Baseball history is littered with in-season trades in which a prospect who was dealt for a coveted veteran ended up surpassing the established player.
In 1987, the Detroit Tigers were in a pennant race and traded a pitching prospect to the Atlanta Braves for Doyle Alexander. Alexander went 9-0 down the stretch for Detroit, and the prospect, John Smoltz, has won 174 games and saved 154 for Atlanta in the last 17 years.
In 2002, the Yankees and the Oakland Athletics were looking for pitching help, so they organized a seven-player trade involving the Tigers that netted the Yankees the established right-hander Jeff Weaver and the A's the young left-hander Ted Lilly. Less conspicuous in the deal was Jeremy Bonderman, who ended up on the Tigers and now appears to be the best pitcher of the three.
With the trade deadline once again approaching, the next several days will be full of transaction reports involving little-known players.
Two prospects who are expected to draw interest are Portland Sea Dogs shortstop Hanley Ramirez and Bowie Baysox pitcher Hayden Penn.
Ramirez, the top prospect in the Red Sox organization, is a five-tool player Baseball America described as "the best athlete in the system with the potential to excel in all aspects of the game." The 21-year-old Ramirez is hitting .271 this season with 18 stolen bases.
The only issue is that he is currently blocked by Edgar Renteria, a former All-Star player who signed a four-year contract with the Red Sox this winter. Boston may be open to trading Ramirez for pitching help, but it is more likely that the organization would move him to the outfield to put his bat in their lineup.
Penn, 20, has been the subject of trade rumors all season and after a brief call-up to the Baltimore Orioles, he is back with the Double-A Baysox. His minor league record of 3-4 and his earned run average of 4.28 this year may not be impressive, but Baseball America says Penn "pitches above his age and experience, working inside, pitching to weak contact and showing a knack for reading hitters' weaknesses."
Struggling a bit after a fast start, the Orioles are still very much in the American League East and the wild-card races. They may be one veteran pitcher away from the postseason. Offering Penn for a shot at the Florida Marlins' A.J. Burnett or another strong starter may make sense to a team that has not been to the playoffs since 1997.
When the Tampa Bay Devil Rays promoted outfielder Delmon Young to Triple-A Durham from Double-A Montgomery last week, the only surprise was that he was not shipped straight to the majors. Last year's top draft pick, Young scorched the Southern League, hitting .336 with 20 home runs, 71 runs batted in and 25 stolen bases in 84 games. In Triple A, he was hitting .308 after collecting two hits Wednesday.
CLEMENS' SON TURNS PRO
Roger Clemens went the college route, playing for the University of Texas before heading to professional baseball. But his son Koby decided to head straight to the Houston Astros' system.
A third baseman who batted .523 as a senior at Memorial High School in Houston, Koby Clemens signed with the team after being drafted in the eighth round. He was assigned to the rookie-league Greeneville Astros.
VICTORY UNDERCUTS PROMOTION
The Double-A Mobile BayBears came up with a new way to draw fans while the team was struggling through an eight-game losing streak.
The team's Guaranteed Win promotion, which is a regular Monday event, was extended until the streak was snapped. Any fan who attended a game in which the BayBears lost could use the ticket for the next night's game. The team won Tuesday and the promotion ended promptly.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier