Category Archives: Jack Wilson

Gas Is Down, and So Is Manny

Posted on by 12 Replies

Holy crap, is there a lot going on today. I hardly even know where to begin! Trust me on this, you’re going to want to read to the end – we’re saving the best for last.

* I am crushed for Scott Boras right now. Buster Olney, hit me.

Executives around baseball wonder if that will change in the next few days, because they are having a difficult time envisioning how Ramirez would make more in salary in 2009 than if he accepted arbitration. He made $20 million last season — although the present-day value was just a little more than $17 million — and following a historic performance in which Ramirez hit .396 for the Dodgers in two months, driving in 53 runs in 53 games, his arbitration award would be breathtaking. Boras would be in position to set a new and stunning standard through that process, and could ask for A-Rod money.

But accepting arbitration would represent a staggering surrender for Ramirez, who had hoped for a nine-figure contract, and for Boras, who has been talking a deal for as long as six years for the 36-year-old outfielder. One year for $28 million is a long way from four years for $100 million, or six years for $150 million. Some friends of Ramirez do not believe that he will allow Boras to take arbitration, as tempting as it may be. “This is not going to be an easy time for Scott,” a friend of Ramirez said.

Admit it. The thought of Scott Boras getting embarrassed warms your heart just a little, doesn’t it? You know, Buster Olney makes a lot of good points here about how with the economy in such a tailspin, that there’s no way Manny’s getting the huge deal that Boras wants – not that we haven’t been saying that since day one. The question now is… what’s the best possible outcome for the Dodgers here? If Manny accepts arbitration, the Dodgers get him on a one-year deal and motivated for another trip through free agency… but they’d also be paying him a completely ridiculous salary for 2009 that would dwarf anything he could get anywhere else, and if Frank McCourt is forced to shoehorn $28 million into the payroll, we might be looking at nothing but AAAA players making the minimum.

On the other hand, if he’s forced to settle for a two- or three- year deal at a significantly lower salary than he’d hoped, he might be Unhappy Manny Being Manny, and that’s just not going to be good for anyone. So I suppose I’m rooting for him to accept arbitration… but it doesn’t matter since we all know that there’s absolutely no way that’s going to happen.

Moving on to better news about players we never wanted to see in LA in the first place:

* Thanks for staying away, Andy! Joe Torre apparently called Pettitte to gauge his interest in coming to Los Angeles, and it sounds like it’s not really going to happen. Now I said a few weeks ago that I wasn’t all that interested in Pettitte coming out, so this is good news. But here’s the quote from the Newsday story that makes this all the more hilarious:

Pettitte, nevertheless, has refused to agree to a $10 million salary for 2009, after making $16 million each of the last two seasons.

Really, Andy? You’re going to be 37 years old. You were awful most of last year. And the economy is driving down prices for everyone. Yet ten million dollars isn’t enough money for you? Especially when at this point, you should consider yourself lucky to even claim a roster spot somewhere. Sixteen million dollars for the rotting corpse of Andy Pettitte. Unbelievable.

* Everything you know is wrong. I usually have a good deal of respect for Tony Jackson of the LA Daily News, although I suppose when you’re going up against Plaschke and Simers every day it’s hard not to look good. But I have got to wonder about this update from his blog today:

Just found out there is nothing to the Wilson story, that the Dodgers haven’t talked to the Pirates about him in months.

Months? How is that even possible – we’ve been hearing “Wilson-to-the-Dodgers” stories every day for weeks, even so far as to hear possible names going back to Pittsburgh (Hu and D.Young). Now all of a sudden, there’s been no contact for months? There has to be more going on here than we know. That said, I could care less whether they communicate through carrier pigeons or smoke signals, as long as it doesn’t end up with Wilson in LA.

* You did not see this coming. Baseball Prospectus just put out their yearly top ten list of Dodger prospects, and before you click, just think to yourself, who would you think would be number one? It’s a little different now that guys like Loney, Kershaw, Billingsley, and LaRoche are no longer eligible, of course. So maybe you think James McDonald. Maybe Ivan DeJesus, Jr. Hell, why not Joel Guzman? That was a fun couple of years. Prepare to be shocked:


ethanmartin.jpgFour-Star Prospects
1. Ethan Martin, RHP
2. Ivan De Jesus Jr., SS/2B
3. James McDonald, RHP
4. Scott Elbert, LHP
5. Andrew Lambo, LF
Three-Star Prospects
6. Josh Lindblom, RHP
7. Devaris Gordon, SS
8. Josh Bell, 3B
Two-Star Prospects
9. Pedro Baez, 3B
10. Kyle Russell, RF
11. Xavier Paul, CF

You’d think a guy who really stepped up in the playoffs like McDonald would get some love over the kid who’s yet to throw his first professional pitch, but hell, whatever. If that list doesn’t get you too jazzed, this one will:

Top 10 Talents 25 And Under (as of Opening Day 2009)

1. Chad Billingsley, RHP
2. Clayton Kershaw, LHP
3. Matt Kemp, OF
4. James Loney, 1B
5. Jonathan Broxton, RHP
6. Ethan Martin, RHP
7. Blake DeWitt, 2B/3B
8. Ivan De Jesus Jr., SS/2B
9. James McDonald, RHP
10. Scott Elbert, LHP

Now that’s a list of talent.

Got that right. After all that talent, we need to even it out by checking in with the worst player in baseball, non-Andruw Jones division. Dear god… could it be….

ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick talked to Mark Sweeney‘s agent Barry Axelrod, who says his client will probably only play next year if a Major League deal is offered.  Sweeney, 39, hit .130/.250/.163 in 108 plate appearances for the Dodgers while earning $600K plus incentives.

Whoooooooo!

Let’s Talk About Shortstop

Posted on by 9 Replies

For all the talk flying around about CC Sabathia, Manny Ramirez, and whether we should prefer a winning baseball team or helping children, it’s really looking more and more likely that shortstop is going to be the most important decision the Dodgers have to make this offseason. With Rafael Furcal sounding like he’s all but a memory (likely to the A’s or Giants), Chin-Lung Hu hardly impressive in 2008, and Ivan DeJesus, Jr. not ready to be handed the Opening Day gig, the Dodgers are going to have to find a shortstop somewhere.

Any of this sound familiar? It should, because we did almost this exact same thing back in June. You always hear about how third base has been a black hole for the Blue since Adrian Beltre left; well, shortstop hasn’t really been that much better. So let’s take a spin through the intertubez and check out some of the options…

jackwilsonswingsJack Wilson. Believe it or not, Jack Wilson’s garnered a mention in about a dozen posts in the history of this blog, because his name seems to constantly pop up in rumors. So by now, you probably now how I feel about him – he’s pretty mediocre. Oh sure, he’s a good fielder, and he’s had one or two decent offensive seasons. That doesn’t exactly make up for the 78 career OPS+, the .312 career OBP, the 6 of 8 seasons with OPS+’s of 77 or under, or his career shortcomings at Dodger Stadium (.558 OPS). He’s a mediocre veteran on the wrong side of 30, and he’s not cheap – $7.25 million due in 2009 with a $500k buyout on his $8.4 million 2010 salary nor is he coming off of a good season, being the 36th ranked SS in VORP (behind Nomar and David Eckstein) when he wasn’t hurt. Basically, I don’t think much of him as a solution, though I’d probably take him if he only cost a relatively small contract, if we can’t do any better. So you can imagine how I feel about the return the Pirates are looking for:

The Dodgers have prospects, too, and, according to a Wednesday report by Yahoo!, want the Pirates to pay “a huge chunk” of Wilson ‘s remaining money. Fox Sports reported earlier in the week that the Pirates sought shortstop Chin-Lung Hu, outfielder Delwyn Young and a third player, but Los Angeles pulled away.

The Pirates do not see Hu, a .193 hitter in his first 77 major league games, as anything more than a defensive replacement for Wilson , so the rest of the trade component will be key. By no means will Hu be the centerpiece.

The funny thing about that is, I wouldn’t trade Chin-Lung Hu straight up for Jack Wilson. I realize that Hu didn’t show much in 2008, but at least he’s got hope for improvement. We know exactly what Jack Wilson is, and that’s an overpaid older mediocre shortstop. Hu is at least as good of a defender (probably better), and still has time to show the offensive form that got him so hyped in 2007 – at a fraction of the cost. Now I understand that the Pirates and their fans wouldn’t want to trade their starting shortstop for a player who hit as poorly as Hu did this year – it’s a hard sell. But since I don’t really want Wilson at all, there’s a simple solution: don’t bother trading for Jack Wilson!

In situations like these, it’s always interesting to see what fans of the other team say. At the BuccoBlog, they don’t see much about Hu or Young to get excited about, and while I disagree it’s not hard to see why they’d feel that way. From the comments of that same thread, though, it seems that some of their fans realize that Wilson isn’t all that much to get excited about:

Can Huntington sell Wilson’s valuable defense, contact hitting and agressive baserunning to get back top value or maybe more?
by DITO

Yeah, all NH has to do is find a team that’s never employed a scout, has no internet connection and no subscription to any magazine that has baseball stats.
by WTM

No wonder they’re coming to Colletti! Just kidding. Sort of. Anyway, since I’d barely give him a job if he came for free, much less at a cost of prospects, let’s just drop the whole “Jack Wilson” thing, can we?

Edgar Renteria… or Orlando Cabrera. Ken Rosenthal (via MLBtraderumors) chimes in on Wilson, but also drops this nugget:

On the free-agent front, they are showing mild interest in free-agent shortstop Edgar Renteria but not Orlando Cabrera, believing that Cabrera would require too long a contract, sources say.

renteriatigersRenteria, as you might remember, had apparently signed a two year, $18 million deal with the Giants last week before reports were proven false. I’d been all set to laugh at San Francisco for that deal, because what the hell does a rebuilding team need with an over-the-hill shortstop who’d cost a draft pick? It makes slightly more sense for the Dodgers, as they’re a contender. Frankly, I’m not exactly sure why Cabrera is expected to get a better deal than Renteria. I’ll grant that Cabrera is the superior fielder, but he’s also a year older, has historically been a weaker offensive player than Renteria, and in a season in which Renteria was killed for having “lost it”, they each ended up with identical 84 OPS+ scores.

Renteria’s not the player he once was, but I don’t think that he’s as cooked as most believe. In 2007 for Atlanta, he had the second best season of his career (.390 OBP!), and he’s now proven twice that while he thrives in warm weather NL cities (Miami, Atlanta, St. Louis), he struggles in cold weather AL cities (Boston, Detroit). Well, guess what: the Dodgers aren’t based out of Minnesota. Besides, while Renteria was – like the rest of the Tigers – absolutely brutal in the first half last year, he definitely turned it around in the second half, putting up a line of .296/.343/.469. He’s hardly the ideal solution, I’ll admit. But if he’s somehow undervalued enough to agree to just a one or two year deal, I’m okay with a line like that, and with a contract that short it’s not blocking DeJesus.

Angel Berroa. Again from Rosenthal:

If Furcal signs elsewhere, the Dodgers’ top in-house candidate to replace him could be Angel Berroa, a capable fielder who batted only .230.

Berroa, who was acquired in a trade with the Kansas City Royals and started for most of the time when Furcal was out, had his $5.5-million option for next season declined. Because Berroa hasn’t accrued enough major league service time to become a free agent, he remains under the Dodgers’ control.

The last day to tender contracts to such players is Dec. 12, and if the Dodgers don’t re-sign him by then, they’ll probably let him go because the collective bargaining agreement forbids clubs to re-sign or tender contracts to players that would cut their salaries from the previous season by more than 20%. Berroa earned $4.75 million in 2008, meaning the Dodgers would be forced to pay him at least $3.8 million if they tender him a contract.

No, no, no. No. Just no. $3.8 million for Angel Berroa? I wouldn’t take him at the major league minimum, even if someone else was paying it. I’m not even going to link to our previous articles about him, because you know it all by now. He’s a complete black hole at the plate and despite Rosenthal’s assertion of him as a “capable” fielder, is average at best. As we’ve said before, if we’re going to have to play a shortstop who can’t hit, it might as well be Hu, the superior fielder who’s at least got a prayer of offensive improvement.

Now at this point you’re probably thinking, “MSTI, you’re against everyone. Who do you want?” Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to that. My thinking is that either Hu or DeJesus is going to be the man at the position, but that you can’t depend on either in 2009. So you want to get a player on a one-year deal, two at the most, who won’t kill you in 2009, but also won’t cost a ton in prospects to acquire. That counts out Jack Wilson, who the Pirates want a ton for, and Angel Berroa, who would kill us. So as much as I hate myself for saying it, I can’t see a better option right now: Edgar Renteria on a very short term deal.

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness msti-face.jpg

I Guess I’ve Got No Choice

Posted on by 11 Replies

Sweet merciful crap! The rumors! My god, the rumors. You know, usually I look forward to this time of year so much, because what’s more fun than the Hot Stove League? Wondering what big name will don the Dodger blue for the first time, trying to figure out how all the puzzle pieces will fit together for the next year. It’s wonderful.

Until the 400th time you hear some two-bit reporter come up with a non-sourced rumor that only benefits his hometown team and somehow gains legs, that is. I’ve heard some people complain that the Dodgers have somehow been dragging their feet in not making any moves yet, but I just don’t see it. We all know that the big-time free agents always wait as long as possible before signing, and other than that the only moves have really been the Giants signing Jeremy Affeldt and the Marlins making a few salary dumps.

Anyway, things have really been coming to a head the last few days, despite the fact that we all know nothing is going to happen until at least the December 1 arbitration deadline and likely not until the December 8 winter meetings, so I figure it’s time to check into some of these.

* Good god, Jack Wilson again? Via MLBtraderumors, FOXsports.com’s Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Dodgers are interested in trading for Pirates SS Jack Wilson, but that the price (Chin-Lung Hu, Delwyn Young, and a third player) was deemed too high. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard Wilson rumors floating around, and at least this is a little more palatable than when we’d heard Matt Kemp was involved over the summer. But come on, three players for Jack Wilson? He’s known to be a good defender and a below-average bat. Which sounds like, oh, I don’t know… Chin-Lung Hu? I don’t think that Hu’s going to get a shot to be the Opening Day shortstop, but if we’re going to have a good field/no hit guy there, I think I’d rather the guy who’s not getting paid $7.25 million in 2009, is especially atrocious in Dodger Stadium (.558 OPS), and is costing several young players to acquire. At least Hu’s got some upside. PASS.

* Wait, Andy Pettitte? Also from Ken Rosenthal, Andy Pettitte has apparently spoken with Joe Torre about a reunion in Los Angeles. If true, this is a tough call. On one hand, he’ll be 37 next year, is coming off the worst year of his career (plus a 5.35 ERA in the second half) and after having made $16 million in each of the last three years, is unlikely to want to take much of a pay cut. On the other hand… actually, I don’t think there is another hand. I wouldn’t mind giving him a shot at a more reasonable price, but if he wants $16 million or anything close to it? I’d rather have Eric Stults. Somehow I feel Torre would disagree with me. PASS.

* Okay, Ken, I see you, you can stop making a scene. Clearly just trying to get my attention, Rosenthal seems to have the Dodgers in on just about everyone, so let’s finish with him right here. He’s also suggesting that the Dodgers A) should sign Trevor Hoffman and B) could be interested in acquiring Mike Lowell. Though I disagree that Jonathan Broxton needs to be “protected” or somehow can’t be trusted, I’m not against signing Hoffman at the right price. He might be 41, but he still bested his career WHIP last year. If the price is right? Why not. As for Lowell, he’s 35, injured, and owed $25 million. Just because he’s old, busted, expensive and a Red Sox doesn’t mean that he has to end up with the Dodgers. Oh… right. Of course it does. OKAY and PASS.

* I agree with T.J. Simers?! I hate it when this happens, but at least this time it’s just joining together to acknowledge that Bill Plaschke is awful.

I GO away and Plaschke immediately makes the case again not to bring back Manny Ramirez, while suggesting the Dodgers trade for Jake Peavy, Adrian Beltre and “count on the kids.”

Sounds like I’m not the only one in need of some time off.

* Come on Giants! I know the “Edgar Renteria signs with Giants” rumors were proven false (so far), but a man can still have a rooting interest. What could be better than your hated rival, supposedly in a rebuilding stage, committing $18 million and a draft pick to sign an over-the-hill shortstop? Renteria to the Giants! Feel the holiday spirit – if you believe in it hard enough, it can happen!

* And those other guys? Right, CC, Manny, and Furcal. Look, I think we all know the deal with these three. CC’s got an enormous offer on the table from the Yankees, but hasn’t accepted it yet. Manny got an expensive but short-term offer from the Dodgers, which was quickly rejected while Scott Boras tries to get someone to literally sign their souls over to him. Furcal… well, don’t keep your hopes up. By the time you read this, he might have signed with the Giants or A’s, but more likely he’s not going anywhere for a few weeks. Unfortunately, it does seem that where he does end up, it won’t be in Los Angeles – not when he’s (apparently) receiving four year offers. After all the injuries we watched him suffer through in his three year deal, don’t expect the Dodgers to beat that this time.

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness msti-face.jpg

First Place… Really?!?

Posted on by 2 Replies

The idea that this team is in first place despite being a game under .500 is as crazy as saying “Nomar played shortstop and not only didn’t kill himself, but hit a homer, and a rookie Japanese pitcher who didn’t make it out of the third inning in two of his last four starts nearly pitched a perfect game.”

Wait, what?

I mean, what can you say about Hiroki Kuroda? He was absolutely fantastic last night, and perfect game or not, I’ll take a one-hit shutout every single time. Of course, some excellent defense definitely helped – particularly Blake DeWitt’s amazing bare-handed play on Gregor Blanco’s bunt, and as much as I hate to admit it, even Angel Berroa chipped in with some great defense after replacing Nomar at shortstop.

But about Kuroda… how manic is this guy? Look at his last five starts, interrupted by a DL stint:

7/7 vs. ATL: 9 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 6 K, 0 BB, 91 pitches – 3-0 win
7/2 @ HOU: 7 IP, 0 R, 5 H, 1 K, 1 BB, 83 pitches – 4-1 win
6/12 @ SD: 2.1 IP, 6 R, 5 H, 2 K, 4 BB, 63 pitches – 6-3 loss
6/6 vs. CHC: 9 IP, 0 R, 4 H, 11 K, 0 BB, 112 pitches – 3-0 win
6/1 @ NYM: 2.2 IP, 6 R, 7 H, 0 K, 2 BB, 66 pitches – 6-1 loss

There’s not much gray area, is there? Obviously, it’s an encouraging sign that he’s been unscored upon since returning from the DL, but it’s also hard to point to a tired arm as a cause for those two lousy games since his gem against the Cubs was sandwiched in between them. Anyway, a solid round of applause for our man Hiroki for the effort he put forth last night. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Clap, clap, clap.

But even more importantly, first place! Sure, it’s mostly because the Diamondbacks have been so lousy as to keep the Dodgers in the race. But do you think the 2006 Cardinals kept their World Series parade subdued because they snuck into the playoffs with a 83-78 record? I doubt it. First place is first place, so let’s go with that. Interestingly enough, Baseball Prospectus has a “playoff odds report” updated daily, where they simulate out the rest of the season one million times to see what happens, using some fancy math algorithms I won’t even pretend to explain here. The Dodgers win the NL West 48.6% of the time, which may be less than half, but it’s still leading the division – Arizona wins only 41.5% of the time. They also have likelihoods for the wild card, but let’s not kid ourselves, it’s going to be the division title or bust here. (Oddly enough, the Nationals, who are on pace for a 61-101 record, win the NL East .0006% of the one million simulations. What happened in those simulations? Did they poison the water supply of the Mets and Phillies? Did the Confederacy secede from the Union and take the Marlins and Braves?)

On to some trade rumor updates. Despite all the fur that’s been flying around here and elsewhere about Jack Wilson, Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says “not so fast“:

The Pirates expect to keep shortstop Jack Wilson beyond Major League Baseball’s July 31 trading deadline, despite overtures from several teams in the past week.

And he might stay a lot longer than that.

The front office’s thinking, as outlined by internal sources yesterday, is that Wilson is valuable to the Pirates not only because of his fine performance in the past year-plus but also because his departure would leave a gaping hole, as was painfully evident when he missed two months to injury this season. Top shortstop prospect Brian Bixler has recovered nicely with Class AAA Indianapolis after a rough debut in Pittsburgh this spring, but he is not of Wilson’s pedigree. And no one else is on the horizon.

Management also values that it can retain Wilson for two more seasons, with a guaranteed $7.25 million next season and a club option of $8.4 million for 2010. That is well within market range for a shortstop of Wilson’s experience, and management has repeatedly stated that it is under no financial constraints to move any current contract.

Put that together, and the general view is this: Why give up Wilson when a comparable replacement must be acquired by next spring, at the latest?

That’s a little disappointing, but not crushing, I suppose. I thought Wilson was a good stop-gap solution, but hardly someone I’ve been drooling over. Really, I’d love for Nomar to nail down the job, and even if he hits as poorly as last year that’s still an improvement over Berroa and Maza, but there’s absolutely no one who thinks he’ll stay healthy all year, is there? Kovacevic also offers one other nugget:

Los Angeles initiated the inquiry about Wilson last week and was the first team to do so this year. Those talks, which never involved any player on the Dodgers’ major league roster, never got very far and seemed dormant, if not dead, late yesterday afternoon.

That’s a relief, if true. Hopefully all the hand-wringing over Matt Kemp getting dealt was just overblown media speculation. On the other hand, Tony Jackson has some very intriguing news about the Dodgers’ involvement in getting C.C. Sabathia:

Shortly after the Milwaukee Brewers finalized a trade for reigning American League Cy Young Award winner CC Sabathia on Monday, the Daily News learned that sometime in the days leading up to that deal, Dodgers owner Frank McCourt nixed a trade that would have brought Sabathia to Los Angeles, along with Indians third baseman Casey Blake and utility man Jamey Carroll.

McCourt’s reason was financial, according to multiple industry sources. But that is a charge McCourt flatly denied.

I’m not sure I’m buying the financial part, because all three Indians are free agents at the end of the season. As the Daily News story says, they’re owed somewhere between $8-9 million for the remainder of 2008, and for a trade that would bring a Cy Young Award winner, are we really that hard up against the cap? Especially when you consider that obviously, some amount of salary would have to have gone back to Cleveland.

Of course, I shudder to think what the Dodgers would have had to give up for Sabathia, Blake, and Carroll. It’s well-known that the Indians’ #1 priority was to get a young power hitter, which they did in Matt LaPorta, so Matt Kemp is almost a certainty to be included. I can’t even imagine who else; assuming that Martin, Billingsley, and Kershaw are completely untouchable, and that it’s unlikely that both Kemp and Ethier would be moved in the same deal, I’m guessing.. James McDonald, Chin-Lung Hu, and Andy LaRoche? At the very least? Probably Delwyn Young too, since he really ought to be a DH in the American League? That’s a pretty steep price, and I’m just completely speculating here.

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness msti-face.jpg

24 Days Until the Deadline…

Posted on by 10 Replies

First and foremost: hooray! C.C. Sabathia goes to Milwaukee and not Los Angeles, which means that any Dodger parts that might have gone to Cleveland for a starting pitcher the team didn’t really need are still around to be used for a bat or shortstop that the team does need. I don’t know exactly what it would have taken to have beaten Milwaukee’s offer of Matt LaPorta and three other prospects, but I’m sure it’s more than we would have been able to stomach. So a golf clap to you, Ned Colletti, for not making the kind of move that would have resulted in effigies being erected around the blogosphere.

With that in mind, let’s get on to some of the other rumors floating around. And really, isn’t this the best time of the year? While I am a little more worried than usual about what kind of deal is going to go down for this team, there’s few things I like more than trade rumors and proposals.

First off, the Jack Wilson rumors are still alive and well, which if the price is right, I’m okay with. (I stand strong on my threat to implode the internet if Matt Kemp is dealt for him, though.) I figured it’d be interesting to see what the Pittsburgh side of things have to say about these proposals for their shortstop flying around, so first we’ve got John Perrotto from something called the Beaver County Times & Allegheny Times:

Multiple baseball sources said Sunday that the Dodgers and Pirates are in serious talks about a trade that would ship Wilson west. Wilson, who grew up and lives in the Los Angeles area, has the longest-running tenure of any Pirates player at the major-league level as he made his debut in 2001.

*snip*

The Pirates envision a long-term outfield that would include Kemp and Nate McLouth, who was selected to his first All-Star Game on Sunday, on the corners, flanking center fielder Andrew McCutchen, the Pirates’ top prospect, who is playing at Class AAA Indianapolis.

If the Pirates are unable to pry Kemp away, they are also said to be willing to consider a deal in which they would acquire a pair of prospects: right-hander James McDonald and shortstop Chin-Lung Hu.

Remember earlier in this post when I said I wouldn’t mind Wilson “if the price is right”? Guess what: including Matt Kemp does not qualify as the price being right. Kemp is a budding star who’s already one of this team’s best hitters, ranking 4th on the team in VORP – miles ahead of Established Veterans Juan Pierre, Jeff Kent, and Andruw Jones. Wilson is an adequate, if mediocre, shortstop who’s probably already reached his peak. Besides, what are you going to do in the outfield if Kemp’s gone? Commit to playing Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones every single day no matter what? Uh, no thanks.

The scary thing is, even Pirate fans who don’t have the same attachment to Matt Kemp that we do can see this would be a heist of monumental proportions – or so says Pirates blog Bucs Dugout:

Get Kemp! Get Kemp! “Potential superstar” is right. We already recently discussed this rumor here, and I’d just assumed it wouldn’t be possible to get Kemp for Wilson. It still might not be–this is still just a rumor–but if it is, wow. Then again, maybe the Dodgers source was suggesting the team would be willing to include Kemp only if the Pirates included other players. I don’t know. What I do know is that McDonald and Hu isn’t a bad package for Wilson, and 

Kemp>>>>>>>>>>McDonald and Hu

Gee, you think? Trading Kemp for Wilson would be a tragicomedy at best, and I probably wouldn’t even do McDonald and Hu. Wilson’s a downgrade defensively from Hu, and whatever improvement he’d bring with the bat certainly isn’t worth losing James McDonald over.

I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of the Jack Wilson rumors, but a new name has popped up as well: Casey Blake. In reference to the Dodgers losing the Sabathia bidding, Ken Rosenthal added:

In winning the Sabathia sweepstakes, the Brewers outbid at least six teams, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, who could have offered a stronger overall package than Milwaukee and expanded the deal to include Indians infielder/outfielder Casey Blake.

I guess I’m not sure how to respond to this idea. Blake’s a good player – he can play first, third, and right, and he’s a pretty decent hitter with good OBP skills and some pop, although that’s steadily declining. Homer tallies of 28-23-19-18 and just 8 so far this year aren’t exactly the kind of stock I want to be buying, although his 2008 OBP of .355 is very good. I think it comes down to why the Dodgers would want to acquire him. If the idea is that he’d be a veteran bat who could start a few times a week in a few different spots, then great. But if the idea is that he’s the new starting third baseman, while once again not giving Andy LaRoche a fair shake (or including him in the deal), well, then that’s a big fat “no thanks”.

Onto deals that are probably unlikely to happen but should be included just for the sake of completeness, Tony Jackson writes in the LA Daily News about the Phillies sniffing around Derek Lowe, but also pretty much snuffs out the idea in the same piece:

A Philadelphia scout attended Friday’s game between the Dodgers and San Francisco Giants but reportedly got up and left as soon as Dodgers pitcher Derek Lowe was lifted after five innings, a clear sign the Phillies are interested in the veteran right-hander.

Lowe is in the final season of a four-year, $36 million contract, and the Dodgers conceivably could move him before the July 31 trading deadline. But the Dodgers’ primary need, as stated last week by general manager Ned Colletti, is an everyday shortstop, and the Phillies clearly aren’t going to part with reigning NL Most Valuable Player Jimmy Rollins, who is signed through 2010.

Can’t argue that. I don’t see how the Phillies have anything useful and expendable that the Dodgers could use, unless this is to be part of a three-way deal in which the Blue pick up a shortstop.

And finally, there’s absolutely no substance behind this one other than just another blogger’s idea, but I saw it and couldn’t help but mention it: Dodger Dugout wants to try and acquire Tigers catcher Ivan Rodriguez, and move Russell Martin to third base. Somehow I doubt the Tigers, who have finally clawed their way back into contention, would want to move their starting catcher while their backup, Brandon Inge, is on the DL, but points for creativity.

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness msti-face.jpg