Jake Says No, Look to Japan again

Jake Peavy has said he would not accept a trade to the Boston Red Sox. Peavy has a full no-trade clause in his deal with the Padres. Kevin Towers confirmed that the Red Sox were on a list of teams Peavy does not want to get traded to. However, the New York Yankees are not on that list. Seems there is something about the Padres not liking Boston. Remember when Brian Giles would not accept a trade to Boston at the trade deadline?

However, it seems like the Sox aren't going to give up on trying to get Padres. It looks like they may be interested in acquiring shortstop Khalil Greene. Greene is coming off a down year where he hit .213 in only 105 games. In 2007, he did hit .254 with 27 HRs and 97 RBIs after having 15 HRs a season from 2004 - 2006. Greene would either be a free agent after 2009 or be in his last year of salary arbitration, as he will finish up a 2-yr, 11m contract extention that he signed at the beginning of 2008 to avoid salary arbitration. This could be a nice stop gap to give Jed Lowrie a bit more seasoning, especially if they can move Julio Lugo somewhere duing the off-season.

So, word has it that the Red Sox are the front runner for a young amateur free-agent from Japan named Junichi Tazawa. He is 22 yrs old, supposedly with an above average fastball to go along with a curve and split-finger. He requested that Japanese professional teams not draft him so he could sign with MLB as a free agent. Japanese players usually must go through a posting process, but since Tazawa has never been drafted or sign to a Japanese professional team, he does not need to through that process. It is unclear how major league ready he is, but it is never wrong to try build up some quality young pitching.

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