What’s New Pussycat?

Apparently it took 36 hours to explain exactly how old Theo Epstein is, what the Expo situation merits and why Nashville, TN was a better choice for the Winter Meetings than Las Vegas, NV. But, once those minor things on the GM’s short laundry list had been taken care of, the wheeling and/or dealing began.

Busy Beane

Billy Beane has been busy and the layers of his progress are multi-fold.


The trade to acquire Erubiel Durazo (eventually) from Arizona took three years, several stupid rumors and uncovered Beane’s backup plan. Beane had been jostling with Philadelphia to reacquire the Giambi who would not slide. We hope Beane was gregarious enough to mention something in passing to the Phils about Pat Burrell, as well, before getting on to other business.


The meat of the Durazo deal is this:
The A’s send a player to be named later to Toronto.
The Toronto Blue Jays send Shortstop Felipe Lopez to the Cincinnati Reds.
The Reds send Elmer Dessens to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The D-backs send Durazo to the A’s and Arizona grabs $333,000 each from Cincinnati, Oakland and Toronto. One of the few trades in which Billy Beane has ever sent cash for a player.


Breaking down the A’s portion:
The player to be named later is rumored to be Jason Arnold, the pitcher acquired by the A’s in the Jeff Weaver/Ted Lilly deal late last year. Arnold is more or less expendable due to the A’s bevy (bevy?) of pitching prospects in AA. We’d say plethora of pitching prospects, but El Guapo might be angry with us.


Anyway. John Sickels writes stuff.


The A’s are rumored to be sending John Ford-Griffin (great assassin’s name, by the way) the outfielder the A’s acquired in the same deal to Toronto as well. Sort of the player to be named sooner in a soon to be announced deal. Our mouth is watering because it is rumored by several sources, including the San Francisco Chronicle, that Adam Dunn of the Reds is being mentioned in trade talks.


Durazo was much sought after by Billy Beane and a few ‘good’ things happened in Arizona last season into this off-season that allowed Durazo to become expendable. First, he has been injury prone. Not a huge deal, but it does knock a player’s value down. Second, Mark Grace is a name that Arizona likes to have associated with firstbase at BankOne Ballpark. Also, the D-Backs have a prospect, Lyle Overbay, five days short of being two years younger than Durazo in AAA. Third, and most important, the Arizona brain trust at GM constantly runs around like a water boy with a leaky bucket. The only focus Arizona seems to have is trying to be the oldest team in baseball. We know that there are a lot of retirees in Arizona, but that doesn’t mean you have to put them on your 40 man roster.


The other rumor that went around this weekend was a stupid ploy by ESPN to make it look like they were doing something when the knew (read: their journalists had not picked up a scent of any deals despite all of the apparent activity taking place) nothing. Harold Reynolds and Tim Kukjian went in front of the camera and supposed a True or False game in which the ESPN anchor (who knows who this jabbermouth was) lobbed possible rumors at them. The rumor was a Miguel Tejada for Durazo/Byung Hyun-Kim. Kurkjian shot is down as asinine. Reynolds took the bait and added that Miguel Tejada was looking for $160 million as a free agent. $160 million? How stupid is that? Giambi was let go over less than $120 million and Tejada has possibly aged two years in the last two months. $160 million? Harold Reynolds might be the stupidest upright human since...no, Harold Reynolds is the stupidest human being ever. Call the anthropologists, we found the missing link.

Back at the Ranch

The Giants singed Edgardo Alfonzo and are possibly looking to acquire the remains of Pee Wee Reese. If the Giants sign Jeff Kent there won’t be any room on the infield when the team takes infield practice.


The Giants have offered Kent arbitration, though, it looks as though they are just going through the motions. The Giants have let it be known they know that Kent’s camp knows that they know that Kent is looking for a multi-year deal. The Giants are making it known they will not have a padded door available to hit Kent in the ass on the way out. The Giants are playing hardball with Kent, which is what you do in arbitration. But, could this be repurcushions of the truck wahing incident form the spring emerging?


The Mets signed Jeff Stanton to a three year deal worth about $9 million. The Mets are without a left side of the infield and need to grab some people in a hurry. It would not surprise us is the Mets were in the lead for the Montreal Expos lottery and grabbed the deal breaker, Fernando Tatis, from the Expos and got Tony Armas, Jr or Javier Vasquez with only a minor conscession in the form of a AAA or AA player.

Rule 5 Draft Notice

The Rule 5 Draft results;


Round One
Player, New Organization/Old Organization
Enrique Cruz, IF Milwaukee NY Mets
Hector Luna, SS Tampa Bay Cleveland
Carl Hernandez, RHP San Diego Atlanta
Wilfredo Ledezma, LHP Detroit Boston
Derek Thompson, LHP Chicago (NL) Cleveland
Daniel Carrasco, RHP Kansas City Pittsburgh
Matthew Roney, RHP Pittsburgh Colorado
Victor Hall, OF Colorado Arizona
Marshall McDougall, 3B Texas Cleveland
Travis Chapman, 3B Cleveland Philadelphia
Kenneth Prokopec, RHP Cincinnati Los Angeles
Aquilino Lopez, RHP Toronto Seattle
Javier Lopez, LHP Boston Arizona
Luis Ayala, RHP Montreal Arizona
Jose Morban, SS Minnesota Texas
Michael Neu, RHP Oakland St. Louis
Christopher Spurling, RHP Atlanta Pittsburgh


Round Two
Player, New Organization/Old Organization
Matthew Ford, LHP Milwaukee Toronto
Shane Victorino, OF San Diego Los Angeles
Ronny Paulino, C Kansas City Pittsburgh
John Koronka, LHP Texas Cincinnati
Blake Williams, RHP Cincinnati St. Louis
Gary Majewski, RHP Toronto Chicago (AL)
Matt White, LHP Boston Cleveland
Rontrez Johnson, OF Oakland Texas