Welcome to the Hot Stove – the GM meetings began today.
AJax has a nice showing in Rookie of the Year voting, but hats off to Feliz. Feliz took 20 of the first place votes, with Jackson receiving the other 8.
Casper Wells gets hot in the Dominican Winter League, then tweaks his knee.
If anything, the Tigers are at least talking to the Marlins about Uggla.
In other news:
Kirk Gibson’s bat that took Eckersly long and created a legend sold yesterday for a measly $576k.
River Ave Blues takes a look at the long term implications for the Yankees if they sign Lee.
Ken Rosenthal writes that the Brewers may be putting their infield on the block (including Prince Fielder), and expresses concern that 4 years would be too much for Victor Martinez.
Jon Heyman just tweeted that Kuroda signed a 1 year deal with the Dodgers for $12M.
A Peralta/Uggla middle infield would be in the running for the worst in baseball. And considering we are still on the hook for Guillen we would be paying about $25 mil for 2B this season.
And the asking price is going to be quite high, since they don’t need to trade him, and get 2 draft picks if he leaves as a free agent after the season.
So while it is worth looking into for Detroit, I think the odds of it happening are low.
According to Ken Rosenthal, the Marlins are signing John Buck for 3/$18MM, which is a big contract for them. So I think the likelihood of them offloading Uggla just went up.
Well there you go, Uggla off the table–he is going to the Braves for Omar Infante and Mike Dunn.
What am I missing here? Infante has a career .714 OPS…with a high of .775 last year. Uggla has 4 straight 30 HR seasons, and a career OPS of .837.
Also they traded him to a divisional rival, which I don’t get. I don’t know how much money this saves them, a pretty good chunk I suppose, which with the Marlins is always a big consideration. I guess they get Infante and pay for Buck with the deal.
There were rumors about Uggla to the Braves for a while, but Atlanta fans were assuming he would cost them two top pitching prospects plus.
The downside of the trade for ATL is they potentially only get him for 1 season. They are still moaning about Andus and Feliz for 1 season of Texeira.
They’ve signed Benoit now they are said to be in serious talks with Adam Dunn. Wonder in they sign Dunn is Vmart out of the plans?