busy day at the rumor mill -- first miguel cabrera, and now this from mlbtraderumors:
With Pedro's status a question mark at this point, Omar Minaya would like to add a proven veteran starting pitcher to the middle of the rotation. The Mets' first preference is Jason Marquis (a New York native, for what it's worth). They've offered a package beginning with Victor Diaz to entice Walt Jocketty.
makes some sense from a st louis perspective. diaz is a young (24), inexpensive outfielder with some skills. strikes out a lot, yes, but he hit for power and showed some plate discipline last season after a pretty good minor-league career. he is already about as good a hitter as juan encarnacion but only costs $350K -- and at that price, a juan encarnacion clone is extremely valuable. and diaz is still only 24; plenty of room to grow. his comparables at baseball prospectus include some all-star-caliber hitters -- greg luzinski, dwight evans, tim wallach, jim rice . . . a likelier hope is that diaz attains the level of rondell white or jesse barfield, two of his other comparables.
the cardinals won today, 7-4 in 10 innings; duncan and daubach homered, and my man brad voyles got the win in relief. i'm telling you, keep an eye on that dude. . . .
Update [2006-3-8 18:1:58 by lboros]: here's the box score. junior spivey got his first hit of the spring, a single; he's now 1 for 16. didn't strike out today. carpenter threw 4 full innings. brad voyles apparently blew a save opportunity -- yielded the tying run(s), which was(were) charged to carmen cali.