Azubuike24;1480979 wrote:I wonder if it's just the opposite. Teams who aren't contending now, but don't want to give up guys they see as having good value. Even if they are veterans, most teams who may have sold (Seattle, Washington, San Francisco, Toronto, Los Angeles (AL), New York (NL), etc...) plan to contend next year after a disappointing 2013 and would have trouble replacing some of these guys.
The big surprises, IMO, were both Philadelphia and Chicago (AL). Neither of these teams are going anywhere and had plenty of big salary veterans that drew interest with such a tight market. While they weren't going to be able to strangle teams for a ton of value, I'm surprised more guys didn't move from these 2 especially.
As a Pirates fan, I was following on MLBTradeRumors about possible trades with the White Sox for definitely Rios and possibly Alexei Ramirez and they just seemed to be asking for too much considering things like their current production and how big their contracts are.
I think it's a combination of what you and thavoice are saying, depending on the team. Some teams didn't sell because of the perception of giving up and others didn't because they figured with the light market, teams would overpay and no one took the leap on a lot of those guys. I mean, the Pirates could definitely use more right field production, but there's only so much you want to pay for a 32-year-old making $12.5M, holding a .273 average with 12 HRs and 49 RBIs and raising questions about his attitude. The only thing I found appealing about him was with his speed, that'd make the team even more dangerous on the basepaths, but no way in hell I'd be giving up that much for that.