Winter Meetings Day 3: Rumors And Fighting Agents

Apr 1, 2013; Los Angeles, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants general manager Brian Sabean attends the 2013 season-opening game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Day 3 of the Winter Meetings in Florida continued along the same trend as the first two days. Which is to say, nothing is happening. It’s not just the Giants either. Bartolo Colon is the only free agent of note to have signed over the last few days. There are rumors abound but not much movement at all. Barring something happening late tonight, it doesn’t look like there will be any big news coming out of this week.

Earlier in the day there were rumours that the Giants were in discussions with Jeff Baker. That turned out to be false as Alex Pavlovic of the San Jose Mercury News tweeted. There have been reports though that the Giants are actively looking around for options in LF. Assistant GM Bobby Evans is telling reporters that other talks are ongoing.

For those on the Mike Morse train, it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

Tomorrow is the end of the meetings and with it comes the Rule 5 Draft. The Giants currently have a full 40 man roster so they would be unable to select anyone without making a move first. There are many unprotected players in the Giants organization and they could lose one or two to another club. If that happens the player drafted must stay on the 25 man roster or be returned to the Giants. The most intriguing part of tomorrow’s draft is that Bruce Bochy‘s son Brett could be drafted by another organization. Otherwise it should be pretty quiet for the club.

There was an award today for the Giants. Doug Mapson, San Francisco Giants National Cross-Checker and West Coast Scout, is being honored tonight at the Winter Meetings as West Coast Scout of the Year. I, for one, think it’s a good thing when a scout is getting an award. It shows depth in the organization.

In other news, home plate collisions are heading the way of the Dinosaurs. How it will be enforced or what the exact rule is we don’t yet know. The MLB Rules Committee will have to fine tune it and should come up with some sort of interpretation. You have to hope that this doesn’t become known as the “Buster Posey Rule” around baseball. He’s too good a player to be tagged with soemthing like that.

Finally, the strangest story of the day. Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports reported that two player agents got in to a fist fight in the parking lot of a hotel. They were heard to be fighting over a player and that arson was threatened. It’s not every day you can get a “I’m gonna burn your [expletive] house down!” in to a baseball story. It really is amazing. Seriously, go check this story out, it even has video.

I’m pretty sure that’s not what Marvin Miller had in mind back in the day.