Saturday News: The Tools of Ignorance

File this one under waiting games.

We're waiting for Arod's 600th career homer.  I'm hoping the homer comes today, as Edwantsacracker and I will be hanging out in section 408.

We're waiting for a move as we enter the final week before the trade deadline. 

The hot rumor of the day is Joba, Ivan Nova and two more prospects to the D-backs for Haren:

the Yankees came back with an offer that did not include Chamberlain. Stark also said sources told him the D-Backs were asking teams to pick up Haren's salary.

Haren is signed for $12.75M per year for the next two years, with a $15.5M option for 2014, so if I'm counting right, Haren is actually under contract for longer than Joba. Add in the fact that Haren is 29 years old, was an All Star in Oakland before becoming a Cy Young contender in desert, and is well on his way to a 6th straight 200 IP season, the addition of Haren to the rotation at the cost of Joba in the pen is a definite win for the Yankees.

So the make or break is in the other prospects; if it's the names we've been hearing (Nova, McAllister and a lower grade prospect), that's too much of the Yankees' AAA/MLB pitching unless there's another Snake coming back to the Bronx.

1B Adam LaRoche or 2B Kelly Johnson are too valuable to be toss ins.

There are so many teams that need starting pitching help, I'm not holding my breath on this deal.  But it would be great to see it get done.

I went through Baseball-Reference's leaderboard player by player. Here's the list of catchers with 1000 RBI; * means Hall of Famer, + means the player tops Jorge's 124 OPS+:

Lance Parrish (1070), Brian Downing, though he played more in LF (1073), BJ Surhoff, more games in LF (1153), Craig Biggio, more games at 2B (1175), +Joe Torre, more games at 1B & 3B combined (1185), *+Bill Dickey (1209), *Gary Carter (1225), Ivan Rodriguez (1292), *Carlton Fisk (1330), +Mike Piazza (1335), *+Johnny Bench (1376), Ted Simmons (1389), *+Yogi Berra (1430)

I think Posada will be a Hall of Famer, but if they can leave out Ted Simmons (2472 hits,.285/.348/.437 over a 20 year career, 87% of his games at catcher), I guess they can leave out anybody.

Fun trade deadline moment of the year: Scott O'Sullivan beat the Yankees with the Angels a few days ago, and he's starting for the Royals on Sunday.

Yes, it was a rain shortened outing for AJ, but it was a good outing.

Jesus Montero is getting all the press, but the Scranton Yankees are having a great season thanks to several players who could help the big league team in the next 3 months: SS Eduardo Nunez is hitting .309/.363/.408, and freshly promoted starter David Phelps allowed his first walks in over 20 IP at AAA last night.