Option Number Two: Trade Targets

Seth Smith is probably about as good, and could maybe be had for a couple bullpen guys, or a 6th starter like Mortensen/Ross.

I’m not as big a Markakis fan as others. I do like the buy low option on Aaron Hill. That guy can mash. I guess I’m pretty much down for any one of these guys so long as it doesn’t take one of our three best starters to get em’.

Wow, that last sentence made me remember Pokemon’s “Gotta Catch Em’ All!” slogan.

then we can trade a starter comfortably for an Uggla.

injuries aside. if he stays healthy he will be the #1 starter even with cahill still being part of the mix

  Will be non-tendered by twins so why would we trade for him? Pennington is better than Hardy.

1. Antecedent isn’t going to happen.

2. That seems light. And why do they want Kouzmanoff? This is Coletti we’re talking about here— I suspect he’d think that Casey Blake is a better player. Replace him with Davis and add in Steven Parker and maybe you’ve got a deal. And I’d probably do that.

3. This much for a guy with literally one good season in his career, who’s a free agent in 2012? No.

4. Interesting deal, but one with far larger downside than upside given the ages of the players (certainly they are not likely to be guys worthy of getting major extensions).

5. The Mets should be willing to give Carlos Beltran away in return for $10M, forget giving them a one-time top prospect for it (even one who’s had a horrible season).

6. Why would the A’s have any interest at all in either of those two players? Plus, Crisp is apparently good at baseball when he’s healthy, which is more than can be said for anyone else in the deal (yet, at least).

7. This is plausible as strategy and plausible as something the Indians might actually accept. I still can’t shake the feeling that this sort of trade is just recreating a worse version of the 2007 A’s.

8. One-year rentals are not worth this much. I wouldn’t trade all that for a one-year rental of Albert Pujols.

9. There are other corner OF I’d rather pursue. Lee just flat-out isn’t a good hitter anymore. His ROS ZiPS plus defense tells us that he’s now a fringe-of-MLB/bench player type of talent.

10. Intriguing. You’re basically giving up Ryan Sweeney knowing that you’ll be releasing whichever of LaRoche and Kouzmanoff loses the spring training battle. I have a feeling, though, that that’s going to be LaRoche. He’s another Travis Buck type— I don’t think the hype was actually wrong back in the day, he’s just a shell of his former self due to injuries. At least Sweeney hasn’t actually had a terrible season yet.

becomes an unsigned player subject to the reserve clause rules for players with his level of service time. In Morales’s case, he will have 3 years-plus of service time, and therefore will become arbitration-eligible as a first-year player. I’d expect him to make between $2M and $4M next season.