Wild Rumors About Nady and Swisher
By Frank Russo ~ January 13th, 2009. Filed under: Frank Russo Rants and Raves.
When you write about baseball like I do, you hear all kinds of rumors. Some are wild and some are crazy and some are just plain insane. Tuesday night I received an email from a friend of mine who covers the Pirates who told me of a possible trade scenario brewing between the Pirates and Yankees. The Yankees would send Xavier Nady, Nick Swisher and Brett Gardner to the Pirates for center fielder Nate McLouth, (with New York paying about 80 percent of both Nady and Swisher’s salaries as part of the deal).
Now I want to make one thing perfectly clear. Personally, I do not believe for a minute that the Pirates would ever trade McLouth, even with Swisher, Nady and Gardner as a starting point for a deal. McLouth, as you may know, has long been a favorite of WFAN host Mike Francesa, who has deemed him to be the next great Yankees center fielder.
We’ve also been informed by AL and NL sources with knowledge of the situation that the Nationals, Reds, Dodgers and Giants are all showing interest in Nady and Swisher.
Speaking of the X-Man, it was less than three weeks ago, on Sunday, December 28th, that we first reported that the Yankees were shopping Xavier Nady. (We also later reported that teams were inquiring about Nick Swisher). Of course, I was immediately blasted by several “Mad Posters,” who told me that my sources and my information were totally wrong and that I was “off base as usual.” We kind of wonder where these same posters are now, especially since Jon Heyman, the New York Post, MLB.com and Yankees.com have all reported the very same thing.
January 14th, 2009 at 3:44 am
Looks like Frank Russo likes to engage in revisionist history and distort readers’ comments.
Nobody claimed that the Yanks weren’t shopping Nady. The objection was the specific rumor Russo floated that Nady would be sent to the Reds in exchange for Arroyo or perhaps Harang.
Russo also floated the rumor that they could fetch Washburn from Seattle for Nady.
These moves don’t make any sense and landing Arroyo or Washburn doesn’t help this team at all. They’d be better off keeping Nady.
At least Harang has the potential to rebound after last season’s injury woes, but it would take more than Nady to get him and he’s also signed through 2010 (with an option for 2011) – something Cashman isn’t likely to do because he’d be blocking Phil Hughes from the rotation.
Maybe if Russo didn’t delete comments we’d know for certain what was said on December 28th instead of him engaging in revisionist history.
January 14th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Since 99% of the Hot part of Hot Stove is hot air—how about we all just enjoy the BS? As Yogi once said-
” The trade ain’t a trade until the guy showers in your clubhouse “
January 14th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
The column should be entitled trade ideas instead of rumors.