We learn a few things from Buster Olney's new blog post about the trade market.
On how active the next two weeks will be:
They expect that there will be a fairly robust period of trades before the July 31 deadlines. "I don't think there's going to be a lot of big names on the move," said one GM, "but I think you've got a lot of teams looking to fill specific needs, and there are a lot of conversations going on."
On the financial market:
The executives all agreed that there are almost no teams willing to take on money these days, so a lot of the forthcoming trades will include either salary relief or be built on a structure in which the payroll obligations for the involved teams will be offset.
On Myers:
The Astros have not indicated to other teams yet what they'd like in return for Brett Myers, but as of Friday morning, it appeared that Myers was ahead of Lilly or Jake Westbrook on the Mets' wish list of pitchers, given his performance this year and relatively low salary.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
