Crown Gems: AL Central Winter Meeting News

It’s just about noon on day number three of the Winter Meetings in Indianapolis.  I have done my best to collect all the AL Central related news, rumor, and action from the last day and have included it below.

The Cleveland Indians have hired former Royal Jon Nunnally as their hitting coach.  This means that both their hitting and pitching (Tim Belcher) coaches spent part of their careers as members of the Kansas City Royals.  Is the fact that they are former Royals significant?  Not really, but it made me chuckle a little.

Cleveland has interest in bringing back 2B Jamey Carroll, but they have competition for his services.

The Minnesota Twins are known to have interest in Pedro Feliz and Mark DeRosa to fill their hole at 3B.  Yesterday the news also broke that they were willing to trade Glen Perkins to the Padres for Kevin Kouzmanoff.  Adrian Beltre is another 3B option that was on the team’s radar last offseason.  Juan Uribe rounds out the list of the team’s current targets at the position.  Cost is always a factor, but if I’m the Twins, Beltre is the guy I’d want.  It seems like the Twins might have more interest in DeRosa as the team met with his agent yesterday.

Moving away form the hot corner, the Twins have also expressed interest in OF-Robb Quinlan.   He doesn’t have a position, he can’t play defense, and can’t really hit.  Maybe Dayton Moore and not the Twins should be pursuing him.

The Twins also cut ties with Boof Bonser to make room on their 40-man roster for Carl Pavano, who accepted the team’s arbitration offer on Monday.

The Chicago White Sox signed Mark Teahen to a 3 year $14 million contract yesterday, and then turned their attention to reliever J.J. Putz.  They are also in the hunt to acquire Hideki Matsui and possibly Coco Crisp.

One player who has long been rumored to be on his way out is closer Bobby Jenks, and according to Buster Olney the team is still looking to move him.

The Detroit Tigers made a move you may have heard about, as they sent Curtis Granderson to the Yankees in three team trade that also involved the Arizona Diamondbacks.  The almost universal reaction is that Arizona is clueless, and I agree.  However I think the Tigers made out like bandits in this deal.  I like Granderson a lot, but the Yankees “love fest” over his acquisition is a little over the top.  From the FanSided.com family, Motor City Bengals, Yanks Go Yard, Venom Strikes, Rayhawk Review, and Sodo Mojo all published some reactions to the deal.

With Granderson and Edwin Jackson moved elsewhere, the team is now looking to move reliever Bobby Seay.  They added some nice bullpen arms in Schlereth and Coke, but Fernando Rodney and Brandon Lyon declined arbitration on Monday and will likely wind up elsewhere.

I’m really puzzled by this bit of news, but Detroit also has interest in OF-Juan Pierre.

Then we have our Kansas City Royals who continue to do nothing but have made a run at Felix Pie of the Orioles.  You might recall that I tabbed Pie as my personal #1 CF target for the team back at the beginning of the offseason.  I would be elated if the team landed him, but the Orioles are looking for a run producing corner infield bat in return.  I know very few Royals faithful would agree with me, but I’d seriously consider parting ways with Alex Gordon to get Pie.  I think Gordon has some excellent baseball ahead of him, but like Jeremy Affeldt, I think he needs to leave Kansas City to reach his potential.

Of course the Royals also continue to pursue players I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.  The team “joined in the hunt” for the services of Mark Mulder.  Memo to Dayton Moore; there is a difference between low risk, high reward players and low risk, no reward players like Mulder.

Yesterday they Braves designated OF Ryan Church for assignment.  He hit 0.273/.338/.384 last season and could have some value to a team like Kansas City.  I’m not sure he is worth the money he will earn through arbitration this winter, but the Royals should definitely be kicking the tires on him.  He would have been 4th on the team last year in OBP and he is an above average fielder in LF or RF using UZR/150 and a guideline.  FanGraphs just posted something about Church today that is worth reading.

The Rule 5 draft is tomorrow, so if the Royals don’t make an actual move beforehand, we should at least have a selection to discuss after that.

(Wally Fish is Kings of Kauffman’s lead blogger.  Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)