting outfielders, Ichiro’s chances to play were somewhat limited this year, although manager Don Mattingly tells Healey that Ichiro could play more in 2018 — particularly, Healey notes, if trades clear more space in the outfield.
Keep going ichiro!
I love Ichiro, but I would hope the Marlins don’t trade away an outfielder to accommodate a soon-to-be 45 year old with no power.
If they enter a rebuild, he could be a cheap platoon option for them.
They aren’t doing it to accommodate him. They have made it very clear that Yelich and Stanton (and maybe even Ozuna too) will likely be traded by the beginning of next season.
Just spent 1.2B$ on the team, but can’t afford Giancarlo “I’m on a HOF track” Stanton….come on down and buy a ticket…
fans should stay way!
Solarte is a fairly interesting cheap pick up. His babip was very low this year and he graded out as a plus defender. Wouldn’t be a bad pick up for a team like the Angels. Doesn’t strikeout all that much, might knock out 20 dingers and can play a couple infield positions.
Who says he would be a cheap pickup?
I think jbigz12 was referring to his salary, which is extremely team friendly. The prospect cost to acquire him wouldn’t be cheap however.
I was referring to his salary but he won’t come at a real high cost either. He has a team friendly deal and the pads will get a decent return but it won’t be a crazy haul. A team like the angels lack the prospects to aim any higher than solarte in a trade.
For the moment, I believe Solarte has more value to the team than in a trade. Underrated player, positive clubhouse presence, cheap and controlled through 2020 so there is no urgency to trade him. Preller can afford to walk away from the table if teams don’t pay up.
His value probably won’t go up at this point. The only way it hurts the padres is if they want to give the young guys the ABS. Asuaje, Villanueva, spangenberg etc. then the prospects the pads have coming up soon. Unless they keep him at SS he’s going to be blocking young guys right away. I don’t think much of asuaje or even spangeberg but nonetheless if they get something close to what they’re looking for it wouldn’t make a ton of sense to say no. Unless the padres also aren’t very high on the other options that are currently ready.
That’s a good point. Padres have a lot of younger players who play the same positions as Solarte. If only ONE of them could actually play shortstop.
That is the other reason I didn’t like the extension from Solarte’s POV. He wanted to stay in San Diego, but the contract actually makes him more valuable in trades.
No teams been falling over themselves last couple of years for error prone, slow, high of 70 driven in another doozy
It wouldn’t be surprising if they shop him around this offseason, especially since his contract is very appealing. He’s a great guy, but the reality is that he’s probably not in the team’s long term plans, so they should take a good deal if they can find one.
Said it before, I’ll say it again. Solarte should have either gone the arbitration route or asked for a no-trade clause.
No trade clauses are for good players Einstein not .250, 15, and 60 rbi slow 8 errors infielders
Then he should have gone the arbitration route
There’s really no doubt he hurt his earnings potential with that contract but that’s the inherent risk of inking one. But he’s not exactly a young player and he didn’t have a whole lot of service time or success when he signed it. Really last year was his one breakout mlb season. So he took the money. Can’t blame him for taking a guarantee.
That’s the thing. He wasn’t guaranteed anything that he wasn’t already going to get. The only way that contract was a net positive for him was if he played so poorly in 2017 that he would have been non-tendered after the season without it. And when you consider his track record, his status as a fan favorite and his positive presence in the clubhouse (especially with all the young Hispanic players on the team) that just wasn’t going to happen.
His wife just passed so I would imagine that had a lot to do with his decision to take a guarantee. I obviously don’t know that but something like that can make you look at life differently. Injury risk and his kids had to be in his head when he signed. Cant put ourselves in his shoes.
You don’t get it. It wasn’t much of a guarantee at all. His 2017 and 2018 salaries were locked in at about what he would have gotten in arbitration. And then 2019 and 2020 are club options which are ALWAYS team friendly despite people often incorrectly perceiving them to be mutually beneficial. Everyone is acting like he just secured himself and his daughters TONS of extra money when really it’s just money he was going to get anyway while punting on quite a bit of earning upside. He also has a contract with FANTEX which paid him $3.15m upfront in exchange for 11% of his future earnings. So he already had some security from that.
He did not. You are right about that. Didn’t realize both years on the back end were club options. that’s a pretty bad deal, I didn’t know anything about the Fantex stuff obviously. Only way he would’ve made out was if he had blown his knee out this year. That’s a bad deal. Honestly hard to believe an agent signed off on that. Didn’t know all that stuff so I’ll concede to you on this one. You have it covered.
8 errors playing 4 positions. (80 at Second, 27 Shortstop, 22 Third, 7 1B) This guy was a swiss army knife, on the Yanks and we Def miss him. I don’t know what you have against him, but seeing how team friendly that contract is, I don’t think it’s out of the question for him to request no trade clause or even limited NTC at time signing.
He played 96 games for the Pads at 3B last year.
Why do you only focus on the negative stuff?
60RBI? 16HR? Does the guy have Trout batting in front of him? Didnt he miss part of the year due to injury? He has 18 homers, not 16. And probably would’ve hit 20 if he didn’t miss nearly five weeks of action with a strained oblique.
Jose Reyes has 20 everyone hitting homers so that counts little. He’s old journeyman
Be his agent
Couldn’t do much worse than his current agent
If Solarte was any good last few years teams at deadline would be calling for error prone, slow infielder. He’s lucky to have parachute with Padres because few other teams would find use for him
Dumb ass
Solartes a slightly above average player making slightly below average money. Not to big of a deal
Even so, I’m trying to argue it’s not too big of a deal for him to request a full/lim NTC with that contract lol.
Kevin Long? No ! The Mets are hitting .251 as a team. Not to mention how other guys have struggled and this guy doesn’t study hitters to make any adjustments. We don’t need a guy like this. It’s time to clean house.
I hope if The Marlins do trade one of their outfielders, Ichrio gets at-least semi-regular playing time.
He is a switch hitter and a clutch hitter. Padres got him for Headley and Solarte’s numbers have been better at a fraction of the cost of Headcase. Padres should keep him.