From now until the end of the month, Bullets is going to be dominated by trades and rumors.
- The big news was that after the Mariners didn't sign Kendrys Morales over the offseason after Morales rejected the their qualifying offer, the Mariners traded minor league pitcher Stephen Pryor to Minnesota for Morales. I knew those crazy kids could make it work.
- Lyle Spencer thinks Morales is exactly what the Mariners offense needs.
- Keith Law (ESPN Insider Only) thinks, yeah, the Morales of 2013 is exactly what the Mariners need. Unfortunately for Seattle, they're getting the 2014 model.
- The Mariners might also be interested in Drew Stubbs.
- That Morales move was surprising, but not nearly the shock of the Rockies trading Chris Capuano to the Yankees. What's shocking there is that I had no idea Capuano was still pitching, much less for the Rockies.
- The Tigers made a win-now move and traded for Joakim Soria. When your owner is 85 years old, the future is never. There is only now.
- The Yankees are considering making a trade for Ian Kennedy.
- Ken Rosenthal thinks the Padres' sell-off will go too far if they trade Ian Kennedy and Joaquin Benoit.
- Then there is Ryan Howard, who has unofficially been benched for Darin Ruf.
- The Phillies would like to trade him and are willing to eat most of Howard's contract.
- Of course, even at that price, the Phillies are finding no takers. So the Phillies have discussed simply releasing Howard.
- Corey Seidman tells Ruben to rip off the Band-Aid and cut Howard.
- Jon Heyman admits he was wrong when he praised Howard's massive contract extension (and seriously, he was close to the only one), but he thinks simply releasing him and eating $70 million is nuts.
- Gabe Lacques says that eating the back end of contracts is the new reality in MLB. He lists several other candidates for outright release.
- There's no talk of cutting him, but Dustin Pedroia has been pretty mediocre this year. That was a contract extension everyone praised.
- The Pirates would like a reunion with A.J. Burnett, but they want no part of the option he has for next season on his contract.
- It looks like Dan Haren is going to lose his spot in the Dodgers rotation.
- The Athletics released Jim Johnson. Marc Normandin says this is evidence that BIlly Beane isn't perfect. He quickly adds we need to remember that no GM is.
- However, the A's do have the best record in baseball with a bunch of guys you'd never heard of two years ago. Wendy Thurm says that the flexibility demonstrated by the team, the players and the manager are a key to their success.
- Ken Rosenthal wants the Marlins to trade Giancarlo Stanton and stop pretending they're going to sign him to a long-term contract.
- Jayson Stark lists some possible trade partners for the Rays to deal David Price to.
- Will Leitch says the Cardinals have a big dilemma: should they trade top prospect Oscar Tavares (and more) to Tampa Bay for David Price?
- One problem here is that the Rays are red-hot right now and have kind of, maybe, sort of played their way back into playoff contention. In which case, they're not trading Price.
- Peter Gammons says that both the Red Sox and the Rays have a tough call as to whether they're buyers or sellers this week.
- One player the Red Sox really need to consider moving is Jon Lester, who has made it clear he will not sign a contract extension during the season. Welcome to Wrigley, Jon?
- The Mets are willing to trade Bartolo Colon but not Daniel Murphy, which makes no sense except that the Mets think the fans will be more upset about Murphy going than Colon. Plus, the Mets have more pitching than infield depth.
- Bryan Kilpatrick presents to you the Rockies: How Not To Run A Baseball Front Office.
- Speaking of dysfunction, pitchers who get traded away from the Diamondbacks get better. Pitchers traded to Arizona get worse. (h/t Hardball Talk)
- And more dysfunction. The MLBPA has filed a grievance over the Astros failure to sign Brady Aiken, Jacob Nix and Mac Marshall.
- If you're interested in the Aiken fiasco, Nick J. Faleris of Baseball Prospectus has a must-read analysis of what went wrong, why it went wrong and where do the parties go from here. Seriously. Read it. (It's free, by the way.)
- A complete list of Baseball America's Top 500 draft prospects who didn't sign.
- David Simon, the man who brought you The Wire, says this is the Orioles year. Of course, he says that every year.
- A look at the comeback (?) of Tim Lincecum. Is the Freak back to his old self or not?
- Grant Brisbee tries to figure out which managers are going to get fired before the start of next season.
- If you want one more story about how Jeff Samardzija became a pitching ace, I've got another one for you. I have no proof of this, but I maintain that I was the first writer on the internet to be able to spell "Samardzija" without having to check the spelling. Or at least the first baseball writer. There was probably some guy writing about Notre Dame who had it down before me.
- So the Cardinals got a competitive balance lottery pick. Craig Calcaterra thinks this is a ridiculous system and then gets dozens of angry "Best Fans In Baseball" yelling at him for his anti-Cardinals bias. More on this later.
- Colin McGowan agrees with Theo Epstein: the Cardinals should not be in the Competitive Balance Draft.
- Jon Jay struck out on a 4-2 pitch. His manager didn't notice. No one did except the guy running the TV graphics. The Cardinals are a brilliant organization. Maybe like Roman Hruska's famous quote about the Supreme Court, they feel that mediocre people need representation in the Cardinals organization as well.
- In contrast to Tom Verducci's call to ban infield shifts, Keith Olbermann points out that such defensive positioning predates even the National League and can be traced back to a game in 1870. (VIDEO)
- Rob Neyer thinks players are getting the hang of the home plate collision rule. Now if only the replay officials could figure it out.
- Chuck Knoblauch's induction into the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame was postponed after he was arrested for assaulting his ex-wife.
- Johnny Damon is not happy that he doesn't have a job in baseball anymore. He says that no one today teaches rookies how to drink like a major leaguer should drink. No, I did not make that up. He really said that. Maybe that's why he doesn't have a job.
- Yadier Molina left some crackers at home plate for his older brother Jose.
- The El Paso Chihuahua's locked Jeff Francouer in the bathroom for an hour.
- Mark Zuckerman ranks all 30 major league ballparks. Wrigley comes off quite well.
- Watch Dirk Nowitzki play baseball. No, this isn't a Tracy McGrady thing. But he is pretty goofy.
- Finally, Craig Calcaterra got accused of "trolling" Cardinals fans for not agreeing that the defending NL Pennant winners should get a Competitive Balance Pick. He says he wasn't and as proof, he demonstrates how to troll fans of all 30 major league clubs.
And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.