Pitchers on the Move

It has been widely assumed that after Ryan Dempster gets traded that Francisco Liriano would be the next domino to drop.

The report is that Dempster is heading to the Braves for (a package centered around?) Randall Delgado. Delgado was a borderline top 50 prospect coming into year.

I expected to immediately hear the attention turn to Frankie...

Instead the newest rumor is that the Cubs are going to deal Matt Garza to the Dodgers for Zach Lee and others.

This is great news for the Twins. Dempster, a two-month rental, fetched a good prospect and if Garza's off the market this early, there is one less option for buyers. I hope the Frankie is lights out tonight and the price continues to go up... and that the Twins can cash in, if they choose to trade him.

I prefer Frankie in a Twins uniform, but I also am a fan of the team adding some pitching quality at the lower levels.

Agreed. Although Xander Bogarts might be a bit of a reach ....

And Zach Lee is no snoutch, he's a BETTER SP prospect than Randall Delgado

Delgado will be a #3-#4 starter long-term, at best

Lee has #2 upside or so.

Awesome news for Twins fans. IMO too :_) :)

I'm a big fan of Bogaerts, but he'll probably have to move off SS too... and him and Sano would become redundant. (Unless Sano moves to RF... Bogaerts is another power RH bat in the lineup.) I don't see it happening regardless.

Lee is a stud, yes. He's higher-rated than Delgado, but Garza isn't a rental like Dempster. The parallels to the Dempster trade are easy to make. The fact that the Garza domino is falling - not necessarily who he's fetching - is a benefit to the Twins.

Rangers, Orioles, Nationals, Angels, Dodgers, Red Sox, Tigers, Giants, Pirates are all looking for SPs. Scratch the Tigers out (for obvious reason), and this is more teams than pitchers available which is good news for the Twins. Only if Pavano did not decide to take a sabbatical...

Liriano should definitely return something better than Dempster did. We'll see how Ryan plays it, but many of the teams who are looking for SPs are also looking for CFs so a packaging of Liriano and Span might bring some really good stuff back...

Anibal Sanchez to the tigers for Turner. Again, this is good news for the Twins.

Ichiro to the Yankees for junk. Glad it wasn't Span...

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Originally Posted by PseudoSABR

Anibal Sanchez to the tigers for Turner. Again, this is good news for the Twins.

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Not so sure on that. Turner is a decent prospect but Sanchez is really good pitcher. If he leaves after the year, fine. But if they sign him longterm, this could suck.

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Originally Posted by gunnarthor

Not so sure on that. Turner is a decent prospect but Sanchez is really good pitcher. If he leaves after the year, fine. But if they sign him longterm, this could suck.

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There's nothing to suggest that they'll sign him long term, other than their absurd spending. Sanchez is a great pitcher, but he's not dominant, and he'll have to adjust to a new league with better hitting and moving to an offensive ballpark. We'll see. Over the past two months (small sample size admittedly) Liriano has been the better pitcher.

It's good news for the Twins that Sanchez fetched a top 20 prospect, without taking a potential landing place for Liriano.

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Originally Posted by gunnarthor

Not so sure on that. Turner is a decent prospect but Sanchez is really good pitcher. If he leaves after the year, fine. But if they sign him longterm, this could suck.

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Sanchez is a really good NL pitcher. Unless someone has a bit of success in the AL, I will have a hard time translating those numbers. With the P up at least 2-3 time before he is lifted, to try to make AL equivalents of the DH, you got to subtract about 2 K/9, add about 1 BB/9 and add about .200 to the WHIP. Add those to Sachez' numbers and you got career about 1.500 WHIP, 5.7 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9. Which is Blackburn-like. True performance will be someplace between these numbers and what he had in the NL, but still...

Sounds like Dempster deal may fall through. I still think the Twins should wait to deal Liriano until the 31st as the market has been set pretty high imho, and teams might get pretty desperate.

Fangraph on Sanchez:

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Sussing out Sanchez is harder. Well, it is if you get too caught up in his recent work. The 28-year-old starter spent June with an ERA over seven, and given the fact that he once had shoulder surgery, it might have made sense to worry about his durability some. On the other hand, Sanchez has been playing with the same (slightly lower) velocity all season, and even recently saw an uptick in fastball gas. And if you look at the season as a whole, he’s put up his third-stright season with an FIP under 3.5 by consistently improving his control while still seeing average ground-ball rates and above-average swinging strike stuff. He looks healthy and is a good pitcher. He could be worth a two-win swing himself.

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Josh Johnson may also be available.. looks like Marlins are rebuilding. I wonder what the price on him will be?.. I'd like the Twins to get David Phelps from the Yankees and David Adams a 2b with decent numbers would be good. 2 ready or near ready guys and maybe have the Yanks add another pitcher to sweeten the deal

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Originally Posted by thrylos98

Sanchez is a really good NL pitcher. Unless someone has a bit of success in the AL, I will have a hard time translating those numbers. With the P up at least 2-3 time before he is lifted, to try to make AL equivalents of the DH, you got to subtract about 2 K/9, add about 1 BB/9 and add about .200 to the WHIP. Add those to Sachez' numbers and you got career about 1.500 WHIP, 5.7 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9. Which is Blackburn-like. True performance will be someplace between these numbers and what he had in the NL, but still...

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where in the world did you make these numbers up? They would make almost every NL pitcher mediocre.

NL pitchers strike out 2 more times a game than AL DH's? That seems pretty high considering Adam Dunn is attemting to single-handedly strikeout more than every NL pitcher combined this year.

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Originally Posted by shs_59

And Zach Lee is no snoutch, he's a BETTER SP prospect than Randall Delgado

Delgado will be a #3-#4 starter long-term, at best

Lee has #2 upside or so.

Awesome news for Twins fans. IMO too :_) :)

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Depends on who you talk to. Zach Lee has #1 upside if he ever puts it all together (not happened yet). Many reports out there see Delgado as a #2/#3, a guy with very good stuff that could be even a #1 with more confidence in his pitches.

Braves have now pulled out of the Dempster deal, reporting the Cubs requested changing terms after agreeing to them. Could become a Zombie Trade still, but at this point, it's dead.

Less than a week to the deadline!

According to MLBTR, the Astros and Pirates are nearing a deal to send Wandy Rodriguez to the Pirates; They also say that the Dodgers are working on a deal with the Cubs that might not include Zach Lee.

Hamels is close to resigning for 6/137.5. That would leave Greinke, Garza and JJohnson as the best starters on the market. That's a lot of competition to trade Liriano against.

It's official. 6 years, $140 million for Hamels to stay in Philadelphia.

EDIT: make that $144 million for 6 years.