2/7/12

Is Roy Oswalt booking plane tickets to Fort Myers?

It has been a while since I last wrote about Roy Oswalt, mainly because there has not been much new information out there:

As of yesterday, we knew that:

  • Both the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals, who were rumored in about a million places to be Oswalt's favorite exclusive destinations to be close to his range in southern MO, need to move starters to clear space for him; and at this point, it is unlikely

  • Oswalt has been waltzing around both with the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox and is rumored to have been asking for more money than from the Rangers and Cardinals, not because he does not like the color Red (he wore that in Philly) but because he does not like the location. The Reds would have to clear room in their payroll to sign him, and the Red Sox did so

  • Roy Oswalt has talked to the Twins

  • Edwin Jackson has signed a fairly large contract with the Nationals, so Oswalt is the only "marquee" starter available in the market less that 2 weeks before pitchers and catchers report



That was yesterday. What do we know today? And is Oswalt planning to travel to Florida or Arizona this spring?

Here are a couple of interesting developments:

  • John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer indicates (in so many words) that Roy Oswalt's camp is contacting his plan B teams (Reds, Red Sox, Twins). Fay indicates that there are mixed signals by the Reds. Edit: he later updated the post practically saying that the Reds have not talked to him, which might indicate that his agent is "generating" other interesting parties, in discussions with other teams.

  • Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review tweeted that the Pittsburgh Pirates seeing an opportunity, made an offer to Oswalt but it was declined

  • This morning Rob Bradford of Boston's WEEI reported that there is no traction between the Red Sox and Oswalt


All signs indicate that the Oswalt camp is getting nervous as spring training nears, and that the offers he has been getting are not to his liking. I think that the first team that will come with an offer close to $8-9 million a year and maybe some incentives will be the team that would land Roy Oswalt. Which team would that be? I cannot guess, but there are a good possibilities that Roy Oswalt will be buying a ticket to Fort Myers soon, since two of the teams in the list train there in Spring.

As always, the complete coverage on Roy Oswalt including earlier developments is here, in reverse chronological order.

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