All Entries in the "Hot Stove" Category
What Can the Astros Expect in a Trade?
Okay, so the two guys who are likely to be moved are obviously Berkman and Oswalt. Oswalt has the highest trade value, since he’s been whining over the last month or so, and is more motivated to apparently get out of dodge. Citizen Spruce asked the following question: All right, Constable, a question for you: [...]
Reflecting On The Cardinals Off Season
As of this writing, the St. Louis Cardinals have played three games. Those three games have done less enlightening than reinforcing just what this offseason’s top topics were. The major move of the Cardinal offseason was, of course, the signing of Matt Holliday to a long-term deal. With Holliday in the fold hitting behind Albert [...]
Braves 2010 Primer: 5 Questions
The ’09 Braves contended till the final week of the season. How will they fare this year? 5. Who will bat leadoff? Since Nate McLouth has single handedly been trying to turn the Braves into the Pittsburg Pirates, one would wonder if he’s going to permanently be hidden in the 8 hole be given time [...]
2010 Mets: So much for ‘Prevention & Recovery’
The Mets unveiled a new slogan in spring training: “Prevention & Recovery.” They even had signs made up for the clubhouse. The goal was to avoid the plague of injuries that ruined the 2009 season. But the Mets will open the season with three regulars on the disabled list: Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Daniel [...]
Arizona Diamondbacks Preview
Key Transactions Acquired Pos. Adam LaRoche 1B Kelly Johnson 2B Edwin Jackson SP Ian Kennedy SP Bob Howry RP Aaron Heilman RP Rodrigo Lopez SP Departed Pos. Max Scherzer SP Doug Davis SP Yusmeiro Petit SP Eric Byrnes OF Alex Romero OF Trent Oeltjen OF Daniel Schlereth RP Scott Schoeneweis RP Chad Tracy 1B Joshua [...]
Minnesota Twins Season Preview
Image via Wikipedia 1) How was the off-season? What kind of grade would you give it? For the Twins, the 2009 offseason was one of the best in recent history. After the (unfortunate) early exit from the postseason to end the 2009 season, the Twins had several clear and pressing needs. The most notable and [...]
Eri Yoshida Pitches for Tim Wakefield
Image via Wikipedia Here are some of the quotes from the knuckleballers from an article on NESN.com where these videos came from by Michael Hurley entitled, “Tim Wakefield Offers Pitching Advice to 18-Year-Old Female Knuckleballer Eri Yoshiba“. “I was very impressed,” Wakefield said. “It’s an honor to have somebody to carry on a knuckleball tradition, [...]
Baltimore Orioles: Keys for a Successful 2010
With Spring Training starting and the 2010 baseball season only weeks away, it is the time of the year when fans of the Baltimore Orioles can start dreaming that maybe this is the year that our decade long nightmare ends. The Orioles were not among the most aggressive or highest spending teams in the offseason, [...]
Mets Hot Stove Roundup: The Pilot Light Is Out
The Mets went into the offseason with many big needs: No. 2 starter, power-hitting leftfielder, catcher, setup man, and upgrades at second base and on the bench. As spring training begins, they have successfully addressed only one of those needs. In January, the Mets signed Jason Bay for $66 million over four years, with an [...]
A Monday in the Offseason: Dustin Pedrioa (video)
Here’s the second video of a workout day in the life of…by NESN on a member of the Boston Red Sox. If you haven’t guessed by the title, this video follows Boston’s Diminutive Bad Boy, 2B Dustin Pedroia at his home in Arizona. Check it out and tell us what you think. What you liked [...]
The 2010 Brewers & The Groundhog Day Principle:
Image via Wikipedia Last week was Groundhog Day (the holiday, not the Bill Murray Movie). Per Groundhog Day tradition, the weather outside when the groundhog emerges hibernation is supposed to correlate with how much longer winter is supposed to last. For this article I decided to apply this principle with a twist. I’m going to [...]
Jason Varitek’s Pre-Season Workout Video (2009-2010)
If you are anything like me, you wonder what catchers have to go through in the offseason to prepare for a season of 162 games. Well here’s a video showing us a typical day in Red Sox captain and part time catcher (I am having problems calling him a back up after all of these [...]
Cardinals Are Not Dormant During Winter
While for a lot of teams, the offseason is a quiet time, a time for renewal and reflection. For the Cardinals, this offseason has been anything but. It would have been hard to believe after the final out of the NLDS that anything would overshadow the pursuit of Matt Holliday during the winter. After all, [...]
February’s Look at the Cleveland Indians
Image by Getty Images via Daylife The Indians started the off season by firing their manager and his coaches, but keeping most of the other front office personnel in place. They staged some what of an extensive manager search and ended on former Washington Nationals’ skipper Manny Acta. There was a big deal made in [...]
The Mark Redman Award Effect: Edwin Jackson
Image by Keith Allison via Flickr Each year, BaseballEvolution.com doles out Mark Redman Awards for both leagues, recognizing pitchers who began the season surprisingly well but crashed back to earth in the second half of the season. New Arizona Diamondback Edwin Jackson won the 2009 AL Award. Does that have any predicative value for Jackson’s [...]
A Recent Flurry of Free Agent Signings
Image via Wikipedia Chad Tracy to the Cubs to a minor league deal that can be worth up to $900K if he gets 450 plate appearances Ben Sheets to the A’s for 1-year at $10M plus incentive bonuses Jim Thome to the Twins for 1-year and $1.5M with up to $750K in incentives Jon Garland [...]
The Priesthood Wins Out Over Baseball?!
This week a top OF prospect in the A’s farm system by the name of Grant Desme (23) has decided to leave baseball to pursue a higher calling. The 8th ranked player in the Oakland A’s system was looking like he could get the call to join the major league team during spring training, but [...]
Baseball’s 14-Member Special Committee Agenda
Improvements on the Field of Play Image via Wikipedia The committee met for the first time on Thursday, January 14th. Prior to the initial meeting, this is what the commissioner had to say about the committee, “I’ve encouraged this group to be very blunt. I want these people to discuss anything they want,” Selig said [...]
Blue Jays Reflections on the New GM
Greetings from the frozen north, and man is it frozen this winter. Anyway, what has been going on with the Jays? Well, we are about 100 days into the career of our new GM Alex Anthopoulos and so far most reviews are positive. His first few steps have been to beef up our scouting department [...]
2009 MLB Free Agent Update
While I haven’t found any website or blog that can beat MLB Trade Rumors for your daily scoop of baseball rumors and transactions (trades, free agent signings, etc.), my favorite site to find out where every free agent has signed is ESPN. Their MLB Baseball Free Agent Tracker, although it’s a little slow (usually takes [...]
‘Tis The Hot Stove Season
Seeing David Pinto of Baseball Musings was a big influence in the start of this blog, I try to thank him with backlinks and posts like this. In tis post we will be linking back to Baseball Musings as they have begun to highlight players from A to Z and also cover some of the [...]
Same Old Off-Season: The Rich Get Richer and the Orioles Watch
Image via Wikipedia After enduring another long and disappointing season on the field in 2009, the 2009-2010 off-season was supposed to be the start of a new day for the Baltimore Orioles. With enough quality young pitchers to fill two rotations and a nucleus of talented young position players, this was to be the off-season [...]
The Mariners’ Hot Stove Report
Image via Wikipedia Since the beginning of November, the end of the baseball season, it is almost unarguable that the Mariners have led the charge through the offseason. After a strong 2008 offseason, highlighted by the signing of Russell Branyan and the J.J. Putz trade, which netted the team Gold-Glove-snub Franklin Gutierrez, it wasn’t completely [...]
Three-Way Trade Is Bad News for D-backs
The Arizona Diamondbacks took part in a three-team trade that sent pitchers Max Scherzer and Daniel Schlereth to Detroit for right-handers Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy. It’s hard to figure what the D-backs were thinking, as the swap will be a detriment to the Diamondbacks’ chances for 2010 and beyond. The Diamondbacks entered the offseason [...]
The Holliday Season
Image via Wikipedia So far, the Cardinals’ hot stove season can basically be summed up into two words. Matt Holliday. Everything the Cardinals have or haven’t done since the end of the World Series has been directly or indirectly tied to their pursuit of the outfielder. Their talks with Scott Boras were the focus of [...]
Red Sox Sign Their New Left Fielder
Image via Wikipedia Every blogger’s and journalist’s favorite Hot Stove Baseball site, MLB Trade Rumors has reported (by Zach Link) that the Red Sox have signed 36 year old OF Mike Cameron. It is a reported two year deal worth around $15M. Cameron will play LF and give the Red Sox one of the best [...]
Boston Rumored To Be Close To Signing Lackey
Image by Getty Images via Daylife It has been reported by Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors, via Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports and AOL FanHouse’s Ed Price that top free agent pitcher, starter John Lackey is in Boston for a physical. Players usually only take physicals in the area of a local team after [...]
Big News From Day 4 of the Baseball Winter Meetings
Image by Keith Allison via Flickr The Trades… It looks as if Boston and Texas have traded 3B Mike Lowell for top prospect C Max Ramirez with Boston eating a lot of Lowell’s contract. Due to the amount of cash considered and the financial state of the Rangers and owner Tom Hicks, MLB commissioner Bud [...]
Updates From The Winter Meetings: 2 Days In
First and foremost, how can these meeting be called the “winter” meetings when winter does NOT officially begin until December 21st?! OK, now that I got that off my chest let’s look around at the early news two days into these meetings. Free Agent Signings C — Pudge Rodriguez signs a two year deal with [...]
Mariners On The Verge of Signing Chone Figgins. Whither Adrian Beltre?
he AP reports that Chone Figgins has signed a deal with the Seattle Mariners that would guarantee him $36 million over 4 years, with a vesting option for a 5th year to make the deal worth up to $45 million. Figgins would likely be the Mariners opening day third baseman and slide nicely into the [...]
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