General Managers Meetings Day 3: Live Blog

Oct 27, 2013; St. Louis, MO, USA; MLB commissioner Bud Selig attends a press conference to present the 2013 Hank Aaron Award prior to game four of the MLB baseball World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Rob Grabowski-USA TODAY SportsPlease, please tell me that the biggest move coming out of the annual Major League Baseball General Managers Meetings will not be the overpay the Philadelphia Phillies committed to when they engaged a return of Marlon Byrd. We need more juice than, well, Byrd.

So far, either teams or players have been reluctant to make any moves, signings or otherwise. Maybe the players are trying to make sure they aren’t leaving any money on the table. Maybe the teams are tepid to see how inflated this market really is. Regardless, something needs to happen quick, if for no other reason than to justify the meetings in the first place.

Well, at least we know that we have the Cy Young award announcement to look forward to on Wednesday. What other goodies could possibly go down?

11:55am: Not sure how much I read into this, considering the source (Eskin was the one pounding out the Bautista rumors earlier), but it is something to consider. According to the following tweet, the Blue Jays have a two-year offer on the table for free agent catcher Carlos Ruiz.

There are no terms discussed here, and there is also no back-up whatsoever, but it isn’t so off the wall to think that the Blue Jays would be involved with the Ruiz bidding. I doubt that Toronto is the team the purported 2-year, $20 million offer floated out there though.

Ruiz is generating a lot of buzz on the market this week. He has huge upside defensively for the Blue Jays and teams are also banking on the fact that he can improve on his .268/.320/.368 slashline from a year ago.

11:18am: Interesting note out of St. Louis. The Cardinals apparently were approached with a trade offer from the Baltimore Orioles, centering around shortstop J.J. Hardy and right-hander Shelby Miller, according to Jon Heyman at CBS Sports. The talks never had any traction and the two sides weren’t able to come to an agreement on a trade.

However, it does bring into light the availability of some of the Cardinals young pitching. Miller was a forgotten man during the postseason, as the attention turned to some of the team’s other young arms, particularly fellow rookie Michael Wacha. Still, the 23-year-old Miller went 15-9 with a 3.06 ERA, 8.8 K/9 ratio, and was worth 3.4 wins above replacement according to Baseball-Reference. He didn’t make an appearance during the postseason, although there was no injury noted for this decision.

If he becomes available, the Blue Jays would certainly be interested.

10:15am: Possibly my favorite reaction to the wildly rumored trade of Jose Bautista for Domonic Brown.

8:48am: One interesting note that came out last night (and I’m not talking about the Jose Bautista for Domonic Brown rumors, we’ll get to that elsewhere) is the Minnesota Twins pursuit of Bronson Arroyo. According to Mike Berardino of the Pioner Press, the Twins are actively engaged with the 36-year-old right-hander to the point of discussing contract language and inspecting medical records.

There was some early discussion this fall about the Blue Jays possibly being interested in Arroyo, but a match-up with Minnesota would be much more ideal, for both the pitcher and the team. Arroyo is coming off a season where he won 14 games, posted a 3.79 ERA, and was worth 2.5 wins above replacement according to Baseball-Reference.