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January 21, 2013 Rumor RoundupMonday, January 21
Welcome to another Rumor Roundup. I’m Will Woods, in a rare fill-in spot for resident BP Iron Man Daniel Rathman under our little-known “only Tufts grads can write the Rumor Roundup” rule. I feel like Billy Ripken right now. Anyway, rumors! Braves Continue Search for Outfielder Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers has indicated that the Mariners' offer, despite being nixed, has set the market for Upton, and any other suitors would need to do better. (Upton’s no-trade clause is limited to the Mariners, Blue Jays, Red Sox and Cubs, the latter of which also had negotiations go nowhere fast. By the way, the Twins must be wondering how they were left off that list.) So it appears the only teams able to pony up the young talent necessary to acquire Upton may be Atlanta and Texas, as David O’Brien reports. Yet the Upton saga has been so bizarrely public, with Towers so forward about his apparently years-long openness to a deal for his young star, that it’s difficult to imagine Arizona is holding out for a better deal than Seattle offered. Moreover, should the season begin and Upton continue his solid-but-uninspiring performance from last season (.280/.355/.430), the market for him may crash and burn. Speaking of markets crashing, did you guys know that Michael Bourn is still a person who wants to play baseball for money? The Braves remember, sort of, and O’Brien reports that Fredi Gonzalez recently had a phone conversation with Bourn to smooth things over in the wake of the elder Upton’s arrival. Atlanta hasn’t ruled out bringing him back, says O’Brien, especially if Bourn’s previously reported asking price of $17 million per year has dropped. There isn’t much to report from around MLB on Bourn, and the whole situation reeks of Scott Boras demanding $17 million from 30 teams, hearing “Um, no,” 30 times, and only now doing another lap around the league at a more reasonable rate. The Rangers, long considered favorites for Bourn, have uttered nary a peep about the Houston native, and it’s tough to gauge through the media whether he’s theirs to lose or it’s a five-horse race. (At HardballTalk, Matthew Pouliot offers a helpful snapshot of 13 teams relative to Bourn, although I would rule out my Mets from contention unless Bourn wants to be paid in a suitcase full of twenties by a bail bondsman on Roosevelt Ave.) A few quick headlines to bring this ship in to port:
Finally, not that the Mets are making news right now—it’s my Roundup; I’ll be a homer if I want to—but Lucas Duda told Adam Rubin that his surgically-repaired right wrist is making excellent progress, and he’s on track to be the most productive offensive corner outfielder in the City of New York in 2013, which is such a frightening thought that I want to pretend it didn’t just occur to me. I need to un-think that. Anyway, I post this item just to mention Mets GM Sandy Alderson’s fantastic line at Saturday’s BBWAA dinner (courtesy of Danny Knobler’s Twitter): “I’m in serious discussions with several outfielders I met over the Internet.”
Will Woods is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @IAmWillWoods
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It's a Tufts job but somebody has to do it.