Obama may not have been able to deliver Chicago the Olympics, but at least his hometown hosted the MLB Winter Meetings in his first year in office. Not much activity thus far, but here are some rumblings:
- Per a Buster Olney Tweet (via mlbtraderumors.com), the Reds are shopping Coco hard. Olney's heard from other teams that the Reds would love to move closer Francisco Cordero. Of course, closers are plentiful and Cordero is set to earn $25MM over the next two years. The 25M does not include the 12M team option for 2012. As Coco has a no-trade clause, it's very possible that he would ask that the receiving team pick that up in exchange for waiving the clause. With other relievers available on the free agent market, I think he will be tough to move.
- John Heyman also reports that the Reds are big sellers, and list Coco, Brandon Phillips, and Bronson Arroyo as bait (HT to RijoSaboCaseyWKRP - see his FanPost for a good writeup of the Reds' contractual obligations going forward). Heyman also mentions that Griffey will return to Seattle next year for 2M plus incentives.
- The Reds did just save a little money - maybe a million or so - when Micah Owings was found to have missed Super 2 status on a tiebreaker. He had the same amount of service time as the Cubs' Mike Fontenot and the Orioles' Adam Jones, but Fontenot was awarded Super 2 because he had more service time in the immediately preceding season (2009). Super 2 helps prevent teams from playing the service clock game by allowing 70% (ed: meant 17%) of players in their third year qualify for arbitration. They otherwise receive whatever the club dictates, which is usually close to the leage minimum.
- If you didn't see it, the NL Gold Gloves were announced yesterday. No Reds were named, meaning that Brandon Phillips lost his title (to Orlando Hudson). Chase Utley has a pretty good case for the 2B GG as well. The Silver Sluggers will be named tonight at 7 on the MLB Network.
- The Hardball Times has a writeup about the pitchers in the Arizona Fall League, including or own Mike Leake: Mike Leake is a man of many arm angles. It makes pitch classification a little bit complicated, which I suspect hitters will also attest to. There's also some PitchFX data posted that shows Leake's curve has a pretty good drop.