ORLANDO – The Mitchell Report hovers over this offseason. Obviously, there is wide concern about what damage will be done to the sport by a document expected to further reveal the extent of steroid abuse in the majors. But there also is somewhat of a chill being applied to the business of baseball due to the report.
Many teams are proceeding cautiously on obtaining players this offseason in fear that the player they give millions to today will be degraded in the near future should they be named in Mitchell’s findings.
“I think some teams will just go ahead with business and, probably, if one big signing occurs, the competitive juices will flow and that will remove a lot of the inhibitions,” an NL executive said yesterday at the GM Meetings. “But I think every team would be foolish not to seriously consider what could be coming in the next few weeks.”
An AL executive said, “I don’t think these players will be suspended, but isn’t it going to be unfair to any acquiring team that (steroid) usage done in the past for another team is going to hurt his new team?”
Mets GM Omar Minaya indicated his business this offseason will not be slowed by the lurking Mitchell Report. A Yankee official said it was something to think about, but would not go further.
The Mitchell Report is now not due until December, probably not until after the Winter Meetings. Traditionally, a strong majority of significant offseason business is transacted by the time the Winter Meetings conclude. Through his spokesman, John Clark, Mitchell had no comment on the timing of the report.
An executive from another NL team raised another persistent concern about this report: Mitchell’s conflict of interest. Mitchell is listed as the director of the Red Sox, and the NL official said, “What if Boston is about to sign a player, Mitchell learns about it and the player is in the report? Are we supposed to believe that with a financial stake in the team, he is not going to warn the Red Sox?”
To this concern, Clark responded in an e-mail, “Any allegation or suggestion that Senator Mitchell has shared, or would share, any information from this investigation with anyone from the Boston Red Sox is completely and totally false. As Larry Lucchino, chief executive officer and president of the Boston Red Sox, said publicly last week in response to a question about Senator Mitchell: ‘He has been completely removed from Red Sox activities and operations during the course of this investigation and he will be until the end of the investigation.’ The Red Sox will find out what is in the report at the same time as all other clubs and the general public, not one minute earlier.”
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The Rockies anticipate they may lose catcher Yorvit Torrealba and their top target to replace him is Met free agent Ramon Castro. Colorado imagines Castro’s power being even more overt playing home games in Coors Field rather than Shea Stadium. The Rockies also have strong interest in free agents Paul Lo Duca and Jose Molina as replacements for Torrealba.
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By tomorrow’s deadline, the Indians are expected to pick up the options on closer Joe Borowski ($4 million), set-up man Aaron Fultz ($1.5 million) and, yes, Paul Byrd ($8 million). There were questions if they would stick with Byrd after a report came out during the ALCS that the righty had purchased HGH and Byrd confirmed using it, but under a doctor’s supervision. Initially, major league baseball and the Indians distanced themselves from any corroboration of what, Byrd says, was their knowledge that he was taking HGH under a doctor’s prescription to deal with a tumor on his pituitary gland. But there are now some signs that Byrd was working with baseball’s sanctioned doctors under the “Therapeutic Use Exemption.”
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There has been a lot of speculation that the Brewers were going to be among the teams, along with the Yankees, searching for a third baseman this offseason, possibly the White Sox’s Joe Crede. But Milwaukee GM Doug Melvin said the club does not plan to move Ryan Braun off of third despite his ghastly 26 errors in 112 games. Instead, Milwaukee wants to find a leadoff-type left fielder and solidify its pen, especially if Francisco Cordero and/or Scott Linebrink leave via free agency.