Once again not a huge “stop the presses” (or actually stop the blogs) day for baseball news but still some interesting news.
The Braves offer Johnny Damon a contract. Not sure for how much but it’s certainly not for longer than a year. The Braves have a dynamite prospect, Jason Heyward coming up. Heyward is only 20 and has barely played above Class A. Still at 6’4” he has monster power potential and could give the Braves a bit of added pop their lineup needs. Damon certainly will not hit 24 homeruns without playing at Yankee stadium, but he will add some pop and some spark. Damon can keep right field warm until Heyward is ready. (Just what the Mets need, another team in the East getting better.)
Speaking of the Mets, ex-Met, Carlos Delgado is thinking about retiring. Apparently his hip injury is still scaring some teams away from him. If this is truly it for Delgado he ends his 17 year career with 473 Homeruns, 1512 RBI and a lifetime .280 average. He was also in the top 10 for MVP voting four times. Probably not enough to get him into the Hall of Fame, but still a very stellar career.
Ex Yankee Chien-Ming Wang is close to signing with a team. Right now the Nationals are the leading candidate but the Mets and Dodgers are still hanging around. Wang is a huge question mark with a great upside. Starting in 2005, in his first three seasons with the Yankees Wang was 8-5, 19-6 and 19-7. In the two 19 win seasons his ERA was under 3.75. In 2008 he was 8 and 2 before he got hurt. Returning in 2009 he was a totally different pitcher going 1-6 with an 9.64 ERA before the Yanks shut him down with another injury. I don’t think he could have gotten ME out, that’s how poor he was. He had shoulder surgery on July 30th. Wang will start throwing again in May. If he comes back to near the form he was in before 2009 he could be a big pay back for a team willing to invest a bit in risk. Since Wang is still only 29 years old it’s a risk I would take, of course I’m not the one spending the money.
