MLB Winter Meetings: Woooo! News a Plenty out of Vegas

[SOURCES ESPN] [ESPN] [ESPN] [MLB]


I woke up this morning to check my feeds, and it seems, unlike me, the GM's and agents out in Vegas have been more busy than I anticipated.
The Mets, the Braves arch nemesis, are closing on a big deal to send K-Rod, Francisco Rodriguez, to the Big Apple. This scares the crap out of me. He was by far the most dominant closer last year, sorry Brad Lidge you're good too. Bringing in another big-time closer into the NL East is just going to make the division tighter, and this is definitely a play to get back at the Phillies. The Braves seem to be falling farther and farther behind in the bullpen. Mike Gonzalez is a fine young closer, but you line him up with the other two guys, and I'd take K-Rod or Lidge any day.

Now a word from Braves camp. Bobby Cox is speaking out about the pitching staff. Cox very blatantly said, "You can't win unless you have good pitching, and we lost everybody last year." [mlb.com]. That is a lot to digest, but he is right. I have been going on about getting a big bat, which we desperately need, but in the end we also really need one more big name pitcher. I think Bobby may be worried about our ability to compete over Burnett, a concern that is warranted. We will just have to see.

More news from Vegas around the National League, including a flurry of activity from the Dodgers. Casey Blake is to resign for 3yr's $17 million, and the Dodgers also picked up veteran 2nd baseman Mark Loretta for $1.25 million over 1 year(cheapo). I think Blake is definitely a keeper. He plays hard and can be clutch, kudos to the Dodgers for keeping him around. The only down side is that it is just more money the Dodgers are going to be sending down the hole. Their payroll is extreme, and a lot of the players they pay big bucks to end up sitting out and riding the bench. The Loretta pick up is a little strange. I can see how they want someone to back up Kent who is injury prone, but I would think a younger player would be better. It is likely they don't have the homegrown talent for that yet, so it looks like the Dodgers will be playing some age over at 2nd this year.

The Dodgers aren't done yet. Word on the street is that they are highly interested in CC Sabathia. The Dodger GM boasts that he thinks CC wants to play in LA [cite espn.com], I could believe that. Not having to pay Manny next year could just make CC affordable. All reports from CC seem to indicate he wants to play in the NL where he can hit and live in a warm city. LA fits both of those needs. I am not convinced this will eventually be his final landing spot, as the Yankees and Red Sox have a lot of money to throw around. Should Sabathia end up in the National League, as Johan Santana did last year, we could be looking at one overly dominant pitcher after another next season. If teams like the Dodgers are willing to throw around bundles of money to land the superstars, expect more pressure on Frank Wren to pull the trigger on big names to keep pace.

That's the news so far. Keep an eye to the west, all sorts of shenanigans is going down.