Playing Fact or Fiction with All of MLB's Hottest Week 6 Buzz, Rumors
It doesn't seem like Opening Day was all that long ago, but we are already six weeks into MLB's regular season, with roughly 20 percent of the 162-game slate behind us. Have baseball's new pace-of-play rules somehow sped up time? Or is it just that we're all getting older and time just seems to move faster?
Whatever the reason, while there's still a lot of baseball that's yet to be played, some teams are dealing with the fact that it's getting late early, while others are trying to figure out how to recover from key injuries and overall ineffectiveness, leading to unmet expectations.
All of that has contributed to an uptick in the chatter on the rumor mill.
Is a perennial MVP candidate about to be traded away? Will teams expected to contend continue to roll with disappointing in-house options, or will they look outside their organizations for reinforcements?
We'll tackle all that and more in this week's edition of "Fact or Fiction."
Hisashi Iwakuma's Injury Will Force Seattle to Trade for Another Starter
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As Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times writes, even the best-case scenario surrounding Hisashi Iwakuma's strained right lat, which is still causing tightness in his upper back and forced the team to shut him down for at least 10 days, wouldn't find the team's No. 2 starter back in the big leagues until June:
"If this goes the full 10 days from Saturday, Iwakuma would be cleared to throw on May 18. From there, he would need to build up arm strength. There is a gradual process [that] includes playing catch, long toss, flat ground pitching, bullpen sessions, a simulated game and multiple rehab starts.
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While Felix Hernandez has been his usual dominant self and a resurgent J.A. Happ has exceeded expectations in the early part of the season, Seattle's rotation has been mediocre at best. Neither James Paxton nor Taijuan Walker has lived up to expectations, while Roenis Elias isn't a long-term fix.
Verdict: Fact
A popular preseason pick to not only win the AL West but make a deep run in the playoffs, the pressure is on in Seattle to get things turned around in a hurry. Sitting with a losing record and nearly six games behind the first-place Houston Astros in mid-May isn't acceptable on any level.
With both manager Lloyd McClendon and general manager Jack Zduriencik's jobs on the line should the team fail to be playing meaningful baseball in October, the team has little choice but to look into bolstering the rotation, whether that be with a mid-level arm or someone suited for the back end of the group.
Miami Won't Trade for a Closer
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After they failed to reach an agreement with free-agent closer Rafael Soriano, the expectation is that Miami will go with a closer-by-committee approach in the ninth inning while former All-Star Steve Cishek tries to get himself back on track.
“We’ve got A.J. [Ramos], we’ve got [Mike] Dunn, we’ve got [Bryan Morris],” Marlins manager Mike Redmond told the Miami Herald's Clark Spencer of his ninth-inning options. “Some of it may depend on what we have got to use to get to that spot. We’re not going to say one guy’s going to do it. We’re going to have to rely on everybody down there.”
The team's preference would be for Cishek, who has blown four out of seven save opportunities and allowed 13 earned runs over 11.1 innings of work, to return to his previous form, which saw him convert 73 of 79 save chances and pitch to a 2.73 ERA from 2013 to 2014.
“We all know Steve’s our closer,” Dunn told Spencer. “He just needs a little breather right now. We all know our best chance of winning is going to be with him in the ninth inning, so we've got to get him right as fast as we can.”
Verdict: Fiction
Miami entered the season with big expectations and can ill afford to leave the ninth inning unsettled for long.
Should Cishek fail to quickly turn things around, the Marlins figure to investigate the trade market, where Milwaukee's Jonathan Broxton and Francisco Rodriguez, Philadelphia's Jonathan Papelbon and Oakland's Tyler Clippard, among others, could all be potential targets.
Colorado Will Finally Trade Troy Tulowitzki
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Four consecutive losing seasons—and no playoff appearances since 2009—has gotten to Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and could lead to the perennial All-Star requesting a trade, according to a report from the New York Post's Joel Sherman:
"Tulowitzki was described as frustrated with four straight losing seasons and wants out, according to two people who know him well. [His agent Paul] Cohen would not describe Tulowitzki’s mindset, but it was clear in a 15-minute conversation that Cohen clearly sees the value of his client moving to a better place for his mind and body [not playing in high altitude any longer].
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Cohen, who is set to meet with him in Los Angeles before the Rockies begin a four-game set against the Dodgers on Thursday, also said, “To say that it [a trade request] is not a possibility would be silly."
Another thing that appears to have gotten to Tulowitzki is the seemingly never-ending speculation about his future in Colorado. He vented a bit to Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post after Sherman's report was published.
"It's a tough topic to talk about," Tulowitzki said. "But if it's being thrown around there, it's something I need to get addressed, because the last thing I want is to come to the field every day with that hanging over my head."
Verdict: Fact
Whether Tulowitzki requests a trade or not, the time has come for Colorado to cut ties with its most popular player and usher in a new era of Rockies baseball. The club is light-years away from contending, and trading Tulo would bring back a package of talent that would help speed up the rebuilding process.
The last thing the Rockies can afford is for Tulowitzki to re-injure himself, which would make him about as untradable an asset as you could find.
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Boston Won't Trade for Rotation Help in May
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Boston's starting rotation continues to sink into the abyss, pitching to baseball's highest ERA (5.65), third-highest WHIP (1.48) and, per ESPN, the eighth-fewest quality starts (14). Only one of the team's regular starters, Rick Porcello, has an ERA below 5.60 (a mediocre 4.50 mark).
While general manager Ben Cherington continues to claim that he and the rest of the organization believe in the pitchers they have, nobody's buying what he's selling. Maybe we should—after all, this is a man who believed that Rick Porcello was worth $20 million a year before he ever threw a pitch in Boston.
Making sensible decisions isn't something that he's got a lengthy track record of doing.
That said, history tells us that the trade market for starting pitchers—those who would serve as an improvement over what the team currently has, anyway—is still about a month away from developing, as the Boston Globe's Alex Speier writes:
"Typically, it’s not until at least late June or July that supply and demand get defined in a fashion that permits top-shelf starters to move. The Indians’ trade of Bartolo Colon to the Expos occurred on June 27, 2002; CC Sabathia went from Cleveland to the Brewers on July 7, 2008; Cliff Lee went from the Mariners to the Rangers on July 9, 2010; [Jason] Hammel and Jeff Samardzija went from the Cubs to the A’s last July 5.
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Still, with the AL East looking as up for grabs as it has in years, the Red Sox can ill afford to continue losing ground because of awful outings from a poorly constructed rotation—or to continue utilizing its bullpen as much as it has thus far (an MLB-leading 122.1 innings of work).
Verdict: Fact
The only pitcher currently available who would be a guaranteed upgrade over the team's current in-house options is Philadelphia's Cole Hamels, and rumors and speculation about his eventual arrival in Boston have been beaten to the point where those who believe it will happen are few and far between.
Cherington may very well call upon one of his highly touted pitching prospects—Brian Johnson, Henry Owens or Eduardo Rodriguez—and see if he can give the rotation a boost, but contrary to popular opinion, none of them are locks to be any better than what the Red Sox already have.
The Red Sox will hope to tread water until other teams decide whether to start selling off their best arms, whether it be due to their increasing price or impending free agency.
The Cubs and Mets Are Destined to Trade
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No team in baseball has as many talented, young middle infielders as the Chicago Cubs do, while nobody can compete with the Mets' stable of young arms. With both teams in need of what the other has, a swap between Chicago and New York has long seemed like a smart move for both clubs.
Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer not only believes it's a smart move, but one that inevitably could happen, as he told the Chicago Sun-Times' Gordon Wittenmyer:
"We haven’t made a deal yet, but there’s been matches that made sense, and I’m sure we’ll talk to them in the future. I guess when you factor in the hitting and the pitching, I guess people think it’s unusual (that no deal had yet been struck). But it’ll happen at some point.
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Wittenmyer goes on to note that there are long-lasting relationships between members of each team's front office—Hoyer with Mets vice president of player development Paul DePodesta and Cubs president Theo Epstein with Mets GM Sandy Alderson—something that you'd think would only increase the odds of a deal.
For what it's worth, Alderson remains adamant in his stance that he's not interested in replacing incumbent Wilmer Flores, but we know that things can change in a hurry.
Verdict: Fiction
While a trade involving Cubs infield prospect Javier Baez and Mets pitching prospect Steven Matz, for example, might make sense for both clubs on paper, the Cubs don't figure to be the only team with an intriguing shortstop on the trade market as the season goes on.
The Mets will have choices, and while they may ultimately decide that a deal with the Cubs is their best option, it's far from the sure thing that Hoyer makes it out to be.
Unless otherwise linked or noted, all statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs and are current through games of May 13. All contract information courtesy of Cot's Contracts.
Hit me up on Twitter to talk all things baseball: @RickWeinerBR.
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