DownSwinging.com

It’s getting down to that point where there are so many new discussions and rumors every couple hours that it most certainly warrants at least one post per day. A lot of teams seem to be waiting to see who will make the first move, and once that happens, the cards will fall. I’ll get to Halladay in a minute, but other deals seem to be making more progress today.

The Mariners seem to finally have decided that they will be sellers. While Erik Bedard’s status is in limbo due to his injury, I think the first move you’ll see will be for Jarrod Washburn, and I’ll bet the Yankees will snag him. The Yanks haven’t found the starter they’ve wanted yet, with Bronson Arroyo seeming to carry too much of a price tag, and when they previously asked about Washburn the M’s were unwilling to deal. Look for the Yankees to move quickly and get Washburn over the Brewers, who will likely be his other suitor.

Jason Stark twits that the Pirates are putting aside contract negotiations and willing to deal Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson. On SportsCenter today Stark said the Red Sox basically had a deal completed for Wilson earlier in the year but elected to hold off. Now that Jed Lowrie is back and having offensive woes, the Red Sox will probably try and revive the old deal for Wilson to get him as now a defensive and offensive upgrade on Lowrie. Who knows what this means for Lowrie and Nick Green. If so, this may get Bucs fans going again about being a Red Sox farm team, and rightly so.

On other Red Sox news, it appears the team is still considering Victor Martinez as an option, although they may not have offered Clay Buchholz as previously thought. The Rays too like Martinez, but are more focused on obtaining Cliff Lee in a deal that might involve the Mariners somehow. As eyes shift to Lee from Halladay, the Indians have said the asking price is high, probably costing almost as much as Halladay. Back quickly to the Rays, they are considering sending Scott Kazmir to the Angels or possibly the Mets (would be awfully ironic) or Tigers but I think its less likely considering they are trying to win now.

Finally over to Roy Halladay. The number of teams interested have dwindled, and the Phillies and Blue Jays have reached an apparent stall in negotiations over Kyle Drabek. According to one source, there are three teams still interested: Phillies, Rangers and Red Sox. The Rangers want Halladay, the question is can they do it financially. The Red Sox can do it, (via some combo of Buchholz, Bard, Bowden, Masterson) the question is whether they want to.