AZ Republic - New Team in the Mix

The deal was supposed to happen on Wednesday, but a new team came out with an offer of a center-fielder. I have come up with three teams that are viable options for as the new team:

Boston/Jay Payton
Seattle/Randy Winn
Minnesota/Lew Ford

The issue is that each of those teams can be looking to move their respective players to Arizona for prospects especially since they need to move them for openings. With Boston, Payton is expendable because he is a forth outfielder; but the flipside is that he is the best backup they have in case Nixon gets hurt again.

Seattle has the issue of insurance when it comes to Sexson and Ibanez as Ibanez will rotate between LF, 1st, and DH while Winn has to compete with Jeremey Reed for CF. And if Sexson has an injury with Winn gone, you are looking at an Ibanez, Reed, Ichiro outfield and Jacobson at first with someone else DHing. And in case you have forgotten, Edgar aint around no more.

Minnesota is really the darkhorse here because they don't have to move Lew and they may not even want to. I honestly do not think Terry Ryan would move Ford... but if Arizona is willing to pay more, they could have Jacques Jones. Now that would be interesting.

One things for sure, this offseason is far from over from an A's perspective.