Saturday, April 12, 2008

Roberts to Rockies?

According to Ken Rosenthal, the Rockies may approach the Orioles about Brian Roberts if Jayson Nix continues to struggle offensively. Nix, who is hitting .143 with 0 HR and 1 RBI, is a top prospect in the Rockies organization. He is a career .256 hitter with 78 homeruns in seven minor league seasons, but many scouts believe his average will come up playing in Colorado. Matt Holliday was a .275 hitter in the minors and is now a .319 career hitter, so it is possible. Many believe the Orioles will go through with their fire sale in July, trading Brian Roberts, Ramon Hernandez, and possibly Melvin Mora. The Cubs remain interested in trading for Brian Roberts, as do the Indians. However, the Indians may not want to move Jhonny Peralta to third if he continues to swing a hot bat in June or July.

The Rockies have much to offer the Orioles in a trade. They could easily pry Ian Stewart from the Rockies, as well as two or three other prospects. Chris Nelson is a shortstop down in Double-A who hit 19 homeruns last season. Brandon Hynick won sixteen games last season and has a solid changeup. Hector Gomez is also a shortstop, but he is still in Single-A and no one is sure if he can play second base just yet. The Rockies are known to build their team from the ground up, so I doubt they would make a trade. My money is on the Cubs, who remain willing to part with several pitchers, maybe even Rich Hill now that he is off to a slow start.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

where did you hear that the indians are interested in roberts? i havent heard anything like this. where did you get that information?

Eli said...

The Indians approached the Orioles this off season about the idea, but nothing really got serious.

Anonymous said...

Everybody approaches everybody about everybody during the off-season. The Indians trade chips will not be expended on Brian Roberts. They will be used for a corner outfielder or a legitimate third baseman or,even possibly, a closer although I consider the latter very unlikely (but more likely than Brian Roberts). I don't believe the Indians have any intention of moving Peralta to third, if they did he would have gotten playing time there in spring training. If Barfield continues to make progress and Cabrera shows he is for real Peralta will be traded in the next off-season.

Eli said...

I think you are wrong about everybody approaches everybody during the offseason. Maybe you were trying to make a point some way, but that is definitely not true.

Slice said...

I don't think brian roberts is going anywhere for now. I bet the orioles will make a move to trade him at the trade deadline. Orioles are having a good start so far,they shocked me.

Anonymous said...

My point is that an inquiry about a player that never went beyond an inquiry in the off-season is hardly an indication that a trade is about to happen. How many inquiries that came to naught happened in the off-season? More than you could even possibly be aware of. It is not a terribly logical move given the Tribe's current needs and that counts for way more than what two G.M.'s may or may not have discussed months ago. That is my point.

Eli said...

And you are aware of them? The Indians were looking to push Casey Blake into a reduced role and would move PEralta to third, cabrera to short, and then roberts at second. I think you are unaware of the process GMs take in negotiating trades and contracts. I'm not an expert, but I do know what is going on, to some extent. Teams do not call every team and say I am interested, let's talk. That just doesn't happen. And if word gets out that team is interested, it usually means that they have had more than one talk. If teams talk once, it usually does not get passed the GM.

Anonymous said...

As an O's fan, I should warn any team that is interested in Roberts to start negotiations now. The Orioles are painfully deliberate. It took them 2 years to trade Tejada to the Astros. THe Bedard negotiations started in Novemeber. The roberts to the cubs started in december and were never comsumated, despite the fact that macfail came from the cubs. mac fail was talking during one of the ST tv telecasts about how he wanted to psend more time scouting potential trade targets. This moron actually was in charge of drafting most of them!!!

Grimar said...

I thought the Indians wanted to bring Blake back for one more season at 3B with the intention to make Andy Marte their #1 3B next year?

KevinGillman said...

Mark Shapiro had gone on record saying he was involved in every trade discussion, minus the Johan Santana sweepstakes. I also read that it was possible the Indians were going to land Roberts. The truth is Peralta will either end up playing at 3rd base or traded because the Indians brass do not have any faith in Andy Marte being that 3rd baseman of the future that many had hoped. But it is still up to him to produce this year, because I believe with what Casey Blake is making, this will be his last year. No way is he worth more than the $6 million he is getting now. So it's still possible the Indians might swoop in to get Roberts at the trade deadline, but we'll see.