Category: Dailies
Rangers looking for starting pitching but limited financially
Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said starting pitching is the club’s top priority in any trade talks that they are having with other teams.
“Yeah,” Daniels said. “That’s probably the first thing we’re looking at…a starter. But that’s also the toughest thing to acquire.”
The Rangers have asked about a number of starters, most notably Roy Halladay of the Blue Jays and Cliff Lee of the Indians. Halladay has pretty much made it clear to people that he will not approve of a trade to Texas and the Indians have told the Rangers they aren’t likely to trade Lee.
The Rangers are also limited in their ability to take on significant payroll with a possible sale of the club by owner Tom Hicks still pending.
“It’s part of the equation,” Daniels said. “We’ll evaluate every situation and every potential opportunity that presents itself, make a baseball decision and present it to ownership. I understand given the circumstances, it will be much more of a challenge than in the past.”
Daniels is also looking for offensive help and is not happy with the way the Rangers have been hitting of late. They went into Wednesday’s game hitting .214 in their last nine games and were hitting .255 for the season, 12th in the American League.
“The quality of our at-bats needs to improve if we’re going to have a chance to contend or win,” Daniels said.
— T.R. Sullivan
Brewers closing in on Halladay?
The Brewers made a lot of headway last year when they pulled off a deal that brought CC Sabathia to Milwaukee and rode the stud left-hander all the way to the postseason. According to SI.com, the Brewers seem to be in good shape to do that again — only this time with Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay.
Local boy Halladay is not coming home
It’s been fodder for sports talk radio and made for good conversation, but the idea of the Rockies acquiring Blue Jays star and Denver native Roy Halladay for the stretch run is fantasy. Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd said as much.
“I don’t think that fits for us, no,” O’Dowd said Wednesday morning. “Both financially and talent-wise, short-term and long-term, it would be devastating for us.”
Reports say the Blue Jays, who set a July 28 deadline for making a trade, want prospects and a stellar young arm, such as the Rockies’ Ubaldo Jimenez, in return. O’Dowd said building a team from within, then destroying it for one player doesn’t make sense.
“Ours has to be a collective sum of the parts, not an individual,” he said. “It has to be the whole team.”
Also, O’Dowd said he likes the Rockies’ lineup, and will not break it up to add another hitter.
The area most pressing need is the bullpen, which sometimes struggles to give leads to closer Huston Street. Franklin Morales, a converted starter, is the only lefty. Manuel Corpas and Ryan Speier are coming off injuries and are not being given full workloads.
The Rockies are trying to be creative. They’ve signed veteran right-hander Matt Herges, a member of the 2007 team that went to the World Series, and have him at Triple-A Colorado Springs. Veteran righty Mike Timlin threw a bullpen session Wednesday and will throw another Friday, and could be signed to a Minor League deal. Speier and Corpas were key members of the 2007 bullpen during the September stretch run.
The Rockies keep looking and listening on the trade front, but they’re hoping the relievers they have form an effective bullpen.
“We keep looking to improve our talent base, and if we can improve our experience,” O’Dowd said. “But it’s going to be hard. it’s an industry where a lot of teams are in contention and the few that aren’t, there’s not a lot of pitching that’s out there.”
“Otherwise, it’s really up to the guys [with the Rockies] themselves. It’s not me. It’s not up to Jim [Tracy, the Rockies’ manager]. It’s how they perform.”
No pursuit of Halladay for Mets
Count the Mets out of the teams chasing Roy Halladay. After virtually every news outlet in New York debunked last week’s SI.com report that the Mets had rejected (rejected!) an offer of Halladay for Fernando Martinez, Jon Niese, Bobby Parnell and Ruben Tejada, Newsday reported Wednesday that the Mets never even discussed specifics with the Blue Jays.
The Mets are being realistic. With all their injured players, they don’t see Halladay as the one piece that will make the difference between making the postseason and missing it. And that’s assuming that Halladay, who has gone on the record saying he would only waive his no-trade clause to join a contender, would even approve a deal to the Mets.
Halladay to the Mets just doesn’t seem like a realistic option at this point. Instead, Mets fans must hope simply that the Jays do not ship him off to Philadelphia.
–Anthony DiComo
Angels checking out set-up men
It’s unlikely the Angels will make a big, bold, Mark Teixeira-type move again this summer, but they’re monitoring every living, breathing reliever who could fill a late-innings role in front of closer Brian Fuentes.
Trouble is, teams in possession of these valuable commodities figure to ask for more than the Angels are willing to deliver. That seems to be the case with Orioles lefty George Sherrill, who would give the Angels a pair of left-handed hammers at the back end. Baltimore knows his value and is looking for a pair of prime-time prospects such as Brandon Wood and lefty Trevor Reckling, according to the LA Times. Hard to imagine the Angels doing something like that.
This could become a moot point if Jose Arredondo makes it back to anything resembling his 2008 form in Triple-A Salt Lake in his recovery from elbow issues.
With John Lackey back in top form and Sean O’Sullivan racking up wins at the back of the rotation, it doesn’t appear likely the Angels would give up the farm for Roy Halladay, as appealing as the great right-hander would be. The Indians’ Cliff Lee could be more in their ballpark.
The Angels have a surplus of highly athletic infielders and talented young pitchers. But with so many free agents looming this winter — Lackey, Kelvim Escobar, Vladimir Guerrero, Chone Figgins, Bobby Abreu, Darren Oliver — they’re understandably leery of moving the athletes and arms coveted by other clubs.
— Lyle Spencer
Adam LaRoche to Sox
Now that Adam LaRoche has been traded to the Red Sox, it will create the type of redundancy Boston general manager Theo Epstein spoke of last week.
Epstein said the team was actually trying to create redundancy to cover themselves from a depth standpoint down the stretch. The Red Sox have an All-Star first baseman in Kevin Youkilis, but the presence of LaRoche will allow Mike Lowell to rest his surgically repaired right hip more often. Youkilis would play third on days Lowell sat.
Of course, the Red Sox already have a left-handed hitting backup first baseman in Mark Kotsay, but there again is the type of redundancy Epstein was referring to.
“We want to create as much depth and redundancy as we possibly can because if you don’t address depth before July 31 or in some cases in August, then you’re left without an opportunity to do so down the stretch and into what we hope will be another postseason,” Epstein said on July 17. “We’re going to read and react based on our health and based on the way some guys are playing and try to build as deep and as strong a position player core as we can.”
LaRoche, with 12 homers this season, offers the Red Sox some additional pop, and the offense has been slumping of late.
LaRoche is a free agent at the end of the season and is earning a salary of roughly $7 million this season. He is a possible Type B free agent, which means the Red Sox would get a draft pick if he signs with another organization.
As for the Pirates, they are likely to need a shortstop after this season with Jack Wilson headed for free agency. Hence, the acquisition of shortstop prospect Argenis Diaz — a terrific defender — in the deal for LaRoche. Diaz is 22 years old and is a good defender, albeit without much pop in his bat.
Still no word on how the Red Sox will get LaRoche on the 25-man roster.
Dodgers Scout Lee
The Dodgers scouted Cleveland starter Cliff Lee Tuesday night, according to Yahoo Sports and the Toronto Sun. The Dodgers also have been scouting Toronto’s Roy Halladay as they hope to improve their starting rotation before the trade deadline at the end of the month. — Ken Gurnick
Reliever Showcase
Tuesday night’s 12-3 blowout win over the Reds provided the Dodgers an up-close look at two of the relievers they reportedly are interested in acquiring. David Weathers pitched a hitless seventh inning with one walk, while Arthur Rhodes threw a perfect eighth inning with one strikeout and a fastball in the low-90s. The Dodgers also have interest in Cincinnati closer Francisco Cordero, who hasn’t pitched in the series. By completing a series sweep Wednesday night, the Dodgers could push the Reds a little closer to becoming a seller by the July 31 trade deadline. — Ken Gurnick
If Halladay stays, does Lee go?
The Indians, staying true to company form, are mum on whether or not Cliff Lee is on the block. But if what Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi said today is true, and Roy Halladay is, indeed, “unlikely” to be traded, that would only serve to make Lee all the more valuable to contending clubs.
Several of those clubs, including the Phillies and Dodgers, had scouts at tonight’s game at the Rogers Centre to watch Lee, and they saw the reigning AL Cy Young winner turn in a complete-game gem against Halladay’s Jays. Lee improved to 6-9 with a 3.17 ERA in a season in which his record is no indication of how well he’s pitched.
The contenders know this, and the Indians have to know their odds of keeping Lee beyond his 2010 option year, in which he’d make $9 million, are slim to none. Of course, trading Lee in advance of that option year, with no top-of-the-rotation starters in the system or on the horizon, would surely be a major blow to any hopes of the Tribe contending next season. But trading Lee with a little less than a year and a half left on his contract would allow the Indians to pull in maximum value for the left-hander.
Teams get desperate for starting help this time of year, and it’s not every day that a club can land a bona fide No. 1 of Lee’s ilk. If Halladay is pulled from the block, as Ricciardi hints, then the desperation to land Lee only rises — and with it rises the temptation for the Tribe to pull the trigger on a trade.
— Anthony Castrovince
What will the Padres do?
Repeat after me: First baseman Adrian Gonzalez and closer Heath Bell, the Padres two All-Star Game representatives, aren’t going anywhere.
Not this month, anyway.
If the Padres are going to make a deal before the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline it will likely mean sending pitcher Kevin Correia, third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff or possibly their second baseman, David Eckstein, elsewhere.
Here’s a link to a story I did on Correia. Still not a whole lot of interest from other teams about Correia, which is a little surprising. He’s had 11 quality starts and has generally been pitching better the last two months than he did in April and May.
I’ve been told the Padres haven’t gotten a whole lot of hits from other teams on Kouzmanoff or Eckstein, who has been on the DL with a hamstring injury. He will come off the DL later in the week, which might hamper his chances of getting moved.
The Padres, to date, have traded reliever Cla Meredith to the Orioles for infielder Oscar Salazar and outfielder Scott Hairston to the A’s for three pitchers. Are they done? I have a sneaking suspicion they aren’t. Stay tuned.
— Corey Brock
Trade Talk 