NEWSLETTER
According to Yancen Pujols of the Caribbean, a Dominican media outlet, Carlos Marmol says he’s been traded to the Angels. Given the timing, if it’s true, it seems like Dan Haren will be involved.
Obviously I’ll have many updates as soon as possible.
UPDATE 1 (6:44pm CT): Pujols quotes Marmol as saying (rough translation), “I am very fond of the City of Chicago. It will always be in my heart. Now I look up to the challenge with Anaheim.”
UPDATE 2 (6:46pm CT): Lots of other quotes from Marmol in Pujols’ Twitter stream, all basically saying the same kind of thing – lots of teams interested in me, but the Angels give me a chance to win, I’m excited about it, I love Chicago, etc.
UPDATE 3 (6:47pm CT): Gordon Wittenmyer says a Cubs source has confirmed that Marmol has been traded to the Angels for Haren.
UPDATE 4 (6:49pm CT): I’m still waiting on the particulars of the deal – money, any other players involved, etc. – before reacting. If it’s a straight up swap, with Angels covering the $3.5 million buyout amount, I think it’s decent. Still processing. After a solid first half of 2013 by each, Haren is more flippable for good value than Marmol, so there’s that.
UPDATE 5 (6:53pm CT): Mike DiGiovanna, LA Times writer, says the Angels are “on the verge” of trading Haren for Marmol.
UPDATE 6 (6:56pm CT): Bruce Levine reports it as though it’s a done deal. Carrie Muskat notes that the Cubs aren’t willing to confirm it just yet (finalizing some details?). Jon Heyman also says it’s a done deal (at least the Haren part).
UPDATE 7 (7:01pm CT): Ok, here’s your this-thing-just-happened-10-minutes-ago-but-you-might-want-a-reaction: The best the Cubs could have hoped for in dealing Marmol in a standalone deal is getting a decent, top 20ish in a system prospect if they kicked in $5ish million of his $9.8 million salary. The best the Cubs could have hoped for in acquiring Haren is giving up someone like Junior Lake, and taking on most of the $15.5 million post-option money owed Haren (let’s say $14 million). So, if they were separate deals, it would be the Cubs sending Lake, Marmol, and $5 million for Haren, and a prospect slightly worse than Lake. Unless my math is off because I’m rushing, this looks like a great deal for the Cubs.
UPDATE 8 (7:09pm CT): Dave Kaplan says multiple sources on each side say the deal is not done quite yet. It’s progressing, but there are financial aspects to be worked out. Based on my little exercise in Update 7, I’d think some money is going to the Angels. And I’d think the Commissioner’s Office has to approve, which is why we aren’t getting official confirmation from the teams yet.
UPDATE 9 (7:11pm CT): Should have checked my various communications methods a little earlier – a source tells me the same thing as Kap. Not quite done yet, with some details yet to be worked out. Looking good, though.
UPDATE 10 (7:22pm CT): Still digging, but a source suggests there’s more than just money being haggled (i.e., another player/prospect in the deal – not sure on which side, but I’d have to assume it’s the Cubs sending out a player).
UPDATE 11 (7:33pm CT): Well, Matt Garza is pretty convinced that Haren is coming to the Cubs, with Marmol going to the Angels.
UPDATE 12 (7:43pm CT): Oh my, forgot about this – Marmol has a limited no-trade clause. Alden Gonzalez says he waived it to go to the Angels, so it may have been a total non-issue, but it’s something to remember when evaluating the trade.
UPDATE 13 (7:53pm CT): DiGiovanna got ahold of Haren who says he hasn’t heard from either the Angels or Cubs, but is “assuming it’s done.”
UPDATE 14 (7:58pm CT): You knew this was coming. You knew it. Alden Gonzalez (Angels beat guy for MLB.com) says the reports of a deal are premature, and the Angels are still negotiating with at least one other team. I told you it wasn’t a done deal …
UPDATE 15 (8:03pm CT): The reasonable fear here is that the Cubs contacted Marmol to ask him *if* he would waive his NTC to go to the Angels, he said yes, the Cubs went back to the table, and in the meantime, Marmol told a local reporter. Enter Twitter, asplode head.
UPDATE 16 (8:23pm CT): Well, Marmol spoke to a Dominican radio station moments ago as though it was a done deal. That makes me suspect more strongly that the issue is the Commissioner approval thing or minor other players thing. Seems like if there were still negotiations going on, the Cubs would have gotten ahold of Marmol by now to say, “Dude. Stop.”
UPDATE 17 (8:29pm CT): Ken Rosenthal says the same thing as Gonzalez (not done), and says essentially what I feared was the case – the Cubs asked Marmol if he’d accept a deal to the Angels, and the reporting ball unraveled from there.
UPDATE 18 (8:34pm CT): Really didn’t think this would make it to 18 updates. Dave Kaplan says it’s not done, and the hold-up is the review of financials and medicals.
UPDATE 19 (8:41pm CT): Now this is weird. Rosenthal says the decision is up to Marmol now. Which, I mean, he’s the one who leaked the whole thing, and gave an interview saying he was going to the Angels. So, I mean, if Rosie’s right, what’s the holdup?
UPDATE 20 (8:54pm CT): The original reporter, Yancen Pujols, who spoke to Marmol, is sticking by his story. He’s saying, if my rough translation is accurate, that Marmol told him he’d already waived his NTC.
UPDATE 21 (9:14pm CT): A source tells the AP that the trade has been agreed to by both sides, but is not finalized.
UPDATE 22 (9:16pm CT): Gordon is sticking by his story, and has a source that insists Marmol has signed off on the deal. All this fretting might be for nothing – we might simply be waiting for Commission sign-off, which is a formality. Or, we’re waiting on some horrible disaster to arise. You know, whichever.
UPDATE 23 (9:19pm CT): Source tells me there are no major issues, it’s just a matter of negotiating the finer points. In other words, according to the source, the main components of the deal are agreed to, and aren’t falling through.
UPDATE 24 (9:21pm CT): And then in unison, all the beat writers in Chicago tweet essentially the same thing: a Cubs source says there is no deal.
UPDATE 25 (9:25pm CT): Gordon recants in the most authoritative fashion, saying his source tells him “there won’t be a deal.”
UPDATE 26 (9:27pm CT): National media jumping on and saying the deal is off. Rosenthal says Marmol agreed, but then the Cubs pulled the deal. Let’s not jump to conclusions, because we don’t know the whole story. It could be that the money wasn’t settled yet, and the Cubs just couldn’t agree to the Angels’ requests. It could be that Haren’s medicals looked worse than they expected. We’ll probably never know, which is the most frustrating part of all.
UPDATE 27 (9:39pm CT): Bruce Levine, one of many, many to “confirm” a done deal, isn’t quite ready to throw in the towel. He says the deal is not dead, but “unlikely at this point.”
UPDATE 28 (10:00pm CT): We’re one hour from the option deadline for Haren. It occurs to me that if the Angels don’t end up trading him, and just decline the option in an hour, that’s pretty good evidence that Haren’s medicals were the issue. If there were multiple suitors – and by all accounts, there were – and the Angels were motivated to move him. If they bail completely from that plan, it’s because they couldn’t move him.
UPDATE 29 (11:11pm CT): It’s all over, people. The Angels just declined Haren’s option (paying him a $3.5 million buyout in the process), and he’s now a free agent. The fact that they had to do that after supposedly being in conversations with teams all night long, coupled with the fact that the Cubs clearly had a deal in place with Marmol and subsequently backed out, tells me it was an issue with Haren’s medicals. The Cubs saw something they didn’t like, or at least that they tried to leverage into a better deal. And the deal fell apart. That’s all she wrote. I feel bad for Haren, whose agent is going to have some serious explaining to do when he tries to solicit a big contract.
