With Ian Stewart's signing yesterday, the Rockies have now wrapped up any salary negotiations for their current players for the upcoming year. All that remains in that department is assigning salaries to our full team control players, who will be signed to split contracts and set to make scale+. The arbitration process is the final pre-Spring step before any MLB team prepares to dig into the dirt in Spring Training. Home stretch for the offseason.
What's left between now as Pitchers + Catchers report?
1. Addressing the Michael Young situation.
The suggestion of ties regarding Young continue to hang around, despite news to the contrary, including this Troy Renck article. Anthony Andro tweets the following Nolan Ryan quote:
"I expect Michael Young to be with us on Opening Day and be our DH."
This piece by Richard Durrett of ESPNDallas.com quotes manager Ron Washington also believing Young to be the opening day DH for the Rangers.
Both salary and depth remain issues in front of such a move. I doubt anything materializes here, but if the Rockies are even considering such an action, they should be in the final stages of making a decision by now.
2. The Fate of Samuel Deduno
Deduno, designated for assignment earlier this week, will have his fate decided between today and February 2nd. AAA level pitching depth remains competitive for both the rotation and relief. The Rockies ran into a situation where no major players without an easy roster spot on the team ran out of option years, so few MLB level moves may be necessary for another month until the 25 Man Roster crunch begins, but there will be many names amongst the released this Spring from the minors system.
Speaking of bullpen competition, we've known for some time that Joe Beimel was not on the Rockies radar, but Troy Renck confirmed via Twitter that Beimel will be signing with the Pirates today or sometimes soon after. Another Rockie crawls to Hurdle, though Beimel's tenure with Colorado never overlapped with Clint's.
Deduno will be either claimed, traded or outrighted over the next week. Even if Deduno remains in the organization, he is likely to be permanently transferred to the bullpen, or see attempts made to trade him again.
3. NRI announcements.
Any day now.
Even I, the crazy one who enjoys offseason business, am looking forward to a change in practice. Priorities change as soon as these matters are taken care of.
A few links below:
Steve Foster of Inside the Rockies continues his offseason review series with a profile of third base.
Joe Beimel wasn't the only 2010 organizational lefty headed to the East Coast. Ken Rosenthal tweeted yesterday that the Orioles have signed Nick Bierbrodt, a left handed reliever who spent 2010 with the Sky Sox, though never as a serious depth option. He was placed on the temporarily inactive list for most of the final third of the season.
Fangraphs addresses internet anonymity when it comes to sports journalism. A decent read, and relevant to sports blogging.