LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLA. (AP) - Halfway through the winter meetings, the highlight is a three-team trade that sent slugger Mark Trumbo to Arizona.
The Chicago White Sox acquired outfielder Adam Eaton from Arizona for left-hander Hector Santiago, and the Diamondbacks then sent Santiago and left-hander Tyler Skaggs to the Angels for Trumbo. Arizona also will receive a player to be named or cash from each of the other teams.
“It’s nice when you’re able to have three clubs up here all feeling good about things,” White Sox general manager Rick Hahn said after Tuesday’s deal.
Arizona GM Kevin Towers was interested in another of Hahn’s players: pitcher Chris Sale. But Chicago doesn’t appear interested in dealing the 24-year-old left-hander.
“We would have talked about Mr. Sale,” Towers said. “I imagine we might have been doing something directly. But I still can’t get him to budge there.”
Trumbo hit .234 with 34 home runs and 100 RBIs this year, playing first base in 123 games because Albert Pujols was hurt. Despite hitting 95 homers during the last three seasons, he was deemed superfluous by Los Angeles, which craved starting pitching behind Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson and Garrett Richards.
After finishing last in the AL Central with their worst record since 1970 at 63-99, the White Sox were looking to make changes, and Hahn is counting on Eaton to provide a spark.
“We lacked a little bit of energy and a little edge,” Hahn said. “This is a dirt-bag baseball player. This is a guy who has been described to me by someone at this table with words I can’t use.”
Eaton agreed with the description.
“I would like to think that I’m kind of a Lenny Dykstra, Kenny Lofton mix kind of a guy that’s going to be a scrappy, dirt-bag guy that’s going to get after it, day in, day out,” he said Wednesday. “Get on base at all costs, I don’t care if I get hit in the head, hit in the ankle.”
Oakland, the two-time defending AL West champion, sent left-hander Brett Anderson to Colorado for lefty Drew Pomeranz and minor league right-hander Chris Jensen. The A’s also included cash to cover part of Anderson’s salary as he is due $8 million next season.
“Peyton Manning and I are going to become best friends…fact,” Anderson tweeted, a reference to the Denver quarterback.
Oakland GM Billy Beane has made four trades in a nine-day span, also acquiring closer Jim Johnson from Baltimore, reliever Luke Gregerson from San Diego and outfielder Craig Gentry from Texas.
“We had a lot of starting pitching, and in the acquisition of Pomeranz, it allows us to turn back the clock a little with another very talented left-hander,” Beane said. “Brett’s been with us for several years, and someone obviously with that kind of talent we think very highly of, but with the amount of guys we have, we knew we could use that to get younger guys with less service time, and that was attractive.”
Some bigger names were being shopped, with Tampa Bay discussing offers for 2012 AL Cy Young Award winner David Price and the Los Angeles Dodgers listening to those interested in outfielder Matt Kemp.
Among free agents, Detroit closed in on an agreement with outfielder Rajai Davis for a two-year contract worth $9 million to $10 million, a person familiar with the negotiations said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because an agreement had not been completed.
It remained unclear whether Japanese star pitcher Masahiro Tanaka will be made available to Major League Baseball teams. Speaking in the lobby, Rakuten Eagles President Yozo Tachibana said no decision had been made.
“First of all, discuss it with him,” Tachibana said. “I don’t know if he wants to do it.”
The New York Yankees are among the teams interested in Tanaka, 24-0 in Japan’s regular season.
Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball have an agreement in principle on a new posting system. If ratified by both sides, there would be a $20 million cap on the fee going to Japanese clubs for players put on the posting market, and any MLB teams bidding the specified price would be able to compete to sign a player.
A day after finalizing a $60 million, four-year contract with the New York Mets, outfielder Curtis Granderson injected some playfully provocative words into New York’s baseball rivalry. A direct Bronx-to-Queens switch from the Yankees is rare.
“A lot of the people I’ve met in New York have always said true New Yorkers are Mets fans,” Granderson quipped. “So I’m excited to get a chance to see them all out there.”
First baseman-outfielder Garrett Jones and Miami finalized a $7.75 million, two-year contract, catcher J.P. Arencibia and Texas completed a $1.8 million, one-year deal, and right-hander Ryan Webb and Baltimore finished a $4.5 million, two-year agreement.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.