December 3rd: Everybody in the Pool!

Holy shit.  This day.

First off, Alex Anthopoulos was on the Fan 590 with Elliotte Friedman and some other guy, having a minor chat.  The most interesting part, to me at least, was his answer to the question regarding whether or not he had a chance to match Washington's offer for Doug Fister, which, surprisingly, didn't even entertain the notion that Dave Dombrowski is on all the drugs.

Basically, some GM's like to have auctions for their players, while other like to keep things quiet.  Some like to make certain that the player that they're trading gets out of the division at least, and preferably out of the league, so as to not improve the competition (which he also touched on when Friedman's mystery partner asked about acquiring David Price).  He finally mentioned that sometimes you just don't match up well with the other team in terms of areas of strength and weakness, and that the Jays asked about, but never really had a fighting chance at acquiring Fister.

AA also mentioned that there was a small deal in the works-- one so small that we might not even notice it-- and boy howdy, he was not kidding.  Brad Lincoln to the Phillies for a guy that I've never heard of, and a guy that I've only heard of, but have never seen in action.  Eric Kratz is apparently a pretty good defensive catcher, but definitely can't hit (career .220/.281/.407 slash line, and 2013 .213/.280/.386 isn't terribly dissimilar to what JP Arencibia did, though Kratz only had 218 PA's).  He's listed at 6'4'', 255lbs.  Rob Rasmussen is 24 and seems destined to fail as a starter, but is left-handed, so we'll test him out in the bullpen and see what happens.

He also mentioned that the report that surfaced about the Jays being infatuated by Brett Anderson isn't necessarily true, since he doesn't tend to go around and tell people from other clubs that he's emotionally or sexually interested in other players (my words, not his).  That particular snippet stemmed from a report suggesting that Anderson will definitely be traded at some point this week or at the winter meetings.  Of course, the Jays are looking to bolster their rotation, so naturally...  I dunno, I'm not really all that stoked about Anderson.  He was a good enough pitcher in  2009 and 2010, but he's thrown about 160 innings since then, many of which not terribly inspiring.  I have no idea how healthy he is at the moment, but I'm not sure it matters either, given his history.  He doesn't seem to walk many guys, so that's a plus, I guess.

And he said that Brandon Morrow is throwing at full intensity and feels great.  OK!

Oh, and everybody lost their fucking minds today.  MLBTR links.

Red Sox signed AJ Pierzynski, the most not very Red Sox player there is (other than being a giant douche, I guess) for $8.25MM.  That makes the Dioner deal look a lot better, to me, but it's 1-year and not a whole lot can go so wrong to make a 1-year deal look overly bad.

Rockies traded Dexter Fowler for not very much to the Astros.  Fowler was really good two years ago, and totally reasonable this past year.  Astros' GM Jeff Luhnow is probably just going to trade Fowler for more youth at the deadline, and it will almost certainly be a better return than Jordan Lyles and Brandon Barnes.  Seems like a huge win for Houston, even if Fowler is now way the highest-paid player on the team, since the odds of him re-breaking out is probably better than the odds of Lyles or Barnes being worth anything for the Rockies, even if Fowler's 2 years from free agency.

The Marlins signed Jarrod Saltalamacchia for three years and $21MM.  I'd guess that Rob Brantly is going to be traded now, but he was really bad this year, so maybe they fancy him as a backup or would like to send him down to the minors for a while to figure some stuff out.  I can't help but think that Saltalamacchia is going to be traded somewhere at some point over the course of this contract too-- signing guys that aren't going to help them immensely and then trading them early in the contract just seems like the way the Marlins do their business and stock up the farm.  Not that that isn't a viable strategy.

Jacoby Ellsbury signed in New York for 7/$153MM.  Pretty reasonable, as far as I can tell, though there are obviously some health concerns.  I figured like 6/$120MM would get it done so I'm not too terrible.

Oakland is still playing MLB The Show, trading everyone for everyone.  Craig Gentry is the newest A, edging out Luke Gregerson in that particular contest.  Gentry and Josh Lindblom came from Texas for some minor leaguers, while Gregerson was swapped for Seth Smith.  Add that to the Jim Johnson deal from last night, and the forthcoming Brett Anderson trade, and the A's are going to have a pretty new look this year, though they're only really replacing some minor parts.  Gentry is a pretty underrated piece, in that he steals, runs, gets on base, and plays defense pretty well.  He was worth 3.6 rWAR over 106 games with the Rangers in '13, playing mostly in CF.

Finally, I guess, the Tigers signed Joe Nathan for two years and $20MM, which is probably more than what Doug Fister is going to make in his last two years of arbitration.  Chuckle at Dave Dombrowski all you want, but PROVEN CLOSERS DAMMIT.