Andy Sonnanstine To Be Traded?
Andy Sonnanstine, Cliff Lee, Scott Kazmir, Wade Davis July 27th. 2009, 8:00am
Gordon Edes of Yahoo! Sports chimes in on the Rays efforts to both move Scott Kazmir and land Cliff Lee. This time, the third team is the Rangers. This is not particularly surprising, but Edes adds that Andy Sonnanstine may have pitched his last game with the Rays.
The Rays also almost certainly will move Andy Sonnanstine, perhaps to a team looking for bullpen help.
So far, we have felt that the most likely scenario for the Rays was trading Kazmir and promoting Sonnanstine to take his place. But “almost certainly” trading The Duke would kill that notion.
So what happens if the Rays trade Kazmir and Sonnanstine, and fail to land Lee in return? Are the Rays ready to promote Wade Davis to the rotation? Not likely. So it would seem that the only way both Kaz and Sonny are traded is if the Rays know for certain a starting pitcher is coming back in one of those deals or another.
Trade chatter intensifies [Yahoo! Sports]
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I sorta suspected this might be coming eventually. Here you have a guy who won 14 games in the majors last year, not part of the team’s current plans, still young enough that he’s salvageable, and (maybe most important) a guy who throws strikes. This year’s struggles aside, this is a player who has some value. When he pitches to his strengths, we all know what he’s capable of: 6-7 innings of 2 or 3 run ball, with the occasional 3 hit shutout thrown in for good measure.
I’m skeptical that Lee/Martinez will be coming this way though, so now I have to wonder who, if anyone, is the target. This Yankees series might be the tipping point for what happens at the trade deadline. Take the series and you’ve picked up either 1 or 3 games on the Yankees and the glimmer is still there. Lose the series and you’re either 7.5 or 9.5 games out of first and you have to start thinking in terms of salary and next year.
13 wins, pardon me. I mixed my Nukes up with my Dukes.
I think the bullpen would be his only option with the Rays now. Sonny might be a decent #4-5 starter in the NL since he can hit there. Not sure why a team will trade for Sonny to put him in the bullpen right away since he had never pitched as a reliever.