Rumor: Cardinals and Tigers Strike Deal?
UPDATE: It looks like the Cardinals have finally acquired Maroth.
Detroit radio is reporting that a deal between the two World Series teams is imminent The deal that is being reported would send Mike Maroth and Marcus Thames to the Cardinals in exchange for Juan Encarnacion and Braden Looper.
This rumor makes quite a bit of sense as both Maroth and Encarnacion have been rumored to be on their way out from their respective teams. Maroth, who went 5-2 with a 4.19 ERA as a starter for the Tigers would give the Cardinals the left handed starter they've not had since Mark Mulder went on the DL. He'd also be the cheap, inning eating pitcher the Cardinals have gravitated to in recent years.
Looper went 9-3 for the Cardinals, with an ERA of 3.56 in 69 relief appearances and would bolster the Tigers' fairly deep bullpen. The swap of Thames and Encarnacion would likely not greatly affect either club as the players are so similar. Thames hit .256 with 26 home runs and 60 runs driven in while Encarnacion batted .278 with 19 HR and 79 RBI. Encarnacion performed slightly better than Thames but has reportedly feuded with Cardinal management over playing time during the playoffs.
As always, I'll keep you updated as the situation unfolds and provide links as they become available.
Cardinal Fans: Be sure to check out our new feature called "Wouldya" asking if you'd trade Rolen for Arod.
Iminent means about to happen. None of the players mentioned are important enough to be eminent.
Magglio Ordonez for Chris Carpenter would be an eminent trade.
Kellia
Life, Baseball & Eric Byrnes
http://byrnesblog.mlblogs.com
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Hey rumor guy, where did you hear this rumor? It makes sense, and I'd be sorta excited about Marcus Thames (not so excited about Mark Maroth, but the salary freed up here would be great for the Cards to make a bigger move to follow..do you know what station reported this?
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Which Detroit radio? I work in sports radio locally and have no knowledge at all of such a deal.
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Sorry for the typo. Imminent is actually what I meant. (Kellia, it has two m's) ;)
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Rumor,
If this deal does come to pass, it's an excellent deal for the Cardinals and a sad day for the Astros--no more "Loopy" Looper to give up the lead :(
Seriously, if this is real, it's a very smart deal for Jocketty and the Cardinals.
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Rita, I don't really see why Detroit would do it though. I guess they might be higher on Encarnacion than I think they are but to me it would seem to be taking on a lot of extra salary for not that much of an upgrade.
kulpapabel, I'm checking on the name of the station now. I'll let you know. I has also since made its way through some of the forums etc (both for the Tigers and the Cardinals) so I'd imagine there's something to it, although like I said, the money doesn't quite make sense to me.
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I agree that it doesn't make sense. The Tigers were so eager to get rid of Encarnacion when they had him to start with. Plus, Maroth is a quality pitcher.
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Rumor, it could've made its way to the message boards because of you reporting it--Many people who frequent the team message boards also check out MLBlogs.
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Yeah, Looper's no pushover himself, but unless there is some money involved as well I don't know if this one will "get done".
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if you don't mind me asking, what boards did you come across this?
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Kulpa, I believe the rumor was mentioned on WRJ 760? Not 100% on that but Maroth to the Card was for sure discussed a couple of times. Hey, that's why this is a rumor right?
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Am I the only Cards fan horrified by this trade? Sure, we could use the salary freed up, but Jesus Christ. Thames is 29 years old and batted *******' .250 while Maroth is approaching 30 years old and has never dipped below 4.00 in his career--not to mention he's injury proned. If we are going to have mediocrity fill up our rotation, why not re-sign Mulder? At least he has potential.
Beyond that, losing Looper leaves yet another hole in our bullpen--meaning Wainwright will NOT be a starter, something I dread the thought of. I'd rather trade Pujols for Bonds than keep Wainwright as a one inning man.
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I don't think there is anything to this. If 1130 AM or 1270 AM did not pick up on it (and they did not), then it probably didn't run on 760. Though that's not a psorts station, it's close and prominant enough that we'd would at least look into it.
BTW, Zoop. Maroth is not injury prone. This was his first. And it's not at all likely that the Tigers would swap a lefty starter for a righty pen guy, with both outfielders being pretty much limited at best.
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Then neither is Mulder, and thus we should just re-sign him in the first place.
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Zoop, injury prone, and a risk due to injury are two different things. J.D. Drew is injury prone, someone like Mulder or Lariano would be a risky signing due to their uncertain status coming back off of injury. (Yes, I realize Lariano isnt a free agent etc, he's just an example).
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I doubt it will happen.
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