John Barten has this week's BTB Awards up, with the Rangers' shortstop being named the week's LVP for his .071/.071/.071 line...
Keith Law looks at 7 borderline teams and evaluates whether they should buy or sell.
One of the things Law's piece highlights is how many playoff contenders need another piece or two for their bullpen. Philly is mentioned as a team that needs bullpen arms, and Law notes that the Cubs could use a better lefty specialist than Scott Eyre (who is sporting a 6.46 ERA this season, and is allowing lefties to hit a ridiculous .318/.400/.614 off of him this year).
If I'm Jon Daniels, I'm aggressively shopping everyone in the bullpen besides C.J. Wilson and Frankie Francisco. Besides Eric Gagne and Akinori Otsuka, who have drawn the bulk of the attention, I have to imagine Joaquin Benoit (3.10 ERA and .245 BAA this season) and Ron Mahay (2.32 ERA and .213 BAA) would be attractive pieces for a playoff contender who needs middle relief help. And even Willie Eyre has been a productive relief arm this season.
I'm not saying trade all those guys, but I wouldn't be surprised if Benoit or Mahay could get you a pretty decent prospect come July 31.
Ken Rosenthal has some notes up, that include several comments about the Rangers.
Rosenthal also writes that teams are making a mistake in not pursuing Mark Teixeira more aggressively, saying that teams have gone from undervaluing prospects at the beginning of the decade to overvaluing them now.
The Transaction Oracle trashes the Cubs for trading for Jason Kendall, although he seems to be a little too generous in describing Oakland as a "contender" at this point.
Finally, in reading this piece at Baseball Prospectus on how to draft future leadoff hitters, I came across this item, and thought I'd share:
Interesting, considering the source...