MVN - Most Valuable Network

Rangers Winter Meeting Wrapup: Day 2

The first big domino has finally fallen at Major League Baseball’s winter meetings in Nashville, Tennessee.

Not surprisingly, it doesn’t involve the Rangers.

Although the trade has not yet been officially announced as of 12:40 AM CST on Wednesday morning, numerous media sources are reporting that the Florida Marlins and Detroit Tigers are on the verge of completing the winter’s first blockbuster deal.

Within the constraints of the trade, the Marlins have agreed to ship All-Star third baseman Miguel Cabrera and left-hander Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers, in exchange for top outfield prospect Cameron Maybin, left-hander Andrew Miller, backup catcher Mike Rabelo, and minor league pitchers Eulogio De La Cruz, Dallas Trahern and Burke Badenhop.

Wow.

It’s hard to argue against the logic behind this trade for either of the parties involved: although the acquisition of shortstop Edgar Renteria earlier in the winter seemed to suggest that Detroit was moving into “win-now” mode, this is perhaps the clearest indication yet from Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski that his club is going all in, with the obvious hope of snatching the American League crown from the Red Sox in 2008 en route to a World Series championship.

And Marlins GM Larry Beinfest, for his part, managed to acquire exactly what he was aiming for in Maybin and Miller: young, cheap and exciting talent with superstar potential that will remain under club control for many years to come.

Though none of the three minor league arms coming back Florida’s way possess the kind of explosive upside that Maybin and Miller carry, De La Cruz’s filthy power arsenal and Trahern’s serviceable repertoire could definitely pay dividends for the Marlins at some point down the road.

And as a die-hard fan of the Rangers, there’s one other particularly nice side effect that comes as a result of this trade that shouldn’t be overlooked: Miguel Cabrera will not be an Angel.

The hated Angels, who had long been rumored as a potential suitor for Cabrera’s services, had reportedly been attempting to work out a deal consisting of some combination of prospects for at least a week, ranging anywhere from right-hander Nick Adenhart to second baseman Howie Kendrick to catcher Jeff Mathis.

But in the end, for reasons that we may never know, there just wasn’t a deal in the cards. With the signing of center fielder Torii Hunter, Anaheim owner Arte Moreno sent a message to the baseball world that he wasn’t afraid to shell out the big bucks for premium talent - even if there wasn’t a particularly pressing need for said talent.

As such, if the Angels had managed to successfully pull off a deal for Cabrera, there’s every reason to believe that they would have signed him to a lucrative, long-term contract extension, which would have enabled the 24-year-old slugger to terrorize the AL West for years to come.

Instead, Angels GM Tony Reagins is left with secondary (albeit, still attractive) options to pursue, including the possibility of dealing for Baltimore left-hander Erik Bedard or shortstop Miguel Tejada. From a third party standpoint, it would seem that Anaheim’s biggest deficiency right now concerns their questionable offense, rather than their already deep pitching staff.

And personally, I’d much rather see the Angels pursue a player like Tejada, who watched his offensive numbers decline significantly in 2007, who is now on the wrong side of 30, and who is owed $26 million over the next two seasons, rather than a mid-20’s superstar who has likely yet to reach his peak.

Moving back to Rangers-related matters, MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan reported late Tuesday evening that members of the Texas front office met up with the Minnesota Twins earlier in the day to discuss the price of left-hander Johan Santana, who is still being heavily linked with the Boston Red Sox.

Jim Reeves of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has more details on the Twins’ asking price for Santana, with manager Ron Washington confirming that Minnesota demanded a package from the Rangers consisting of right-handers Edinson Volquez and Eric Hurley, along with third baseman Chris Davis and possibly shortstop Elvis Andrus. Ouch. Unless the deal between the Red Sox and the Twins completely and abruptly falls apart, I don’t feel this topic is even worth re-visiting.

T.R. Sullivan also has an excellent recap touching on some of the other developments from within the Rangers’ camp on Tuesday, including the following:

• The Mike Rhyner-dubbed “Baseball Anti-Christ” Scott Boras met with Texas to discuss a possible contract for free agent right-hander Eric Gagne. At this juncture, there doesn’t seem to be much interest league-wide in Gagne, but that could change quickly if the middle relief market begins to thin out.
• The Rangers offered free agent reliever LaTroy Hawkins a one-year deal with a club option for a second season, but Hawkins is seeking two guaranteed years. Yuck.
• Dreaming of an Aaron Rowand, Andruw Jones or Mike Cameron Rangers jersey for Christmas? Keep dreaming. The Rangers are now considering those three options too cost-prohibitive, and have turned their attention to free agent center fielder Corey Patterson. They’ve also made an inquiry into the medical records of Milton Bradley, who will seem fine and well until he goes berzerk on a drunken redneck heckling him from RBiA’s right field lower home run porch.

Though Frank Catalanotto is the club’s Opening Day first baseman for the moment, that could change quickly, as the Rangers are being considered as the front-runners for Mike Lamb; GM Jon Daniels and Thad Levine were spotted walking with one of the Levinson brothers, who represent Lamb, through the Opryland hotel lobby on Tuesday by Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. It’s about time we were named the favorites to sign somebody.

Evan Grant also has his latest “Inside the Rangers” newsletter out, which leads with an interesting discussion on why the Rangers shouldn’t deal catcher Gerald Laird or third baseman Hank Blalock this winter, namely because their values are at all-time lows. Grant touches on a variety of other issues, and fires off a rather curious rebuttal to those of us who believe that Texas may have dodged a bullet in not signing Torii Hunter.

Then again, as Jim Reeves noted on Tuesday morning, this is a pretty mediocre lineup right now, and though the addition of Hunter would have indeed helped to a certain extent, the positive benefits associated with signing Hunter still likely wouldn’t have been near enough to springboard this club into competitiveness in ‘08.

Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times quipped on Tuesday afternoon that free agent Japanese outfielder Kosuke Fukudome is “almost certainly” going to sign with the Chicago Cubs, which seems to jive with the rumblings of Chicago being the early front-runners. Although such a statement might seem premature, given that Fukudome hasn’t even officially committed to playing in the Major Leagues next year as of yet, it’s unsettling nonetheless.

And if you’re looking for more ominous signs of Texas falling out of the Fukudome sweepstakes, Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times implied earlier in the day that the market for Fukudome could approach the magnitude of Torii Hunter’s five-year, $90 million contract. Not good at all.

According to Yahoo.com’s Jeff Passan, there is speculation abound that it will take a five year, $50 million offer to snag free agent Japanese right-hander Hiroki Kuroda, one of the few starting pitchers to generate any public interest from the Rangers thus far this winter. That’s a lot of money for a pitcher who will not only be 33 years old on Opening Day ‘08, but also likely profiles as a middle of the rotation starter, at best.

With the Dodgers now out of the Cabrera sweepstakes, FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal is reporting that Los Angeles is working hard on a deal that would allow them to acquire St. Louis third baseman Scott Rolen. Don’t be surprised if Hank Blalock’s name starts to come up again in trade rumors over the next two days, now that the market’s best third baseman is no longer available.

Legendary Texas Rangers broadcaster Mark Holtz failed to make the Hall of Fame ballot once again, with Joe Nuxhall (82,304 fan votes), Bill King (7,659) and Joe Morgan (6,065) all receiving nominations for the prestigious Ford C. Frick award instead. Seriously, Joe Morgan?

Texas Rangers scout Tom Giordano will be honored by his peers as East Coast Scout of the Year at a banquet in Nashville on Wednesday, with Jon Daniels and John Hart expected to be in attendance.

Giordano, whose most notable achievements include selecting Cal Ripken Jr. in the 1978 MLB Draft, and recommending the selection of right-hander Frankie Francisco in the trade that shipped outfielder Carl Everett to the White Sox in 2003, joined the Rangers in 2001 as part of Hart’s front office regime. At least something good came out of all that.

There’s so many more rumors worth touching on, and so much more analysis that I’d like to divulge, but time has run short on me. My availability on Wednesday will be sketchy, at best, but I’ll try to provide as many updates as possible as baseball’s winter meetings enter their final two days.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 11:39 pm and is filed under The Off-Season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.