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It’s a buyers’ market as baseball trade deadline approaches

5 min read

NEW YORK (AP) – John Schuerholz knows how to read a market. “There are more of us trying to elbow each other out of the way to get what we want,” the Atlanta Braves general manager said this week. “You’re shopping at the same store and looking in the same window a lot of times. There’s not a lot of what everybody’s looking for.”

As the 4 p.m. Sunday deadline approaches to make trades without passing players through waivers, the buyers were waiting for the sellers’ asking prices to come down – though one trade was completed Friday and another was awaiting approval from the commissioner’s office.

Colorado sent outfielder Eric Byrnes to Baltimore for outfielder Larry Bigbie. Texas planned to trade pitcher Chan Ho Park to San Diego for slugger Phil Nevin, a deal that required an OK from the commissioner’s office because it involves the Rangers sending cash to the Padres.

Pitchers A.J. Burnett and Sidney Ponson were among those who also could move. Boston said it will investigate dealing unhappy outfielder Manny Ramirez, although the World Series champions doubted there would be much interest, not with $64 million and change owed to him through 2008, the final guaranteed year of his contract. Second baseman Alfonso Soriano; first baseman Kevin Millar; third baseman Mike Lowell; outfielders Mike Cameron and Randy Winn; and relievers Danys Baez and Jose Mesa are among other players linked to trade talk.

“I’m sure it’s going to go on ’til the last day,” Burnett said after leading Florida over San Francisco last weekend. “I was ready for that to get over the second day I heard about it. Hopefully, I will stick around and see this team win.”

Heading into the weekend of the trade deadline, about 20 of the 30 teams still had somewhat of a chance of reaching postseason play.

“It’s a tougher market – less choices, or less quality choices, less willing participants,” New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said. “Definitely more than half the clubs legitimately have a chance to compete for a playoff spot, and in the past it was you were buyers or sellers. Now most teams are trying to buy, and you have to give to get. Everybody’s paralyzed a little bit to try to find the perfect deal where those perfect deals aren’t really there.”

In the final hour before the deadline last July 31, Nomar Garciaparra, Steve Finley, Esteban Loaiza and Orlando Cabrera all switched teams. So did Dave Roberts, who made the key steal that propelled the Red Sox to their historic comeback against the Yankees in the AL championship series and their first World Series title since 1918. Boston also got first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, who caught the ball for the final out and took it with him.

Teams then retooled during the offseason, the Red Sox included, but only a handful were successful, judging by their records during the first four months of the season. Only the Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals can be given grades of A for their offseason work.

Chicago added outfielders Scott Podsednik and Jermaine Dye, catcher A.J. Pierzynski and closer Dustin Hermanson and have gotten wins from pitcher Orlando Hernandez when he hasn’t been sidelined. Magglio Ordonez, let go by the White Sox, spent most of the time on Detroit’s disabled list.

St. Louis brought in pitcher Mark Mulder, shortstop David Eckstein and second baseman Mark Grudzielanek.

The Red Sox and Yankees, baseball’s most talked-about teams, are somewhere between C-minus and incomplete, saddled by two of the poorer pitching staffs. Boston’s bullpen is a mess, with Keith Foulke on the disabled list and Curt Schilling filling in as closer after missing most of the first half with a bad ankle.

New York’s rotation has been a conveyor belt to medical clinics. Shawn Chacon, acquired Thursday from Colorado, is set to become the Yankees’ 13th starter of the season Saturday. None of the three starters they brought in has been entirely successful: Randy Johnson has struggled to dominate, and Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright are on the disabled list trying to come back from sore shoulders.

Now they have to fix their problems along with more than a dozen other teams.

“I think it’s a year you have to be pragmatic about what the deadline means,” said San Francisco general manager Brian Sabean, whose team entered the weekend 44-57 and still had little idea when Barry Bonds might come back from knee surgery.

“I think there is more gamesmanship because there are more teams involved,” Sabean said. “There’s huge demand, but the relative supply and quality of players aren’t there. So everybody’s jockeying for the best deal and waiting for the right time to act.”

Deal prospects in order to win now? That’s the decision some GMs face.

After the New York Mets traded young left-hander Scott Kazmir to Tampa Bay ahead of last year’s deadline, fans complained. The team wound up switching GMs, bringing in Omar Minaya.

“Is it fool’s gold until you’re closer to .500?” Sabean said.

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