Rumor mill resumes cranking
DMZ · December 26, 2006 at 12:31 pm · Filed Under General baseball, Mariners
Shea Hillenbrand signs with the Angels on a one year deal with option.
Discussions between NY and Arizona over Randy Johnson. Supposedly they’d then spend the money on Zito.
Fox Sports reported that the Mariners are thinking about trading Beltre (to who? who knows) so they can further pursue Zito. That doesn’t seem serious: they’re not going to play Burroughs out there. Are they? Having typed that I realize there’s really no ruling out further offseason insanity.
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I would half expect this incompetent front office to “award” 3rd base to Dobbs. I’m surprised they didn’t do that immediately after the WFB contract extension.
Ugh. That would truly suck.
You just know a trade of Beltre would result in Burroughs on the MLB roster, with the end result being WFB would get 4 times more at bats than he should because Burroughs will suck or be hurt.
3b would turn from a position of strength in to a Spiezioesque Parthenon of mediocrity.
Yuck.
My holiday-addled brain read the headlines on ESPN’s baseball page as “Drunken Brewers arrested after 4-year deal with NLCS MVP Suppan”.
After the Soriano trade, I would have expected Bavasi to be smarter than to dump Beltre for Burroughs so that he could pursue Zito. After the Vidro trade, I have no such illusions.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to trade Ichiro for a bucket of balls than go to all this effort to make him not want to resign with the M’s?
so is the mysterious baseball source talking about Beltre someone that Ben Maller at Fox actually knows, or is this another of his rumors he’s found looking at other sports pages?
oh, and the Daily News on RJ:
I hope Bavasi doesn’t hear that the Yankees are interested in moving The Big Unit. We all know how he feels about kids not being as valuable as veterans. Should we say goodbye to King Felix now?
As a member of the press, I’m supposed to be opposed to censorship. But is there ANY way we, as a blog, can suppress any and all “He’s returning to Seattle” rumor “stories” regarding The Big Unit?
To think we could have signed Hillenbrand to DH for the same price as we’re paying Vidro…(and for ONE year, not 2 or 3!) and as a bonus, would have kept Snelling and Fruto!! Golly Gee Bavasi, ever thought of that?
So what prospects are we trading at this year’s trade line to fill the new possible whole in our lineup with a Dobbs/Burroughs platoon at 3B? Clement for Vinny Castillo?
We don’t know that we could have signed Hillenbrand for anything close to what the Angels gave him.
True, especially after wanting to leave the “sinking ship” of Toronto, he might have no desire to play in Seattle.
How about a “he’s returning to Seattle” rumor story about Griffey? I think we’re due for one of those.
…even if it means he sits on the bench each and every day, hard cast on left hand all season long because he’s so brittle these days he’s taking a year to heal, as the Mariners’ icon of past glory days. He can stand up and take a curtain call at every home game like they do at Yankee Stadium for run-scoring groundouts and the like… 🙂
8 and 12: Maybe we can get into a 3 way trade with the Reds and Yankees and get BOTH Griffey and The Big Unit back!
Gee, Wabbles, this is an emergency! Desparate times call for deesparate measures!
Check out Filip Bondy’s column at . But don’t let Bavasi see it, because he may be feeling especially philanthropic. Ixnay!
esp. as he apparently spent the last month sitting by the phone, waiting for the Yankees call (please oh please call, Brian, please!!)
Okay, I’m a Red Sox fan. I’m declaring my bias in the issue up front. But why would anyone take $16 million RJ of the declining performance, landmine knees and recently operated on back off the yankees’ hands? Why? His last couple years for them have made him a true yankee in my eyes.
um, his sunny disposition?
Moreover, why would anybody be offering the reported packages the rumor mill has been churning out. Unless New York picks up a huge chunk of Randy’s remaining salary, they shouldn’t get much back for him.
14 – that would be an appropriate ending to a horrible offseason…
I don’t think trading Beltre to free up salary is a good idea unless you land Zito first. I wouldn’t count on knowing what Zito will do, he’s a certified space shot, as thebrushback.com coined, and you could be left with a big hole at 3b with a lower salary. Not fun.
Also, I hate how the Yankees riches even give them leverage in trades. If you ask me, they got top value for Sheffield. If they get anything close to that for Randy, then its truly amazing. He had a bad season, had the back surgery, is very old, and has a huge salary and bad attitude. But just because he’s a yankee, he’s a sought after commodity. Ugh. I can understand if you guys want him if you don’t have to give up talent and some salary is eaten. But what are the chances of that happening? Several teams are already interested, and the Yankees are just sitting back and getting better and better by restocking their farm system by exploiting other teams.
Shea Hillenbrand signing with the Angels only proves that they value OBP about as much, er uh, I mean as little as Bavasi and Co.
Fwiw in the completely useless trivia dept, I spoke with Hillenbrand’s dad once on the phone when I worked at Directv many, MANY moons ago.
Would the Dodgers want Beltre back and trade Penny and Betemit for him? We would get a #3 and a young 3B who has upside and free up some capital at the same time.
When I saw the Vidro deal, I suspected they might try to deal Beltre. Vidro’s no DH, it looked like a cover. They move either Lopez or Vidro to 3B, trade Beltre, and go after (and likely lose out on) Zito. I *am not* agreeing with this, it just sounded *so* M’s-like. I shudder to think that there are *any* signs that my suspicions might be true.
How high is this board on WARP3? According to that, Beltre was just about as good last year as any GM in his right mind should expect him to be in a regular year (actually, according to BP, it was his 2nd best year after the Big Fluke). Given that, and also given that the Safe is probably never going to allow his stats to look that good, this could be the best time to move him… although it could also be the ideal time to say “this is the person we’re committing to for the next 5 years, love it or leave it.” I’m not sure the M’s are going to find anybody better than Beltre and as for the cost, they’re already paying that and would likely be paying a portion of his salary to wherever he gets traded to.
WARP is flawed to the point of near uselessness. I wouldn’t use it for any kind of real analysis of anything.
24 – My first thought following the Vidro deal was that Beltre would go, but I don’t think it follows that money saved would go toward signing Zito.
a) this isn’t a board
b) we’re high on life
This is all beginning to sound too much like a Trekkie convention.
Tied for 3rd and basically in a 3-way tie for second in Win Shares among all third basemen then! Hey, *I* like Win Shares. I might be the only person left who does, but I do. FWIW, I think WARP does an okay job with defense WRT SS, 3B, and 2Bs. It’s not as good for 1B and OFs and nobody knows what to do with Cs. Win Shares have the same issues but it at least seems to not go crazy with the fielding sometimes.
Also, point noted about the non-boardety of this blog.
Among all AL third baseman, that should have read.