The most intense bidding of the winter will not be over Matt Holliday or Jason Bay. It will not be John Lackey who is going to have the most bidders frothing after him.
No, it will be
Aroldis Chapman, the 21-year-old pitcher who reportedly
defected from Cuba while traveling with the national team in the Netherlands.
To put his talent in perspective: Some evaluators view Chapman as a left-handed Stephen Strasburg. "He's pretty special," said one official.
He has a fastball which has been clocked as high as 101-102 mph and a plus curveball and plus slider, to use the scouts' vernacular.
But unlike Strasburg, his market will not be restricted to the one team that drafted him. It may be about six months before his situation is settled to the point where teams will be able to make bids. But when that can happen, you can expect a
Daisuke Matsuzaka-like feeding frenzy to ensue.
Jose Contreras signed a $32 million deal with the Yankees earlier this decade, but he was much older than Chapman.
Matsuzaka was 25-years-old when the Boston Red Sox committed $103 million in a posting fee and contract to sign him. Chapman's situation is incredibly unique, because he's so young, so talented -- all of his best years presumably in front of him -- and so well known among evaluators.
Picking the final All-Star
Call it "debacle insurance."
Major League Baseball is adding a 33rd player to each All-Star team -- a pitcher -- and it is giving the managers broad discretion in picking that pitcher. The understanding is that this extra guy will be used to cope with the possibility of extra innings.
This could diminish the chances that All-Star managers like
Joe Maddon and
Charlie Manuel will have to use relievers like
Brad Lidge and
George Sherrill for too many innings, as the managers were forced to do last year, by circumstance. This could also diminish the chances that some public address announcer will have to inform the crowd that the game will end in a tie because the two sides have run out of pitchers.
Presumably, the 33rd player will be an innings-eating starting pitcher, rather than a reliever, and the managers can go many different routes with this. Consider some of the ways they can choose the 33rd player:
- The managers could pick the next best starting pitcher who wasn't named to the All-Star team. You could see how a Jair Jurrjens or a Josh Johnson might get lost in the mix this year, for example. Jurrjens has had a strong season but is 6-6 mostly because of a lack of run support, and because the Marlins' Hanley Ramirez is definitely going to make the team, Johnson might get caught in the roster crossfire. If either didn't make it through the initial selection process, guys like Jurrjens and Johnson would be worthy selections.
- The managers could use this as a way to reward a guy on their own teams. Patronage often plays a role in the selection process, with the skippers giving one of the guys who helped them to the World Series a chance to be an All-Star; to the victors go the spoils. But there also would be a practical reason for a manager to pick one of his own guys: It would make it a heck of a lot easier for everybody involved to swallow a tough extra-inning decision if a manager turned to one of his own pitchers, rather than a rival reliever or starting pitcher.
Imagine if the AL and NL were tied 5-5 after 14 innings, and Manuel and Maddon were out of pitchers. Maybe Manuel's 33rd guy could be a Cole Hamels -- who is not having an All-Star type of season but is certainly worthy of the event -- or a Jamie Moyer, he of the 252 career victories. Maddon could turn to a Matt Garza or a James Shields. Manuel and Maddon could more readily ask one of their starting pitchers to come to the All-Star Game and be fully prepared not to pitch at all, except in the event of extra innings, in which case they might throw five or six innings, if the truly bizarre occurs.
- They could use the 33rd player partly to honor a veteran, and partly for utility. The game is in St. Louis, so maybe Manuel could reach out to Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and ask him this question: "Look, Chris Carpenter has been so great for your city. Would it be OK for you guys if Carpenter is picked as the 33rd player? He can be part of the festivities and honored and introduced before the All-Star Game, and he won't have to pitch unless we go into extra innings, and then, if needed, he could throw five innings." If Carpenter wanted to do that, he might be a perfect selection. Tim Wakefield would be a perfect selection for something like that, if he's not chosen through the initial process; he's been a great servant of the game and has never been on an All-Star team, and he's having a strong season.
- The managers could make it a tradition to pick an excellent young pitcher: Ricky Romero of the Blue Jays, for example, or maybe Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers. It would be a way to highlight a rising star.
- The managers could use this as something of a lifetime achievement award and pick someone like Randy Johnson, who just won his 300th game.
For the readers: If you were the managers, how would you pick the 33rd pitcher?
The Patience Index
The players who had the longest at-bats Wednesday.
Moves, deals and decisions
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Buster Olney
