DownSwinging.com

I’ll start with the news from earlier today. After the Yankees rocked John Smoltz last night, the Red Sox designated him for assignment today. I have to imagine that this was the result of Smoltz coming forward and saying he’s done. Even though no one has reported that Smoltz decided to call it quits, I can’t imagine the Red Sox would be willing to give up on its rather expensive project. To me, there was a very good option still available, and that was to put Smoltz in the bullpen. Obviously Smoltz has had success there in the past, and while I’m no scout, it seemed to me that Smoltz did have some flashes of success in his starts, so had he only been planning on pitching an inning or two, he might have been able to concentrate his efforts.

Really, the bullpen might have been where Smoltz should have started. But the fact that there isn’t going to be an attempt with the bullpen suggests to me that Smoltz has given up, realizing that his body just wasn’t ready for another season. If he was going to come to this conclusion anyway, he saves the Red Sox a lot of money by doing it now instead of later. As far as I’m concerned, it’s still a shame, I would have loved to see his resurgence in Boston.

In other news, its been reported that Toronto outfielder Alex Rios has been claimed off waivers. At this point the Jays can pull him back and have nothing happen, let him go to the team, or try to work out a deal. As far as I’m concerned, the Jays should let him go. Obviously it would have been better if they had traded Halladay but the Jays have got to recognize that there signing of Wells and Rios were not great ideas. Rios is a good player, but he’s not a star and not someone you build a franchise around.

Rios is $9.7M in 2010, $12M for the two years after that, and $12.5M for the two years after that. That’s a lot of years of question marks, and I could easily see them trading him a few years down the road and swallowing a lot of salary. They’re not going to be able to compete next year even with him, and they should let him go.

No word yet on which team has claimed him, but I’ll keep updates coming when word comes in.

7:57 p.m. According to MLBTradeRumors, the Mets, Red Sox and Giants did not claim Rios, looks like this could be a process of elimination game.

Update: ESPN’s Buster Olney says the White Sox are most likely the team who have claimed Rios, though this is unconfirmed.