While the entire baseball world and Red Sox Nation waits to find out what’s going on with the Johan Santana trade talks (nothing at the moment), there is other news that came out of the Baseball Winter Meetings in Nashville yesterday.
The biggest news of them all was that Andruw Jones has agreed to a 2-year $36.2 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The deal calls to pay Jones a $12.2 million signing bonus and salaries of $9 million in 2008 and $15 million in 2009. The deal also includes a no-trade clause. Jones’ agent Scott Boras had earlier said that there was teams willing to give Jones a longer deal. Obviously this wasn’t the case because you wouldn’t think Jones would have signed out in Tinseltown.
Another middle reliever got overpaid as the Brewers signed David Riske to a 3-year $13 million deal. I guess having a career 19-18 record with a 3.40 ERA in 393 appearances warrants a $4.333 million a year contract. Odds are with their former closer Francisco Cordero signing with the Reds that Riske will be the setup guy for Derrick Turnbow, who was their closer before Cordero arrived in 2006 via a trade with the Rangers. Ironically enough Laynce Nix, who came over with Cordero from Texas, was released to make room on the 40-man roster for Riske.
The Blue Jays picked up a utility guy from the Cincinnati Reds in one Buck Coats (great name by the way). The Jays hope he can be their 25th man or give them depth in the outfield at Triple-A. I think they need to put him on the roster just because of his name.
The Jays were also waiting to find out if the Giants would accept their offer of Alex Rios for Tim Lincecum. This deal I find strange for the Jays to make because I thought they were really high on Rios, given that he was one of their better hitters last year. Yes Lincecum is a good pitcher but trading an two time All-Star for a guy who hasn’t played a one full year in the big leagues doesn’t make sense to me.
Despite their on-again off-again relationship, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa doesn’t understand why they should trade Scott Rolen.
“It’s very clear that he’s unhappy,” La Russa said during his scheduled media availability session at baseball’s annual Winter Meetings. “And I’m making it clear that I don’t understand why he’s unhappy. I told somebody the other day, I can make a list of 50 respect points that this man has been given by our organization. It’s time for him to give back.
“He’s got a contract to play, and we need him to play. And he’s going to be treated very honestly. If he plays hard and plays as well as he can, he plays. If he doesn’t, he’ll sit. If he doesn’t like it, he can quit.”
The Rule 5 draft will take place this morning putting the wraps on a Winter Meetings in which there was a lot of talking and rumors. I wouldn’t expect the rumor mill to dry up anytime soon though because IF Santana isn’t moved today, the rumors about him won’t go away.
