Hot Stove: Winter Meetings Day One Buzz

Here’s all the latest new, rumors and buzz around the winter meetings:

When will teams learn their lesson with Bradley? (Kimberly*/Flickr)

• In the day’s biggest rumor, FoxSports.com implied the Rays had inquired about Roy Halladay’s availability and that they may even be willing to part with center fielder BJ Upton and prized pitching prospect Wade Davis. While the Rays deny any discussion of these players, it begs the question of it would even be worth it or not. We all know Upton has star potential and Davis has incredible stuff (click here for my scouting report on him from last year) so unless the Rays could guarantee he would sign an extension, I think the price tag may be too high for only one season. Of course this would all be a moot point if it’s a false claim.

• It now looks as if it will be official that Carl Pavano will accept the arbitration offer from the Minnesota Twins and he will return to be part of their rotation in 2010. This will most likely end any effort of theirs to sign free agents Rich Harden or Jarrod Washburn.

• The Milwaukee Brewers appear to be pushing hard to bring lefty Randy Wolf to their rotation. Wolf is the best left hander available this winter which is why the Mets also appear to be sniffing around the veteran.

• A Brad Penny/St. Louis Cardinals partnership looks like it is on the verge of finalizing with a rumored $7.5 million base salary along with an additional $1.5 in incentives. This is an important contract for the rest of the starting pitchers out there as it will most likely set the tone for the rest of the winter in regards to contracts.

• Besides the Rangers and Rays ties to Milton Bradley, according to ESPN.com there are potentially “2 or 3” other teams who may also be involved in acquiring Bradley. My question is, don’t these teams pay attention to what goes on around the league and what Bradley has done?

• The St. Louis Cardinals appear to be on the verge of Mark DeRosa, Joel Pineiro and Matt Holliday declining their arbitration offers. The Cardinals are still interested in DeRosa, claim to be interested in Holliday and most likely will lose Pineiro due to what he will likely earn in the open market as well as their potential signing of Brad Penny.

More updates tomorrow…

MLB Hot Stove: Milton Bradley & The Cubs

Bradley's temper has always been an issue (SD Dirk/Flickr).

It appears as if the Chicago Cubs are financially handcuffed until they find a team to take outfielder Milton Bradley and his cumbersome multi-year contract off their hands.

The Cubs would love to bring in a free agent centerfielder to run around Wrigley next season but are unable to unless they can get the noose that is the 2-year, $20 million contract off from around their neck.

Chicago has a few players on their radar including free agents Coco Crisp, Scott Podsednik, Rick Ankiel, Marlon Byrd and Mike Cameron as well as their main target via trade in Detroit Tiger Curtis Granderson.

There unfortunately aren’t too many suitors that would be willing to take on Bradley along with this difficult contract and obnoxious attitude. One such team that may be able to make something work would be the New York Mets who themselves have been trying to unload Luis Castillo for a few years. This may be their only hope as not too many teams are willing to take that leap of faith anymore with Bradley.

If they can get a deal done to get Bradley out of town, they will pursue these players hard in order to fill a gaping hole in center.

Cubs’ Woes Not a Mystery

Soriano needs to move from the leadoff spot (team doster/Flickr).

Just like every year, the Chicago Cubs have had very high expectations from both the organization and its fans. They went out and made the moves they thought would be the deciding factors in the NL Central.

This has not been the case.

The fact of the matter is the Cubs have underachieved greatly here in 2009 in a division that is begging for someone to take command. As it stands on the morning of June 23, the Cubs are currently sitting alone in third place with a mediocre 34-32 record, a mere 2.5 games out of first place. The playoffs are hardly out of reach but at this point, it should hardly be their main concern.

Right now what the Cubs have to do is figure out how to fix some of the many, many things that are broken. If you watch the Cubs closely (I admit I am a fan) or even take a look at their roster closely, it’s no wonder why they are struggling. It’s because of this that some comments I have heard recently from commentators on sports networks even more confusing…

(click here to continue reading on Baseball Daily Digest…)

Matthew Whipps is a writer for Baseball Daily Digest. If you would like to contact him via email you can reach him at whipps15[at]gmail.com.

News and Notes: “Is Wren Home?”

Apparently GM Frank Wren hasn't tuned into a Braves game over the past 20 years (Mori Claudia/Flickr).

After quite an array of articles over the past week here on “The Diamond Cutter” which have generated a lot of great discussion, I figured we had better address some of the items that have happened since our last “News and Notes” segment. Today’s will be a very signings intensive News and Notes as that is where all the MLB action has been taking place…

• In an unfortunate turn of events, the Atlanta Braves let the face of their franchise and future Hall of Famer John Smoltz leave town for the Boston Red Sox who now have a 17 man rotation. At this rate each starter will have a solid two week break in between starts in order to better rest them for the post season.

But in all seriousness, someone in Atlanta had better nudge Braves’ GM Frank Wren to see if he’s awake or even has a pulse at this rate. He has had two goals this winter: get an outfielder with a big bat and an ace/front line starter. Thus far he has acquired Javier Vasquez who is at best a number three starter. Not only has Wren already lost out on AJ Burnett (who the Yankees out bid him for), Rafael Furcal (who along with his agents screwed the Braves over even though as we go I’m thinking more and more that Wren was just as much to blame as he shows his lack of effort) and Jake Peavy (who San Diego was asking a lot for). Plus he’s pretty much out of options for impact pitchers and is losing the big outfield bats by the day.

Braves fans everywhere are in an uproar over this and calling for Wren’s head saying he is “singlehandedly destroying the organization.” While I’m not ready to go that far, I am ready to say that he needs to move with a little more sense of urgency. Now to compound the situation he has lost Smoltz, a front line starter and your franchise player, over only $3 million.

I just don’t get it and it makes me mad that they essentially disrespected Smoltz and his legacy (I’m ready for them to do the same thing with Tom Glavine and Chipper Jones next).

Are Chipper Jones and Tom Glavine next on the diss list in Atlanta? (since1968/Flickr)

• Speaking of disrespecting a future Hall of Famer and the face of an organization, Trevor Hoffman has officially signed a one-year contract with the Milwaukee Brewers for a reported $6 million. He will now close out games for the Brewers after the self-destructing Padres basically told him to get out. Free agency is good for the sport, but many of these teams have to understand what they are telling their fan base when they kick their favorite players to the curb over small amounts of money (small in terms of baseball salaries).

Giambi comes home (keithallisonphoto.com).

• The Mets are on the verge of signing free agent pitcher Tim Redding to a one-year contract for a reported $2 million. This would be a fantastic signing by the Mets as Redding is about as solid of a number five starter as you’ll find in baseball. He is durable as a starter and will give them around 10 wins with an ERA around 4.50-5.00. I’m actually very surprised more teams weren’t in the running for him.

• The other signings that have happened recently: Rocco Baldelli joins Smoltz in Boston (great signing for Boston), Milton Bradley is introduced in Chicago which we discussed in comments this week (stupid signing by the Cubs as Bradley’s fragile body needs protection in the AL with the DH) and of course Jason Giambi comes home where he belongs back to Oakland (fantastic signing as he’s still got pop and the fans love him there).

• The ESPN Prediction Questions article I put up the other day received a lot of great discussions in the comments section and via email. It was good seeing what everyone else thought was going to happen with players this upcoming season. I’m planning on doing more interactive posts like this in the future and will definitely see more before the season starts. Thanks again to everyone who participated and if you haven’t yet, go write yours in or email me at mlbdiamondcutter@gmail.com.

By Matthew Whipps
“The Diamond Cutter“
Major & Minor League Baseball Columnist
mlbdiamondcutter@gmail.com | Facebook

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Padres’ Hopes: Day-to-Day

In what can only be described as an “odd” situation yesterday in San Diego, outfielder Milton Bradley hurt his knee in an altercation with a first base umpire (You can read the entire story here and here Bradley’s explanation here.)

While the big story everyone is focusing on today is the actions of the umpire and what he did or did not say to Bradley, the piece everyone is overlooking is Bradley’s knee injury. He is currently listed as day-to-day, but to have someone as important as Bradley out of the Padres’ lineup could be crucial.

Entering today, the Padres only have a ½ game lead on the Philadelphia Phillies for the Wild Card lead. While Bradley can be emotional, he is still an important leader on the field and the Padres can not afford to have his bat absent from their lineup for very long. Bradley is hitting .306/.402/.545 this season between Oakland and San Diego with 13 homers and 37 RBI. With a Padres lineup that at times can struggle to score runs, losing Bradley for an extended period of time could influence their playoff hopes.

To see how valuable Bradley is to the Padres, I took a look at how the Padres team has done this season on offense. They have scored 688 runs on the season (4.4 runs per game) which is currently 14th (out of 16 teams) in the National League in runs scored with only San Francisco and Washington below them. The team is hitting .248/.320/.407 on the season so as you can see, Bradley’s on-base percentage alone is over 80 points higher than the team’s average making him incredibly valuable to a team that doesn’t get many base runners to begin with.

So while everyone is busy worrying about what the umpire said to Bradley, I’m more worried about a team that is hanging on by a thread in the hunt for a playoff spot that just lost one of the biggest catalysts their offense has. To me that’s a whole lot more interesting and could change the playoff picture all together.

UPDATE: Word has come down here that Bradley has torn his ACL and will miss the remainder of this season and part of next. This is a HORRIBLE turn of events for the Padres and will make the fight for the playoffs that much more difficult. It’s too bad something this ridiculous had to happen this late in the season.