Astacio Off Reds Radar?
By
Amanda
Posted at 9:12 am
The ESPN.com rumor page reports that the Washington Nationals and San Diego Padres are the only teams apparently interested in negotiating with Pedro Astacio. It references a story in the Washingtom Times, possibly this one regarding the offer from the Nats:
The Nationals have offered the 36-year-old right-hander a non-guaranteed, minor-league contract to report to spring training, and baseball sources said he's expected to decide between the Nationals and San Diego Padres within 48 hours.
So, Astacio couldn't even pitch for the Padres until May 1 (he missed the deadline) while the Nationals are only willing to give a minor league deal. Sounds like Cincinnati has an opportunity to make a pretty appealing, incentives-laden offer. Hopefully, they see that their apparent drop out of the race is a play to bring the price down.
I guess the next 48 hours will tell.
Astacio turned down the Nats offer. It’s odd, but Washington Post is reporting that it’s between the Reds and the Padres.
I’d have to imagine the Pirates will gauge Astacio’s interest and maybe even greatly overpay him now that Wells is hurt and likely going to miss the whole season.
According to [url=http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/spring/2006/02/scratch-that-option.asp#comments]Marc Lancaster’s blog[/url], the Reds are now officially out of the chase for Astacio. He heard it from general manager Krivsky himself, so I guess I can finally stop trying to figure out which of the disparate sources has it right.
Just for a little closure, not because I care, [url=http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=mlb&id=2347281]ESPN[/url] is reporting that the Nationals have signed Astacio after all.
Apparently Bowden can’t resist a good bidding war.
Guess the Nats ended up signing Astacio anyway. They tendered a Major League deal today pending a physical. Shoot, I was really hoping the Reds would get him, because their pitching situation is more desperate than the Nats, even with Brian Lawrence out for the season.