baseball moves
 

Gonzalez to Bosox
Long rumored deal finally happens. Red Sox didn't give away much other than Casey Kelly who is still a question mark trying to convert to full time pitchers. Makes Beltre unnecessary. Hard to fault the deal from Bostons pov.

Dunn to White sox
The Sox desperately needed left handed power and a real bat as DH. Dunn fits the bill and if they resign Konerko (and keep Dunn off the field with a glove) this is a good deal for Chicago. They also resigned catcher A.J. Pierzynski.

Werth to Nats
If Jason Werth were 26 I would kind of like this deal. Otherwise they seemingly overpaid (and gave too long of a deal) Werth who is a good player but at 31 is a strange fit for a team still a ways away from being a contender.

Pettite to retire?
Cliff Lee's agent must just love this

No news on Kendrick yet, will keep you updated. :)

He is cheap innings. I will guess 1 year deal for 525k.

Next year he when he is arb eligible he may have a tougher time finding employment unless he has a lot better year.

Just get the feel that the organization has no credibility and the only way that they can attract/acquire any type of free agent is to grossly overpay for them.

I suppose that guys arent banging down the door to go there but this is simply way too long and too much for a late blooming, non-star player. This is the type of deals Steinbrenner would make. Fans arent flocking to see Werth. The fact that he turns 32 in May makes it even worse than just overpaying. he had his best season this past year but at age 32 in a theoretically lesser juiced era there probably isnt much more improvement coming.

The average Jason werth season is .280 with 25 HR and 90 Rbi's
He has some defensive versitility as he can play center adequately

Washington has some talented guys coming through the system and have done a much better job drafting like tampa did in their rise to promeninence. But they never made a terrible deal like this that 4 years from now when Washington may be good they will be saddled with a 36 year old guy with so so power in decline making 20+ million a year, and still have 3 years left.

Not to mention they just drafted the most hyped prospect ever who they claim they intend to move to RF. Obviously he wont be ready for the majors for a few years but what if he is ready in 2? Where do you play werth or the kid?

I tend to agree with you, but in this case he might put a few fans in the seats. You would think that the fan base wold be pleased that the Nats made a splash into the free agency waters trying to improve the club. Magnify the fact it's a guy that they have seen terrorize them the past few season and now they were able to take him away from a division rival.

Not sure how is numbers will play in a different stadium then the launching pad he has played in the last few seasons. Also you would think that he will offer some sort of protection in the lineup for Zimmerman.
I also think he is solid in the field.

The contract is ridiculous and reminds me a bit of the contract that Pedro Martinez signed with the Mets. The backend of that contract was a killer. But they needed to sign and establish a presence that they were going to be a competitive organization not afraid to spend some money. Now they have Werth (agreed that he's not a superstar), but he's still a presence that might be able to recruit other free agents in upcoming years. They needed to start somewhere and unfortunately they really had to overpay to get that first guy aboard.

Wow, I don't think it will happen. But it will certainly turn the pressure up on other teams in that division. Especially the Mets who are preaching patience while waiting for some big numbers to come off the books.

Umm, the Mets are awful. They can preach whatever they want. They are years away from contending, like 4 or 5 if they make correct moves.

for some reason i thought the phillies extended kendrick for a year.. and Ben Fransisco.

As of his wedding in mid-november that wasn't the case....The whole staff was there including Halladay. All very nice. Hamels is smaller than I thought.

I will disagree that Werths best season came in 2010. I think it was 2009. He put up his best stats in 2010, but he was really horrible with runners in scoring position. like .162 or even worse. He had a few streaks where he was awesome... like the first few weeks when he seemed to hit 3 doubles per game.. but he was the last person on the Phillies roster you wanted up to bat in crunch time this year.

no way on earth I'd want the phils to keep werth for 7 years 126 mil. I read they offered 3 years 54 mil, which is fine.

he is a very good outfielder though, and has a terrific arm. i believe he can also throw a 95 mph fast ball and play catcher quite well!

thought i read it last week.. i'll check philly.com

"The Phillies, meanwhile, did tender offers to outfielder Ben Francisco and righthanded pitcher Kyle Kendrick, both of whom are eligible for salary arbitration. Salary figures from both sides are scheduled to be exchanged Jan. 18."

"As for Kendrick, he figures to receive a raise over his $480,000 salary from last season after going 11-10 with a 4.73 ERA in 2010. He has a career record of 35-24 with a 4.69 ERA. Kendrick, 26, is expected to compete for the fifth spot in the Phillies' starting rotation next season."



Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/...#ixzz17RhepMyV



dont really know what "tender offers" are, but it looks like Kyle will be a Phillie next year.

Yeah just happened I guess.


Kendrick is expected to enter spring training as the favorite for the No. 5 spot in the rotation, but he should see some competition from rookie righthander Vance Worley. The Phillies have also left open the possibility of signing a low-cost free-agent starter to compete for the job.

Kendrick started 31 games last season, going 11-10 with a 4.73 ERA while averaging 4.2 strikeouts and 2.4 walks per nine innings. He earned $480,000 last season and should be in line to receive between $2 million and $2.5 million based on past arbitration cases.

The next step in the process is for both sides - club and player - to file a salary number (the filing period is Jan. 5-15). On Jan. 18, those numbers would be exchanged, and if the two sides cannot come to an agreement, the case will go before a panel of arbiters at some point between Feb. 1-21. The two sides can agree on a contract at any point before then.

by the way.. thats freaking awesome and I'm really jealous. Halladay is the man. Any position players there? utley or Howard or victorino?

Just pitchers. Met them and their wives. Could've played golf in the foursome with Blanton and Hamels but I stink and I didn't want to embarrass myself. My wife's friend hooked up with Jay Happ. Haha.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/20...or-contestant/

I like Vance Worley and there will be a lot of competition for that 5th spot.. hopefully Kendrick keeps on working hard and trying to mimic Halladay's work ethic.

whats up with Phillies and Survivor girls? Hamels wife is a Survivor also.. I wonder if hamels hooked up Kendrick with his wife. That picture in the article of Kendrick and his wife is priceless. Look at that grin on Kendricks face, he looks like the happiest man in the world.

Good for him and I hope they have a great marriage.

thats awesome about Happ.. love that kid.. good to see him gettin some!

was sad to see Happ go.. but Roy Oswalt is sweet & the trade was great for Philly.

I would say the ring that Halladay's wife had was between 6 and 8 carats. You could hardly see her fingers.

Either way he is not a star player and you dont give non-stars long term contracts worth that kind of money. I thought the phils offered 4 for 64.

Circa 2005-2006, the Tigers had to grossly overpay to get anybody to come to Detroit. I think the Nationals are in a similar situation, and with the two faces of the franchise injured and/or in the minors through 2012 at the earliest, it seems like management felt they had to do something to keep fan interest.

Nats reportedly set to offer Cliff Lee a 7-year deal worth over $200 mil. He's good but.......7 yr and $200 mil? :zz:

Probably an attempt by the org to give impression to fan base that they are trying to spend money.

I dont think this will create fan interest. As a matter of fact I dont think there was much non-Strausberg interest anyway.

Winning creates fan interest (except tampa, sorry Bigs/rudeboy)

They need their homegrown guys to create a strong base and then add to fill in the holes. Right now there are just too many holes. Second base, 1st base, left field, the bullpen, center field, the entire rotation, catcher.

The thing is they have pieces. Zimmerman the 3rd baseman is a very good player, Zimmerman the pitcher is probably the best pitcher they have coming into the season. Desmond at SS is pretty good. Espinosa at 2nd base may be ok. they have 2 really good catching prospects a year or 2 away. Obviously Strausberg. Obviously Harper.There are some pitching prospects a few years away. If they keep signing guys that are in their prime now but will be in decline in a few years they will hamstring themselves when they should be peaking AND raise the expectations too high now and maybe really do something dumb like trade prospects at the deadline.

Werth is a big mistake. This would be a monumental mistake unless they are ready to join the $150 million a year payroll. Werth and Lee alone would be 45 million. I guess the lessons of the SF world Series win are lost on the nats.

No luv for Shaun Marcum to the Brewers? Decent deal for the Crew and all they had to give up was a good catching prospect in Lawrie who you can find some nice pics on Deadspin or facebook. Marcum isn't a #1 but he is a solid 2 or 3 and should help improve the pitching staff

Does anyone in Wisconsin really give a s.hit about any team not named the Packers?

Believe it or not milwaukee is a great baseball city, but 1 playoff appearance in 25+ years doesn't help. Ultimately the state lives and dies with the pack though

I will give them a little credit. They are doing a pretty darn good job of marketing these days.

They did a bad job with the stadium design in that it is about as boring as you get but they do a really good job of making it extremely fan friendly.

On the baseball side, they have made some pretty poor moves starting with not trading adam dunn at the break for prospects and then letting him go for nothing.

I am almost positive that Dunn was a type A and they will get a 1st round draft pick for him.

edit-Dunn was a type A and Washington gets Chicago's 1st round pick and a sandwich pick (between the 1st and 2nd rounds). Essentially they get a 1st and 2nd round pick. Of course they may lose their own 1st rounder with the Werth signing which is another reason that was a bad deal.

they dont lose their first rd pick for Werth..Its protected so they lose their second rd to Philly..

Did I miss something? Did Barry Zito, Aaron Rowand and Edgar Renteria all decide to void their signings and give the $$ back? Giants payroll is in excess of $100 mill. and the 4 guys who carried them ( Lincecum, Cain, Wilson and Sanchez) make up less than 20 of that.

The point was that huge free agent signings didnt help the Giants win. As a matter of fact most of the big money contracts that they are paying did very little to help. Yes Zito had a good 1/2 of a season and Renteria played well in the World Series but they certainly didn't get their money's worth from those 3.

The Giants opening day payroll was 96 million.
18.5 went to Zito
12 went to Rowand
10 went to Renteria

So 40 million went to guys who were hardly better than replacement level players.

Do you think the Giants wish they werent on the hook to those two stiffs (Zito and Rowand) for the next 3 or 4 years? They won in spite of them and because they had a solid base of mostly homegrown pitching. Washington doesnt presently have that luxury.

The park they built for the Nats is fine, but the problem is that you still have the best ballpark in all of baseball like 45 miles away, so that kind of takes away from the novelty of the place. The second problem for the Nationals is that DC is such a transient place that virtually any team with half a fan base (Phillies, Mets, Cardinals, even the Tigers) almost always outnumber Nationals fans when they come to town.

Do I think the Werth signing was smart? Absolutely not. But in the absence of the club's future for at least next season, does it make sense from a marketing perspective? Absolutely.

Benoit and Pena gone...

http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/ml...ory?id=5898142

Crawford and Soriano next.

I can't agree with your marketing take. Werth isn't a big name player. He just isn't. They arent getting a significant spike in attendance because of Jason Werth.

If they signed Jeter or Big Papi for 3 years I would say that it was done as a marketing move. But this is a 7 year, 126 million dollar contract for a good not great, fairly anonymous guy. If they signed him as a marketing move it is worse than if they signed him as a baseball move. In April Forbes estimated the entire net worth of the nationals at $378 million. Are you telling me Jason Werth is worth 1/3 of the value of your entire franchise? By any measure?

WHen your big name signings since the team moved here were guys like Jason Marquis and Cristian Guzman, Jayson Werth is a pretty huge name.

Cannon, trust me, nobody went to Nationals games last year unless Strasburg was pitching. If they can ink Lee, I bet he'd have a similar effect. I can see why they're doing what they're doing, though like you, I don't know how successful it will be in a town where the baseball team has already left twice in the last fifty years.

I agree.....the Nats are looking for relevancy to their fan base. If the fans feel management is trying...they'll increase the crowds hopefully.

I dont have a problem with Werth per se. I have a problem with 7 years.

If you want to create buzz sign Carlos Pena for 2 years and 25 million. He probably would have done that. Then you solve a area of weakness, get a 2nd tier star to promote and in 2 years from now hopefully some of your prospects will be major league ready and you can get another pick for Pena if he plays well.

Destroying your salary flexibility by signing creeping up on past their prime guys to long term, impossible to move if they go wrong contracts is a killer. Lee if signed may make 16 starts at Home. Can anyone really justify the amount of money that they will need to pay to get him for 16 starts? He proved in Seattle that he doesn't walk on water and wont make a bad team good. Signing these guys is folly because it will prevent them from addressing all the other issues they have unless they are prepared to double their current salary levels.