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Home / December 2009
Each year, general managers from across the league come together and meet in one place and talk hardcore baseball: the Winter Meetings. It's the Black Friday of baseball's shopping season, and the springboard that leads into MLB's Hot Stove offseason. The meetings wrapped up last week and to review the action, The Nats Blog is going to get reviews from top blogs across the league. Today will be the NL Central, and here will be the schedule for the rest of the week:
12/17-NL West, 12/18-AL East, 12/19-AL Central, 12/20 AL West
St. Louis Cardinals
Cardinal 70 at the Bat
Team Name: ...
For Chicago Cubs GM Jim Hendry, for Texas Rangers GM Jon Daniels, and for free-agent outfielder Marlon Byrd, the last 48 hours have made an interesting, interwoven series of impacts upon the tone and tenor of the MLB offseason.
Lost amid the flurry of Monday's higher-profile deals, free-agent outfielder Mike Cameron agreed to a two-year pact with the Boston Red Sox.
It may have rated as third-string news on a day that saw three of Major League Baseball's top 20 starting pitchers find new homes, but for the Rangers, the Cubs, and their respective fans, Cameron's signing carries major implications. Hendry wanted Cameron badly ...
The sudden interest in former Pirates closer Matt Capps really has me scratching my head. I guess teams smell blood, and want to seize an opportunity to sign a pitcher recently given his walking papers by a team badly in need of pitching but who realizes his value in arbitration would be over-inflated by his save totals.
It may seem a cheap and easy way for the Cubs to improve the bullpen. But not so fast.
Sure, he saved 27 games last season. But if there is a stat more meaningless than saves, then I haven't seen it yet.
Even more bothersome is ...
At the passing of Saturday's deadline for teams to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players, 25 teams chose, instead, to release one or more players. In total, 39 new names landed in the free agent pool.
Except in the cases of really miserable teams like Kansas City, Oakland, and Washington, these players will not be central pieces of any contender.
There are a handful of guys, however, who stand a chance to be solid contributors in part-time roles with good teams.
Among these, two make very good sense for the Chicago Cubs, who can use the pool of non-tendered talent to beef up their currently ...
At the passing of Saturday's deadline for teams to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players, 25 teams chose, instead, to release one or more players. In total, 39 new names landed in the free agent pool.
Except in the cases of really miserable teams like Kansas City, Oakland, and Washington, these players will not be central pieces of any contender.
There are a handful of guys, however, who stand a chance to be solid contributors in part-time roles with good teams.
Among these, two make very good sense for the Chicago Cubs, who can use the pool of non-tendered talent to beef up their currently ...
I know that many Cubs fans can't separate their heart from their head when it comes to MLB's Hall of Fame. From Ron Santo to Andre Dawson, Cubs fans everywhere let their fan loyalty cloud their judgement.
And that's okay. In fact, it is to be expected. But, as usual, I stand alone as a die-hard Cubs fan (since birth) who is not only willing but able to separate fact from fantasy.
More on Santo later. The main premise of this article is The Hawk, aka Andre Dawson.
First of all, full disclosure: I love the Hawk. I am a fan of what ...
On Thursday, the Kansas City Royals released first baseman Mike Jacobs.
Should the Chicago Cubs give Jacobs a call?
There are a couple reasons Jacobs intrigues me as a free agent, the biggest of which is that he would bring something the Cubs' bench currently lacks: power.
Over the course of his career, Jacobs has hit a home run every 19 at bats, a ratio that's significantly better than Andres Blanco, who has one career home run in 349 at bats, or Mike Fontenot, who's ratio is roughly one in every 41 at bats.
The closest thing the Cubs have to power on their ...
Originally posted on BringingHeat.com
Kelly Johnson, the versatile 27-year-old, has just been told by Atlanta he will not be tendered a deal for the upcoming season.
Not many Brave fans would have expected such a sudden loss of faith in the second baseman after two quality seasons in 2007 and 2008. The young man hit 16 home runs in 2007 while putting up a sterling .375 on-base percentage for the season.
Yet in 2009, Johnson battled injuries while also undergoing a season-long slump. He finished this past season batting .224 with a lowly .692 OPS. The Braves feel safe letting go of him ...
One of the hottest rumors flying around Thursday at baseball's Winter Meetings is that the Boston Red Sox have agreed to trade third baseman Mike Lowell to the Texas Rangers for minor league catcher Max Ramirez.
Lowell, who has dealt with numerous injuries over the past few seasons, is set to make $12 million in 2010, while Ramirez's salary is substantially less; Ramirez made $402,000 last year.
Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman first reported that part of the transaction will be Boston sending between $8-$9 million to Texas to cover a large portion of Lowell's contract.
Which brings us to another big name flying around ...
On Thursday morning, Major League Baseball held their annual Rule 5 Draft, in which teams can pirate other teams' minor leaguers for nothing.
The deal with the Rule 5 Draft is that any player selected must be on the selecting team's major league roster for the full season, or the selecting team is forced to send said player back to their original team with cash considerations.
Last year, the Cubs selected David Patton, who had an incredible spring and then disappeared because of "injuries" and poor performance.
This morning, the Cubs selected Mike Parisi out of the St. Louis Cardinals organization.
Parisi, a right-hander ...
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