Pinstripes and Texas nights don't appear to be in Zack Greinke's future. The New York Yankees and Texas Rangers may see the (from all indications) soon-to-be-former Royals pitcher as a consolation prize if they don't get free agent Cliff Lee, but Kansas City may not be willing to wait for either of them to try to fill their Lee-sized hole.
ESPN reported Monday that New York and Texas rank low on KC general manager Dayton Moore's list of trading partners. "The reason: Neither team has enough of the commodity that Moore is seeking in trade," ESPN's Jerry Crasnick wrote.
"The Royals have a wealth of pitching talent in the minor leagues, a hot first base prospect in Eric Hosmer, an elite young third baseman in Mike Moustakas and a hard-hitting catcher, Wil Myers, who is probably going to have to shift to the outfield in the majors. As a result, sources say, Moore has focused on adding up-the-middle position players who are close to major league ready. And neither the Yankees nor the Rangers provide the best match for Kansas City."
Moore's focus on "up-the-middle position players" is a mistake, according to Royals Review.
So if not the Yanks and Rangers, then who?
ESPN pegs the oft-mentioned Toronto Blue Jays and the Washington Nationals with dark horse contenders the Milwaukee Brewers and Cincinnati Reds.
The Jays have a number of young players that are being mentioned -- all of whom I couldn't pick out of a police lineup. However, there is this nugget from ESPN about a deal that the Jays refused to do: 22-year-old outfielder Travis Snider and pitcher Kyle Drabek for Greinke.
ESPN also lists the outline of the type of deal Moore wants to make:
That seems like an awful lot to expect for Greinke, even with an American League Cy Young award. Whatever the deal is, I can't wait for it to get done so we can move beyond the rumors. What keeps becoming more and more clear is that Greinke has pitched his last game for the Royals.Baseball sources have said that Moore is seeking a trade similar in composition to the 2007 deal that brought Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Matt Harrison and Beau Jones from the Atlanta Braves to the Texas Rangers in exchange for Mark Teixeira. In addition to major league ready prospects, sources said Moore is also seeking one or two high-ceiling players with longer-time horizons. Andrus and Feliz, who fit that description in the Teixeira deal, have both developed into young stars with the Rangers.
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