Again, the managerial situation and the pending free agents dominate the news items today...
Richard Justice has a blurb on Carlos Lee in his blog:
Around the batting cage at the playoffs, the boys are saying it's close to a dead-solid lock that Carlos Lee will sign with the Astros. Since I won't be joining the rumor festival until Thursday in Detroit, this one was telephoned to me by an extremely reliable source. He also revealed that the Cubs were going to hire Joe Girardi and that the Texans were going to draft Reggie Bush. I pretended not to hear those other two tips, but I'm running hard with the one about Carlos Lee.
This has been a rumor since mid-season. It's apparently one of the reasons the Brewers traded Lee to the Rangers. They knew they were going to lose him in free agency, so they decided to cut their losses and get what they could for him. There were some details about him having a ranch near here, but I was so excited about getting a tidbit of news that I didn't hear it all.
I do think Carlos Lee is gone. Not sure where, but again, having him go to Houston would be great, since the Astros' first round pick is #17 overall, meaning that it is the best possible pick the Rangers could get for losing Lee (the Rangers, of course, having #16).
Meanwhile, the bring Lee to the Cubs campaign continues in Chicago...
Evan Grant touches on Ron Washington's six hour interview with the Rangers yesterday, as does Kat O'Brien in the S-T. I still think Washington ends up staying with the A's, replacing Ken Macha, but we shall see...at least one San Jose Mercury-News writer thinks the A's should hire Washington, though...
Richard Durrett says Joe Girardi isn't a candidate in Texas because "Girardi runs an even tighter ship than Showalter."
Meanwhile, a couple of guys with Rangers connections are mentioned as possible A's managerial candidates. Orel Hershiser is apparently going to interview for the job, while Peter Gammons apparently suggested that Buck Showalter could be a candidate. Buck and Billy Beane are both big FOGs (Friends of Gammons), so he could be trying to matchmake here, but Buck in Oakland seems extraordinarily unlikely to me, given Buck's controlling ways and Beane's proclivities.