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Rosenthal Dishes On The Next Cubs GM, Oakland, Weaver And More

By Satchel Price

Over at FOX Sports, Ken Rosenthal has his latest column up. It's loaded with good stuff, and you can click here if you want to go check out the entire thing. But we've put it through a strainer to give you guys the good stuff, which is obviously the series of words that follow below.

  • "Man, I would like to be Tom Ricketts right now." That's how Rosenthal starts off his article, while noting that the Chicago Cubs can "hire just about an general manager" that they want. Rosenthal lists off some of the big names that we've heard before- Boston's Theo Epstein, Oakland's Billy Beane, New York's Brian Cashman and Tampa Bay's Andrew Friedman- but he also argues that Ricketts should strong consider some of the top assistant GM's out there, such as White Sox AGM Rick Hahn. 
  • A's outfielder David DeJesus has cleared waivers, but teammates Coco Crisp and Rich Harden were claimed and pulled back. That makes it unlikely that we'll see any deals soon from Oakland unless some contender views DeJesus as a possible upgrade despite his recent struggles.
  • Rosenthal discussed how Jered Weaver's contract extension breaks away from the usual pattern of Scott Boras clients, who generally hit the free agent market rather than sign contract extensions. Rosenthal thinks that the Angels ace easily could have landed a salary of $20 million or more as a free agent with another strong season in 2012.
  • The recent extension that the Pirates signed with outfielder Jose Tabata doesn't make any sense from the player's perspective in Rosenthal's opinion. He writes that it's a larger gamble for Tabata than it is for Pittsburgh given that he'll only make $11.5 million for his arbitration seasons, 2014 through 2016.
  • The Braves have been focused on adding speed recently, as GM Frank Wren tells Rosenthal. According to Wren, the club has focused on adding speed in the past two drafts, in addition to adding fleet-footed outfielders Michael Bourn and Jose Constanza to the team this season. 
  • The Twins have put outfielder Denard Span back on the DL with concussion issues, but they expect him to return to the team in September. You have to wonder how this injury might have affected the trade discussions that went on between Minnesota and Washington back in July.

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