Playing Fact or Fiction with All of MLB's Hottest Week 7 Buzz, Rumors
With roughly a month and a half of the regular season behind us, it's still early enough in the season for clubs to make up ground in their respective division races, and teams now have some idea of what moves they need to make to be competitive in those races.
Scouts are being dispatched more frequently, general managers are starting to field more phone calls from their counterparts around the game, and the speculation on the rumor mill has begun to pick up significant steam.
It may not be rolling ahead at full speed, but the days of the mill moving along at a leisurely pace are firmly in the past—and things are only going to pick up in speed and intensity from here.
Will a handful of baseball's top prospects finally get a chance to prove they're ready for prime time? Have injuries and ineffectiveness put some contenders in a position of weakness when it comes to adding reinforcements from outside their organization?
We'll hit on all of the hottest trade buzz from around the majors in this week's edition of "Fact or Fiction."
Toronto Will Trade One of Its Big Bats for an Ace
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The Toronto Blue Jays starting rotation has been awful, pitching to the highest combined ERA (5.25) and second-highest WHIP (1.48) in the majors. Among the team's current crop of starters, only one—rookie Aaron Sanchez (4.17)—has pitched to an ERA below 5.30.
That's not going to help the Blue Jays seize a wide-open AL East, and it's why Joel Sherman of the New York Post believes the team should be looking to flip one of their biggest bats—either Jose Bautista or Edwin Encarnacion—to obtain the front-line starter they need.
After all, Toronto's offense is baseball's most potent, leading the majors with 215 runs scored, and could probably afford to remove a bat from the mix without feeling much of a negative impact.
Verdict: Fiction
While other teams would certainly welcome the chance to add a big bat like Bautista or Encarnacion to their lineups, teams in selling mode typically want young, controllable talent—not high-priced veterans—in exchange for their established pieces.
Additionally, Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos told Sherman that he has no intention of breaking up his core.
"I would never talk openly about trading any of our players," Anthopoulos said. "At the same time, these are two of the best position players in the game. Anything we do, we want them as part of the team. If we add, we don’t want to affect the core and take something away from the middle of our order."
The Angels Will Trade for Ben Revere
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With Collin Cowgill, Matt Joyce and Efren Navarro combining to produce an MLB-low .472 OPS in left field, MLB.com's Alden Gonzalez reported that the Los Angeles Angels are on the hunt for a replacement and the Philadelphia Phillies' Ben Revere could be their guy.
Sources told Gonzalez that the team is in "exploratory mode" and "not rushing in any direction right now," but he went on to note that Revere would satisfy the team's need for a left-handed bat and a leadoff hitter now that Kole Calhoun has shifted into the cleanup spot.
Revere, who has been the subject of trade rumors dating back to last November's general manager meetings in Phoenix, is hitting .258 with seven doubles, three triples and a .641 OPS. He's also gone 9-of-12 in stolen base attempts.
Verdict: Fact
With Cody Asche and, eventually, Domonic Brown occupying the corners and Odubel Herrera in center, Revere doesn't really fit into Philadelphia's long-term plans. The Angels won't have to part with a top prospect to acquire Revere, and they can certainly fit his $4.1 million salary into their payroll.
He's not a perfect fit, but he's a far better option than the trio L.A. has been using in left field.
The Dodgers Are Going to Have to Overpay for Another Starter
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An already depleted Los Angeles Dodgers rotation took another hit with the news that No. 3 starter Hyun-Jin Ryu, who has yet to make his 2015 debut, will undergo season-ending shoulder surgery.
"From where we sit right now, if we can add an arm, that would certainly be helpful," Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told ESPN Los Angeles' Mark Saxon, who suggested the club could look to trade from its glut of infielders to land that arm.
With Brandon McCarthy out for the year after undergoing Tommy John surgery and Brett Anderson's lengthy injury history, the Los Angeles Times' Steve Dilbeck wrote that losing Ryu only makes the team's search for rotation reinforcements that much harder:
"They clearly need another middle-of-the-rotation guy. And picking up one just got much more difficult. Like getting Katy Perry to sing at your prom difficult.
If other teams thought they had strong leverage on the Dodgers before, what are they going to think now that Ryu is headed for the knife?
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Of course, teams that make some of their pitching available will try to exploit the situation. What general manager worth his paycheck wouldn't?
Verdict: Fiction
Just because other teams will try to exploit the situation doesn't mean they'll be successful, and with two of the sharper minds in the game—Friedman and GM Farhan Zaidi—calling the shots for the Dodgers, the odds of the club getting fleeced are far less than they might otherwise be.
Short of the club deciding to pursue an ace like Cincinnati's Johnny Cueto or Philadelphia's Cole Hamels, it's hard to see how the Dodgers will be forced to overpay for someone like Milwaukee's Matt Garza or Kyle Lohse, for example, even if other contenders express interest as well.
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Rusney Castillo Will Be in Boston by Memorial Day
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The Boston Red Sox offense has gone from one of baseball's best in April—ranking third with 113 runs scored—to the game's most unproductive in May, crossing home plate a total of 42 times so far. While there's plenty of blame to go around, much of the finger-pointing has been directed at the team's outfield, which has put forth a combined .219/.289/.360 slash line and 78 wRC+ (on a scale where 100 is average).
Because of those outfield struggles, the fans and media alike have called for the team's $72.5 million dollar man, Rusney Castillo, to finally take his place as an everyday player in the Red Sox lineup.
When asked about the Cuban outfielder, who has hit .304 with six extra-base hits (two home runs) and an .805 OPS over 17 games with Triple-A Pawtucket, joining the club when he returns from paternity leave, manager John Farrell wouldn't commit to anything one way or the other.
"Whether or not we allow him to get a game under his belt in Pawtucket before possibly looking at a change here, those are all possibilities," Farrell told ESPN Boston's Kyle Brasseur. "In the short, he's doing what he can to impact potential change."
Verdict: Fact
May 2015 will be a month that Castillo remembers for the rest of his life. Not only did the 27-year-old welcome his first child into the world, but he'll finally take his place as Boston's everyday right fielder.
The Mets Will Trade a Starter for an Impact Bat
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How much depth do the New York Mets have in their rotation? Consider this: The team lost one of its three best starters, Zack Wheeler, for the year after he underwent Tommy John surgery and yet never flinched.
Not even a little.
That kind of depth has led to never-ending speculation that the club would look to move one of its starters to bolster the lineup, which has struggled to score runs without the injured Travis d'Arnaud and David Wright. The Mets currently rank 27th in runs scored in the season's second month.
But GM Sandy Alderson told ESPNNewYork.com's Adam Rubin that the club will wait to see how things play out when the injured players return to action before making any decisions on whether to pursue a bat from outside the organization.
Another decision that will soon be looming for the club is what to do with top pitching prospect Noah Syndergaard, who has filled in admirably for the injured Dillon Gee. As Alderson told Andy Martino of the New York Daily News, that decision might not be as cut and dry as it appears on the surface.
“We’ll see how Dillon throws (in a rehab start),” Alderson said. “We’ll see how Noah throws. This isn’t a competition, but it’s new information. So rather than speculating on what will happen, we’ll let things unfold and make decisions accordingly.”
But as Martino went on to note, that's not the only rotation decision Alderson will soon have to make:
"It’s not just Syndergaard who needs a spot. Steven Matz is nearly ready, too, and the Mets have always seen him as a lefty who would eventually replace Niese in the rotation. Well, what time is better than the present, or near future?
Especially since, according to the manager, the Mets only view Niese in his current role. “I don’t see Jon Niese going to the bullpen,” Terry Collins said.
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Something's got to give, and dealing either one of their veteran pieces (Gee or Niese) or one of their young arms (Matz or Syndergaard) would be the most logical solution.
Verdict: Fiction
For the Mets to acquire an impact bat, the team would have to part with either Matz or Syndergaard. Neither one of them is going anywhere. That leaves Gee and Niese (and perhaps Bartolo Colon) as the team's most likely trade chips, and none of them has much value around the league.
At best, the Mets could probably extract a semi-useful bench piece for one of the three but not anything that comes close to resembling an impact bat.
Unless otherwise linked or noted, all statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs and are current through games of May 20. All contract information courtesy of Cot's Contracts.
Hit me up on Twitter to talk all things baseball: @RickWeinerBR.
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