Olney Writes About the Pitching Trade Market
Buster Olney of espn.com gave us updates today about the various pitchers that are available and the teams going after them in his latest post.
The most obvious player is the Phillies who were looking for pitching at the start of the month when Chan Ho Park and Jaime Moyer were not pitching well. Now that Brett Myers needs hip surgery (is this anecdotal, or are we seeing more hip surgeries recently? Chase Utley, Mike Lowell, A-Rod and now Myers...) the Phillies border on desperate.
Pedro Martinez doesn't seem to make much sense for Citizens Bank Ballpark and he'd like tax an already overworked bullpen with five and six inning starts. Jake Peavy and Roy Oswalt are options, but both the Padres and Astros are expected to ask for significant compensation something the Phillies might not be able to afford. Erik Bedard is another option, but the Mariners gave us so much (Adam Jones and Chris Tillman) they may try to ask for something similar in return which might not be worth it.
That leaves the most logical option and the one that has been frequently mentioned already: Brad Penny of the Red Sox. Boston is a good match for the Phillies because they're rumored to be interested in shortstop Jason Donald. The Red Sox have been rumored to be interested in Jack Wilson as well becuase of the difficulty they've had at shortstop this year, but Donald may be more appealing.
