Texas Rangers Hot Stove Thread - Dallas-Mavs.com Forums

Drbio · 12-12-2005, 03:29 PM

It's that time of year. The Soriano trade has come and gone and now the Rangers have announced the following trade....for a pitcher!

Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com is reporting that the Rangers have acquired 28-year-old righthander Vicente Padilla from Philadelphia for a player to be named later, contingent on Padilla passing a physical.

Drbio · 12-12-2005, 03:34 PM

Beat you by three minutes 5-0.....

Drbio · 12-12-2005, 03:36 PM

Newberg has nothing yet other than the trade. No return announced yet.

Please let us get more for Mench ....I hope it isn't him, but if it is, this will be a close trade.

Five-ofan · 12-12-2005, 03:37 PM

Hehe, well all i can say is when I started posting, you hadnt yet.

That said assuming that the ptbnl(i doubt its a ptbnl but ESPN just doesnt know who yet, just like the sori trade) is in the minors and not a dvd, kinsler or hurley, this is a great trade.

Drbio · 12-12-2005, 03:42 PM

If it is a minor leaguer it will have to be a name guy unfortunately. Wouldn't surprise me if this is Matthews Jr or Mench.

Five-ofan · 12-12-2005, 03:47 PM

Its not mench. I would be utterly shocked if it is mench. Im thinking that it is somone like schlact or maybe galaraga.

Murphy3 · 12-12-2005, 03:49 PM

...not sure who it is, but don't leave out Rupe, Hurly, or Hudgins..although I'd hate to lose a couple of those guys.

jthig32 · 12-12-2005, 03:58 PM

I bet it's a fringe prospect. As they pointed out on the Ticket, the word is the Phillies were going to non-tender Padilla, so they're essentially getting anything they possibly can for him.

Murphy3 · 12-12-2005, 04:14 PM

Galloway's reporting that it's a prospect type player with some ML innings under his belt. I suppose that doesn't rule out Wilson and Dominguez as well. Although I'd hate to lose a guy with the potential of Dominguez for one year of Padilla.

XERXES · 12-12-2005, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murphy3

Galloway's reporting that it's a prospect type player with some ML innings under his belt. I suppose that doesn't rule out Wilson and Dominguez as well. Although I'd hate to lose a guy with the potential of Dominguez for one year of Padilla.

If that's the case it's probably Rupe...

Murphy3 · 12-12-2005, 04:40 PM

I've heard some murmurs of RicRod.

Five-ofan · 12-12-2005, 04:47 PM

If its ricrod this is an awesome trade.

Male30Dan · 12-12-2005, 06:56 PM

Does Padilla have a sinker? That is all I want to know!

jthig32 · 12-12-2005, 07:11 PM

I have a hard time thinking we're giving up even someone of RicRod's caliber...which isn't a whole lot. If the Phillies truly were going to non-tender him, this would be similar to when we aquired Matt Riley for Ramon Nivar. Speaking of Matt Riley...it could be HIM. Galloway said it was someone that had seen Major League Innings, and Evan Grant says it's someone not on the 40. Riley meets both criteria....

Drbio · 12-12-2005, 07:53 PM

Sounds like it is RicRod. From Newberg though....

Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News is reporting that the player to be
named later in the trade Texas made today to acquire Philadelphia
righthander Vicente Padilla will be a minor leaguer not currently on the
40-man roster, and he will be identified within the week. T.R. Sullivan of
the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports, however, that the Phillies have a list
of players to choose from, one of whom is righthander Ricardo Rodriguez.

I suppose it's possible that Rodriguez was quietly designated for assignment
in the last few days, meaning he'd be off the 40-man roster, but otherwise
we have a discrepancy in stories.

More in tomorrow morning's Newberg Report.

ames7 · 12-12-2005, 09:15 PM

See, if it's RicRod, I'm a little torn. Not b/c I think RicRod is all that, but b/c I just don't think we're in the position to be moving ANY pitching, even if we get pitching back. However, RicRod is almost the same age as Padilla & if he's really out of options... it's not like we'd penciled him into the rotation.

So basically, I think this isn't a bad deal...if & only if it is not the only deal you make for pitching (i.e. this better not be this year's Pedro Astacio).

Five-ofan · 12-12-2005, 09:37 PM

Ricrod for Padilla is a definite upgrade. 1 for 1 deals in which you get a player who does the same thing but better are great trades. If they non tendered him you dont know what he would have gotten in this crazy market that is going on right now for pitching. I like ricrod but the guy isnt anything special.

Murphy3 · 12-12-2005, 10:22 PM

Well, if it makes you feel better Ames, I don't know of anyone that was even thinking about RicRod in the Rangers plans this year.

ames7 · 12-12-2005, 10:56 PM

Yeah, I wasn't thinking about him either. My issue really isn't w/giving up RicRod. It's just the principle of giving up a pitcher at all. But like I said, I still don't really have a problem with the deal, if that's what it took to get something done w/Philly.

jthig32 · 12-12-2005, 11:56 PM

Evan Grant continues to contend it is a low level prospect that is not on the 40 man roster. I stick by what I said, I think the RicRod guess is over estimating what Padilla will cost.

Course I could be proven wrong withen the hour.......

Murphy3 · 12-13-2005, 12:02 AM

It sounds as if it's not RicRod..but, just discussing 'what if it is' RicRod.

LonestarROB · 12-13-2005, 09:30 AM

If its a PTBNL, they cant be on the 40-man roster. Per MLB rules.

jthig32 · 12-13-2005, 09:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LonestarROB

If its a PTBNL, they cant be on the 40-man roster. Per MLB rules.

I'm pretty sure this is inaccurate. The only real stipulation is the player can not be playing in the same league as the team he's going to, which is why it is USUALLY a minor leaguer. But I'm almost positive there are no restrictions on the 40-man roster and a PTBNL.

dalmations202 · 12-13-2005, 10:00 AM

IMO, Next move needs to be "sign" Millwood. To me, this would be a key.

Bring up Kinsler to play 2nd. Bring up Laird, and AGonzalez.

Derosa as a utility infielder with AGonz backing up 1 and some corner outfield.
Millwood, Padilla, Young, and "innings for youngsters" might be enough.

Outfield looks good. Maybe move one for a good reliever. Or go get a stud CF.

I have pretty high hopes for the Rangers next year, if the bullpen will get/stay healthy and they can get one more high quality starter like Millwood.

Drbio · 12-13-2005, 10:05 AM

From Newberg....Greatness.....

THE NEWBERG REPORT

Pitcher A is 28 years old, has a lifetime record of 49-50, 3.73 in seven big league seasons, and twice won a career-best 12 games in a season. He was a blue-chip prospect in the late '90s, once keying a trade for a veteran starter.

Pitcher B is 28 years old, has a lifetime record of 51-51, 3.95 in seven big league seasons, and twice won a career-best 14 games in a season. He was a blue-chip prospect in the late '90s, once keying a trade for a veteran starter.

Pitcher A just signed a five-year contract worth a guaranteed $55 million.

Pitcher B, acquired by the Rangers yesterday for a player to be named later, stands to make something in the neighborhood of $4 million in 2006.

Now, this is far from an argument that Vicente Padilla belongs in the same conversation as A.J. Burnett, but it might suggest to you that the line is sometimes pretty fine. Two years ago, when Padilla was coming off 14-win seasons in each of his first two years as a major league starter, he was probably all but untouchable.

But a changing of the guard took place in Texas and in Philadelphia this winter, attachments vanished, and two GMs saw an opportunity. Jon Daniels has made it his personal mission to exploit the starting pitcher trade market however he can. Pat Gillick arrived in Philly with no reason to hang onto the key to predecessor Ed Wade's 2000 trade of Curt Schilling to Arizona.

The Phillies were reportedly prepared to non-tender Padilla by next Tuesday's deadline to offer contracts to their controlled arbitration-eligibles, and as a result Texas was able to acquire him for a player to be named later, expected to be Philadelphia's choice (according to T.R. Sullivan of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram) of righthander Ricardo Rodriguez, who is out of the Rangers' immediate plans and, just as significantly, out of options, or 17-year-old Dominican infielder Julio Gonzalez, whom the Rangers signed this summer and didn't even bring stateside during the season. If that seems incongruous, consider the following.

Philadelphia hired Don Welke as a pro scout last month. Welke, an international cross-checker for the Rangers in 2005, spearheaded an effort (according to the Star-Telegram's Kathleen O'Brien), along with Rangers manager of professional and international scouting A.J. Preller and Latin American coordinator Manny Batista, to sign 18 Dominican teenagers in the summer, which included Gonzalez. Welke's possible influence with regard to that signing, and his current involvement in Philadelphia's player development effort, could mean that Gonzalez is a player he covets and convinced Gillick to target.

But of course, the Phillies' choice could be Rodriguez (though Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News writes that the player to be named will be a low-level minor leaguer not on the 40-man roster, which would obviously describe Gonzalez but not Rodriguez).

Interestingly, Rodriguez is just eight months younger than Padilla, but has managed to log only a fourth as many big league innings despite being every bit as much a blue-chip prospect once upon a time. Tucked inside his lifetime 10-15, 5.18 career mark was a remarkable stretch of five games in the summer of 2004, his first work with Texas, in which he went 3-1, 2.03 and looked to be on the verge of cementing a spot in the Ranger rotation, much as Chris Young would do a few months later and Kameron Loe would do the following season.

But on July 22, 2004, a line drive shot off the bat of Angels third baseman Robb Quinlan shattered Rodriguez's right elbow and, in retrospect, appears to have been a moment he never recovered from. Rodriguez missed the remainder of the 2004 season, and 2005 was a year in which he systematically pitched himself out of the Rangers' plans. A terrible spring training was followed by an excellent start to his AAA season, and he was 7-3, 2.91 for Oklahoma when the Rangers summoned him to replace Ryan Drese in the rotation.

Rodriguez posted a 3.65 Ranger ERA in June. It ballooned to 5.84 in July. It was a miserable 10.57 in two August starts, and he landed on the disabled list with a right shoulder contusion. A few weeks later he made just three pitches in a start for the RedHawks before pulling himself from the game with shoulder pain. His season, and likely his Ranger career (whether the Phillies select him or not), were done.

Never a strikeout pitcher, Rodriguez saw his big league strikeout rate drop to 3.8 per nine in 2005, and he appeared to be nibbling more than ever. At times he looked like he didn't want the ball. Whether the Quinlan shot factored in is anybody's guess. But it's hard to imagine he was going to get a significant look in camp, and since he's out of options he was probably headed for a designation for assignment and a likely loss on waivers.

The fact that Texas is able to get Padilla for Rodriguez or a teenaged middle infielder begs the question that I can't dispose of: Why couldn't Philadelphia get a better deal from Texas, or anyone else? Is it the right triceps tendinitis that drove him to the disabled list in 2004 and early in 2005? Is it whatever gave rise to the veiled references in today's papers to off-the-field issues? Is it the drop in performance the past two seasons?

True, Padilla went 9-12, 4.71 in 2005. But there's more to that story.

Before the All-Star Break, working back into shape after a bout of tendinitis delayed the start of his season by a few weeks, Padilla went 4-8, 6.27, allowing opponents to hit a robust .315/.407/.581. After the Break, he was 5-4, 3.63, holding batters to a remarkably weak line of .217/.308/.357.

Padilla's best stretch of the season actually began the day before the All-Star Break, and it was as quietly dominating a run as any pitcher had in 2005. The 6'2" righty fired nine consecutive quality starts, going 6-3, 1.94 in the process. With the arm issues apparently resolved, he was once again pitching like the guy whom the Phillies insisted on in the Schilling trade and who went 28-23, 3.45 over his first two seasons as a big league starter and was an All-Star in the first of those two campaigns.

Texas is apparently confident that the triceps problem is behind him, having put him through a physical yesterday.

Other encouraging things: Padilla's best pitch is a fastball with heavy sink, exactly what works best in Arlington. Padilla sports a solid lifetime groundball-to-flyball rate of 1.53, though that includes a 1.25 each of the past two seasons. He gives up a home run every 9.6 innings, but interestingly, he was stingy in 2005 with the longball away from Citizens Bank Park, giving up 17 bombs in 75.2 home innings and just five in 71.1 frames on the road. Opponents hit just .205 against him with runners in scoring position (sixth-best in baseball). And he's heading into his final year before free agency, which frequently results in good things.

The bad: Padilla was 1-3, 7.11 against the American League in 2005, and 5-6, 5.48 for his career. (It doesn't appear that he's ever pitched in Arlington.) His walk frequency jumped to an uncharacteristic 4.5 per nine innings in 2005 and resulted in the worst strikeout-to-walk ratio of his career. And while he's said to have an aggressive demeanor on the mound, there have been questions about his ability to get along with teammates and coaches in the past.

This deal sort of reminds me of the Rangers' July 1998 trade of Todd Van Poppel and Warren Morris for Esteban Loaiza, in a bunch of ways.

Buck Showalter and Mark Connor were with the Diamondbacks when Arizona signed Padilla out of Nicaragua in 1998, and when Padilla pitched for the big club in 1999 and 2000 (prior to the July 2000 trade that sent him, Travis Lee, Omar Daal, and Nelson Figueroa to the Phillies for Schilling).

Padilla earned $3.2 million last season and should see an increase of roughly $1 million for 2006. Should he put together a decent season, he could conceivably end up as a Type B free agent next year, which would net Texas a first- or second-round pick the following summer should the Rangers offer him arbitration but fail to keep him from taking a free agent deal from another club.

The money saved by Texas in the Alfonso Soriano deal is roughly equivalent to the payroll impact Padilla will have, so if you care to view this from a financial standpoint, you might say that Soriano and the player to be named later in this deal turned into Brad Wilkerson, Terrmel Sledge, Armando Galarraga, and Padilla.

Daniels told Sullivan and Grant that the Padilla acquisition doesn't take Texas out of the market for pitching, and that the club still seeks one more starting pitcher and at least one more reliever. Sullivan speculates that the Rangers' chances to sign Braden Looper might have been diminished by the Padilla trade from the standpoint that Philadelphia, also interested in Looper, now has more money to spend.

For now, Padilla joins Wilkerson, Mark Teixeira, Kevin Mench, Rod Barajas, Gary Matthews Jr., and Joaquin Benoit as Rangers who are arbitration-eligible this winter. The Rangers must tender contracts to each by a week from today or they become free agents. It's unlikely that any of them will be non-tendered.

Mark DeRosa and Brian Shouse were eligible as well but signed one-year contracts yesterday, for a reported $675,000 and $725,000, respectively, plus appearance incentives. As things stand right now, DeRosa could be Ian Kinsler's competition for the second base job.

Wilkerson's physical took place as planned yesterday. I assume it went without incident, or we would have heard otherwise.

With the Washington trade official, Texas (with Padilla's arrival) has a full 40-man roster. Of course, if Rodriguez ends up going to the Phillies, the roster will go back down to 39 players.

San Diego is guaranteeing Doug Brocail $1 million for 2006. Wow.

Tom Krasovic of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that while the Padres are withdrawing righthander Adam Eaton from trade talks, they are talking to the Rangers about a less significant deal that would send a pitcher to Texas for San Diego native Adrian Gonzalez.

USA Today's Bob Nightengale throws Atlanta into the mix of teams that might be interested in Mench.

jthig32 · 12-13-2005, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dalmations202

Derosa as a utility infielder with AGonz backing up 1 and some corner outfield.

They gave up on the whole Agon in the OF experiment pretty quickly. He simply can't do it. He's a 1B/DH, and nothing else. I think he's GOT to be traded. He will be wasted on the bench if Dellucci is again our fulltime DH, and he's proven everything he needs to prove in AAA.

Five-ofan · 12-13-2005, 10:55 AM

I wouldnt touch Millwood with a 10 foot poll for what he will get paid. Being under budget is a good thing. It allows you to take on money in trades without giving up as much talent. As mavs fans we saw that you can signifigantly improve your talent if you are willing to take on more money in trades.

LonestarROB · 12-13-2005, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jthig32

I'm pretty sure this is inaccurate. The only real stipulation is the player can not be playing in the same league as the team he's going to, which is why it is USUALLY a minor leaguer. But I'm almost positive there are no restrictions on the 40-man roster and a PTBNL.

Yea, i did some investigating and didnt find anything about PTBNL and 40-man roster. My bad. :|

Drbio · 12-16-2005, 11:24 AM

The Texas Rangers have just signed infielder D'Angelo Jimenez to a minor league deal with an invite to the big league camp. Great pick up.

The Rangers have also signed righthander Kasey Ueno to a minor league deal, and released righthander Marcos Herrera, infielders Josh Kreuzer, Bobby Lenoir, and Abigail Sandoval, and outfielders Jeremy Cleveland and Jose Torres.

dalmations202 · 12-16-2005, 02:42 PM

Are the Rangers going to get a quality #1 pitcher this year?

Drbio · 12-16-2005, 02:50 PM

patience......patience. If they do it will be by trade obviously.

dalmations202 · 12-16-2005, 02:53 PM

Patience is hard to come by, as a Rangers fan. This team seems so close to being a contender, if they will just bite the bullet and "buy" a #1 starting pitcher.

Dtownsfinest · 12-17-2005, 12:06 PM

You think its the Rangers fault that they can't obtain a #1 guy? I don't know I believe its the pitchers who want to stay away from our stadium. But yea there's nothing a pitcher can do but play for us if he comes here by trade. I too feel we are 1 pitcher away from contending. Sort of like the Mavs back when they had center problems. I just hope we obtain that pitcher while we still have our core team in tact.

Drbio · 12-19-2005, 05:16 PM

No surprise here....from Newberg.....

According to the transaction wire, the Phillies have selected righthander Ricardo Rodriguez from the Rangers as the player to be named later in the Vicente Padilla trade.

dalmations202 · 12-20-2005, 09:35 AM

Finally, at least they are talking with Millwood.

Maybe they can sign him, maybe not, but at least they are bringing him in for a talk.

Drbio · 12-20-2005, 11:54 AM

If you believe Gammons, Millwood to Texas is almost done. The dollars being thrown around are crazy though. 4 years at 50 million? Come on....

Drbio · 12-20-2005, 02:22 PM

HUGE TRADE!!!!!!!!!!

Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News is reporting that Texas has acquired right-handed starter Adam Eaton, right-handed reliever Akinori Otsuka, and a minor league prospect from San Diego, agreeing to send the Padres righthander Chris Young, first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, and outfielder Terrmel Sledge.

aexchange · 12-20-2005, 02:40 PM

millwood/eaton/padilla/dominguez looks like a pretty damn good starting 4 to me. pick up a jeff weaver type for 3 or 4 years, you have a very solid rotation.

i wanted to add that im very high on this trade. always thought young was a bit overrated and started to fade towards the end of last season.

ames7 · 12-20-2005, 02:59 PM

I don't know how to feel about this trade--haven't seen Eaton enough--but the people on the Newberg boards HATE it. How much does Eaton make?

Eaton:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/6484

Eek. Never had an ERA under 4? In SD's park? I sense trouble.

aexchange · 12-20-2005, 03:04 PM

forgot we should pencil kam loe into the rotation.

millwood/eaton/padilla/dominguez/loe

nice rotation.