Noah Lowry To Become A Free AgentBy Mike Axisa [October 30 at 5:44pm CST]According to Henry Schulman of The SF Chronicle, Giants lefthander Noah Lowry will become a free agent today after he is removed from the 40-man roster. Schulman said Lowry's agent was informed of the move today, who added that he is "completely healthy throwing three days a week on his normal offseason program without any restrictions."
Lowry hasn't appeared in a game since August of 2007 due to an arm injury, and Lowry's camp believes the Giants misdiagnosed and mistreated the injury. The 29-year-old was in the final year of his four-year, $9.25MM in 2009, and still has one more year of arbitration eligibility ahead of him.
lefty starting pitcher, coming off an injury, at one time he was effective...sounds like a match for our REDS
Why not? From the way the news is trickling out of the FO, we are going to be running a homeless shelter this year anyway. One more stray mutt can't hurt. Gonna be a lot of clubs competing for the strays this year. Can't believe we might get into a bidding war for the rehab projects, but that may be what it all comes down to this year.
OK, its cold and rainy and I'm cranky. :)
pog
pog~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your excused Pog, because this is re-run of the last few years for Cincinnati Reds baseball and it is getting tiresome to watch it over and over. Cast offs, over the hill veterans, minor league free agents, lifetime minor leaguers, it goes on and on every year.
Actually I was sort of joking. I haven't a problem one giving Lowry a shot. At one time he had #3 or maybe even #2 potential and ran into some health misdiagnoses problems with the Giants. <alleged> He had some surgery that may not have been necessary and which certainly didn't fix his problems. He has had the right surgery now, he says, and is back to throwing full strength. The Giants let him go because their relationship with him is as toxic as it can be and they have other options.
We have job openings at the #5 and #4 and long relief. A Noah Lowry on the comeback warpath would be a huge addition to the Reds and, after all, we supposedly signed a pitching coach who is the answer to Dave Duncan. <Yeah, I know, I made that up>
Trouble is, this is not exactly secret agent intelligence, and there are a number of teams with the same financial troubles who are probably going to compete for Lowry.
Maybe nobody will sign him to that 2-3 million dollar deal, but an incentivized minor league deal with performance bonuses if he makes the big club would certainly not be out of the question from my POV.
I also don't have the same data that the GM's have so I could just be blowing smoke here. He might just be a dead write-off.
sorry about the weather for you...I just was out in that same type forecast for the past 3 hrs. at my sons playoff football game...at least it let up towards the end....
I was serious about them acquiring Lowry...this guy is still young & has good stuff...plus he shouldn't break their bank in cost & the Reds need another SP since Volquez is out, Harang is a ?? & that 5th spot in my eyes is still available...I do think Bailey will be in the rotation at the start of next season...I think he finally gets it...
howabout for 2010: Harang, Arroyo, Cueto, Bailey & Lowry (not in that order of course)
other options to fill the void in my opinion is Mark Mulder or Brett Myers...sorry to all those Maloney, Owings & Lehr fans but I think they need to bring in some outside help on this one...hey I caved with Janish at SS...his glove is that good to offset his poor Offense...
And I agree with you about Lowry. He is worth a shot, IMO. I just think a lot of other folks may agree with both of us and that may lead to a bidding war. We don't do well in bidding wars as I recall.
I was thinking of the bidding wars where we bid against ourselves, Cory Patterson, Willie T. I can probably come up with a few others if I thought real hard.
The more I looked at Lowry's baseball card the more I realized that somebody is going to roll the dice on this guy. I bet he gets a ML contract for at least a couple of mill.
He looks like a good candidate for the Cardinals. Pinero, Wellemeyer, and Smoltz are all FA.
Of course, there are a ton of Type B FA that will probably go fairly quick like Harden, Duchscherer, Bedard, and Marquis. I could see Lowry hanging around for a while, but seeing that he's a LHP he's not gonna be sitting at home when ST starts.
He's definitely a project though. Hasn't had better than a 2:1 K/BB ratio for a while now.
<<Hasn't had better than a 2:1 K/BB ratio for a while now>>
His story is that his wildness was caused by the numbness in his left arm and that the Giants blew the diagnosis and caused him to have uneeded surgery. I guess I can buy that. The Giants seem to have a lot of player/FO conflicts.
I think he may go faster than you would normally see. As bad as the gate has been this year for a lot of teams, guys like Lowry are probably going to look pretty attractive to GM's looking to save a dime here and there.
Your right about the Cardinals. They aren't going to have a whole lot of payroll flexibility if they really want to resign Holliday and extend Albert. Must be nice to have those sort of problems.
<<resign Bruce & Votto or Volquez & Cueto...>>
Nope, don't think so. I think we will sign these players to one extended contract some time during their arbitration eligibility. Then they will probably walk for the big bucks if they are still decent players. Reds days of competing for mega buck FA are long gone, IMO.
In retrospect, as much as I thought of Jr, his contract held us back for many years. I don't see us ever comitting to that sort of commitment again in my lifetime.
That's the kind of problem I have with trading for someone like HanRam. Not only can we not afford the prospects it would take to pry him from the Marlins, it would also prevent us from possibly extending the contracts of our core of untouchables. Not that HanRam wouldn't pay for himself, he'll put plenty of butts in the seats. But Pog is right, the days of outbidding other teams is long gone.
The key will be developing homegrown talent and paying them a reasonable salary to keep them while they're in their prime. Not do like the Pirates and trade them off before they come to full maturity because they're about to get very expensive.
Last thing I read about Pujol's contract talks, he's pretty much shelved that idea now that TLR & DD have agreed to stay. I think he's more concerned about the Cards re-signing Holliday. If I read that correctly, that carries as much weight as any potential extension.
You're right, must be a nice problem to have.
You got it right.
From Albert:
<<“And what I told those people (in the D.R.) was ‘Listen, why do people keep talking about my contract? I have two years (left) and we don’t have to worry about it.’ You know the Cardinals need to worry about signing Matt Holliday and all the free agents. There’s no rush for me to sign right now, you know? But if they come tomorrow and say ‘Albert, you know, we want to lock you up,’ — hey they know that we’re open to that.
“But I think part of that was (me) putting things in their place and the Cardinals don’t have to rush to sign me right now because we still have two years. But I’d love to finish my career here. And all that got all confused, or whatever, maybe because of the way that I said it. But people know that I want to be a Cardinal for the rest of my life. I’ve said it in the past.”>>
Not sure the Cardinals are real happy with that decision because I think they want to nail Albert into a long term contract that lets them defer some costs into the future. OTOH, no way they will let this disagreement hurt their future connections with Albert. It just throws a monkey wrench into their planning for spending over the next 2 years and makes their negotiating strategy with Boras over Holliday that much tougher.
