Baseball Winter Meetings Happenings

[devilfan02]

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - General Manager Josh Byrnes sounded fairly optimistic Tuesday that trade offers he made to eight to 10 teams would land the Diamondbacks the pitching upgrade they want before baseball's annual winter meetings end Thursday.

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/diamondbacks/articles/1206dbacks1206.html

Looks like Byrnes and Co. turned to the trade market yesterday. It will be interesting to see who Byrnes has targeted and who he can swing a deal for. I don't second guess Byrnes but I still wish we could have brought in Mulder

 

[devilfan02]

As far as the D-Backs, the third day of the winter meetings was “more of the same,” said Byrnes, who planned another late night after saying the 11 p.m.-2 a.m. window from Tuesday night was the most productive of the night.

“Still inching along. We crossed a few off the list.”

The D-Backs approached the Angels about left-hander Joe Saunders, who reached the majors last season, but were told that none of the Angels’ young pitching — including virtually untouchable setup man Scot Shields — was available, even for a proven hitter such as Chad Tracy.

The D-Backs had no discussions with Mark Mulder’s representatives Wednesday, Byrnes said, but continue to express interest in free agent reliever Keith Foulke.

Byrnes was in the Boston front office when Foulke was the Red Sox’s closer, and Foulke had been a premier closer with the Chicago White Sox and Oakland before that.

“That’s one of many conversations we’ve had,” Byrnes said.

“We’re not just going for the cheapest part we can find. We are trying to get better. The better means to do it might be in a trade, but we are still looking at free agency.”

The D-Backs contingent will leave for the Valley after today’s Rule 5 draft, in which they are unable to participate in the major league phase because they have a full 40-man roster.

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=80197

 

[Espo]

To clear up a couple of misconceptions, the Diamondbacks do allow "incentives," just not tied to performance based stats. Arizona does allow contracts where the salary depends on how many days the player is on the active roster, such as they did with Jeff Davanon. This is probably the type of contract the Dbacks are looking at with Mulder.

Until recently, nobody knew just how bad the Dbacks finances were. The Dbacks still owe nearly $100 million, and their total debt stretches well into the nine figure range. Not only are the stars like Gonzo and Johnson owed money, guys like Bernard Gilkey, Brian Anderson, and Roberto Alomar are amazingly still getting routine checks from the team as well. Pretty easy to see why the wallet is pretty tight right now and why Kendrick wants to know exactly what he is spending. The current plan is for the team to pay roughly around $30M per year toward the deferred payments, and increase the budget about $5M per season for the next few years until the debt has been greatly reduced, at which time Kendrick said the budget would "significantly increase." That point in time coincides with the time most of our young stars would be in their prime. Seems like a pretty smart plan to me.

Kendrick never suggested that Gonzo took steroids, he said that there were whispers from other that he had. Thats a true statement, there were whispers floating around that he had. There is a huge distinction between the two. Kendrick needs to learn to watch what he says around columnists, but his comment was blown way out of proportion.

If you are going to give incentives at all you might as well give them for performance. I understand they are still in debt but they have to spend money to get better and Kendrick can't expect the fans to just be happy with this team if they add small things and don't get better. New jerseys are great, new logos are great, calling up young players fine but its not enough to generate buzz and put the Dbacks in contention. I love baseball and I'll watch regardless but come on another bad season when the potential is there to be good, isn't acceptable. Say what you want about the way Colangelo ran things but he won at all costs. I don't care whether the team makes money or loses money and if Kendrick or anyone else is in baseball to make big bucks they are in the wrong business.

 

[devilfan02]

Kendrick never suggested that Gonzo took steroids, he said that there were whispers from other that he had. Thats a true statement, there were whispers floating around that he had. There is a huge distinction between the two. Kendrick needs to learn to watch what he says around columnists, but his comment was blown way out of proportion.

To his, his own.

Kendrick made a huge spektical out of the Grimsley debacle, and for good reason, but IMO he enjoyed his time in the limelight and ran his mouth too much. To me it seemed that he was trying to be the guy who cured baseball of their drug problem. Here are a couple quotes, where he does say there were whispers, but you can see where he's suggesting Gonzo took enhancers.

"We've had some suspicion in the past here with the Diamondbacks. There were some players that there was suspicion about that we very quietly moved on. We moved them out of our club because we thought there may be some reality to the suspicions that we were getting."


"In other cases, yeah, there have been some other suspicions, and we probably haven't acted on them. I'll be blunt with you and say there have been certainly whispers about Luis Gonzalez. Because he's such a high-profile guy and you can make a case of his numbers five years ago versus his numbers today and therefore he must have been doing something. Well, he's also five years older."

Thats not exactly my idea of a vote of confidence for Gonzo. He says there have been "whispers" but the way he's wording everything else pretty much insists Gonzo is guilty. By him even saying this is far from what an owner should say of his star player (unless he has indeed failed a test). Counsell even called Kendricks comments "careless and unwarranted." Plus, you can't push aside the fact that Kendrick knew Gonzo wouldn't be back the next year. Not saying Kendricks guilty of it but it sure seemed like he tried to get the wheels turning to get Gonzo out of town. This is a totally different discussion for a different forum but Kendrick crossed the line. If you were Gonzo, would you be pissed? I definitely would be. IMO, he even realizes that he was wrong. After the Backman and Gonzo debacle, he has been nowhere to be seen

 

[Diamondback Jay]

Julio Lugo has signed a 4 year, 36 million dollar contract with the Red Sox, pending him passing a physical.

 

[Diamondback Jay]

Here's the official Rule 5 Draft Selection list.

1. Tampa Bay, Ryan Goleski, RF, Cleveland (Buffalo Bisons)
2. Kansas City, Joakim Soria, RHP, San Diego (Portland Beavers)
3. Chicago Cubs, Josh Hamilton, OF, Tampa Bay (Durham Bulls)
4. Pittsburgh, Sean White, RHP, Atlanta (Richmond Braves)
5. Baltimore, Alfredo Simon, RHP, Texas (Oklahoma RedHawks)
6. Washington, Jesus Flores, C, New York Mets (Norfolk Tides)
7. Milwaukee, Edward Campusano, LHP, Chicago Cubs (Iowa Cubs)
8. Cincinnati, Levi Burton, RHP, Oakland (Sacramento River Cats)
9. Houston, Lincoln Holdzkom, RHP, Chicago Cubs (Iowa Cubs)
10. Philadelphia, Adam Donachie, C, Kansas City (Omaha Royals)
11. Boston, Nicholas Debarr, RHP, Tampa Bay (Durham Bulls)
12. Toronto, Jason Smith, SS, Chicago Cubs (Iowa Cubs)
13. San Diego, Kevin Cameron, RHP, Minnesota (Rochester Red Wings)
14. Oakland, Jay Marshall, LHP, Chicago White Sox (Charlotte Knights)
15. Minnesota, Alejandro Machado, SS, Washington (New Orleans Zephyrs)
16. New York Yankees, Joshua Phelps, 1B, Baltimore (Ottawa Lynx)
17. Washington, Jimmy Speigner, RHP, Minnesota (Rochester Red Wings)
18. Philadelphia, James Warden, RHP, Cleveland (Buffalo Bisons)
19. Philadelphia, Ryan Budde, C, Los Angeles Angels (Salt Lake Bees)

The big name on this list was Hamilton, who was immediately dealt to Cincinnati by the Cubs. Talk about how the mighty have fallen.. I remember when he was dubbed a five tool prospect, who would wind up becoming the next great MLB OF, before he let the fame and fortune of being a big time prospect get to his head, and got caught up with the wrong crowd. I'd imagine Tampa Bay sure doesn't think twice about passing on Josh Beckett for this guy. I'd call it a sad story, but at the same time, I can't feel too bad for someone who has everything on a silver platter but throws it away because he's got no sense of will power.

 

[devilfan02]

He was into some nasty stuff, cocaine was the least of his worries. The guy was a stud and threw it away. Who knows if he'll get his old form back????

 

[devilfan02]

Meche and the Royals agree to a 5 year, $55 million dollar deal

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/a...2006&fext=.jsp


What a horrible signing, the definition of a high risk/low reward signing. Thank God Joe Jr. is no longer our GM, he would have for sure spent way too much on one of these worthless bums

 

[Diamondback Jay]

I don't know what's more surprising...

A) The fact that Meche got an 11 million dollar contract

or

B) The Royals gave it to him.

 

[devilfan02]

Just read a rumor on espn.com Insiders that the Dodgers are very interested in trading for Vernon Wells. Since they signed Schmidt, they'd be willing to package Penny and some of their elite OF prospects (Kemp, LaRoche,Eithier, or Loney) to land Wells. Oh boy

 

[Diamondback Jay]

Wells is a beast. I'd hate to see that guy in LA.

 

[devilfan02]

Wells is a beast. I'd hate to see that guy in LA.

Exactly. If they land Wells, their a legit threat in the NL and for the world series. Crap

What do they do with Pierre if they swing this deal? You can't put him in left (Gonzo) and his arm is too weak for RF. Who knows, maybe they put Wells in RF

 

[Espo]

Just read a rumor on espn.com Insiders that the Dodgers are very interested in trading for Vernon Wells. Since they signed Schmidt, they'd be willing to package Penny and some of their elite OF prospects (Kemp, LaRoche,Eithier, or Loney) to land Wells. Oh boy

I hear the final nail going into the Dbacks division hopes.

 

[Forrestham]

Meche and the Royals agree to a 5 year, $55 million dollar deal

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/a...2006&fext=.jsp


What a horrible signing, the definition of a high risk/low reward signing. Thank God Joe Jr. is no longer our GM, he would have for sure spent way too much on one of these worthless bums

They had to be smoking crack to give him that kind of a deal. He is a number 4 starter on most teams. In this day and age you are better to let and average or good player walk than to give out an insane contract. This is woprse than Matthews Jr

 

[devilfan02]

At least the Dodgers minimized their risk by only giving a 3 year deal to a legit #1 starter. The Royals just locked up a #3 starter for 5 years for $55 million????? If he doesn't work, Meche will move to the forefront of horrible signings and Russ Ortiz will take the back seat. Thanks Joe Jr.

 

[BC867]

Thanks Joe Jr.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Joe, Jr., was a go-fer.

Jerry called all the shots -- all the shots -- and Joe did the legwork.

Remember how time after time, Jerry would let Joe open a press conference to announce a trade, then upstage him and take it over?

Joe, Jr., functioned as Assistant G.M. but got paid (I guess) as a G.M. -- or maybe not. And with his limited experience and drive, Joe had to be thankful for his paychecks.

 

[devilfan02]

Was Jerry around for the Ortiz signing? I don't think he was