Major League Mongering will look at players rumored to be on the move between now and the July 31st pseudo-trade-deadline.If there's one thing that signals trade deadline day in baseball, it's the annual Pittsburgh Pirates Red Light Special! They haven't made any moves yet, but they do have some of the top relievers that are still on the market (Shawn Chacon, Damaso Marte, Salomon Torres) and they also appear determined to dump Jack Wilson, their highest paid player, on whoever will take him.
While it looked for a while like they wouldn't have any takers on Wilson, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says the Detroit Tigers are interested. This move would make sense on a couple levels. Wilson is the type of player Jim Leyland seems to love having, even if it's only for the bench. The two GMs involved, Dave Littlefield and Dave Dombrowski, worked together in Florida and they pulled off a deadline deal last year (Sean Casey to the Tigers for a minor league reliever).
Wilson would make a much better bench/utility guy for the Tigers than the suspended Neifi Perez. He's not a better hitter than anyone in the Tigers lineup, but he's not taking a starting spot away from Carlos Guillen or Placido Polanco so there's not much reason to worry that the Tigers would try to start him. It would really just be a move to shore things up on the bench in Detroit.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-31-2007 @ 12:53PM
Steve Bielawski said...
Jack Wilson is set to make $14,500,000 over 2008 and 2009. How many bench player can you name who are making an average of $7 million per year, and who are locked in for two year beyond the current season?
I'm not saying that the trade won't happen, but it won't be that easy.
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