Word this afternoon is that the Pirates and Padres are discussing a deal involving Paul Maholm right now. There’s been a lot of back and forth about this (you can check the MLB Trade Rumors page for all the confirmations and denials), but latest word from Yahoo’s Time Brown is that a deal is “close.” The only word from the local media on this so far is the story from earlier today in which Neal Huntington told Dejan Kovacevic that he’d consider dealing a starter if the package was right.
Obviously, I’ll update as necessary here, though there is a 30-minute bus ride home in my near future where I won’t be able to post to the blog, so you may want to keep an eye on my Twitter page as well, since I always have access to that.
UPDATE (5:16 ET) – Two Tweets from DK, one saying that more teams than just the Dodgers and Padres are interested in Maholm, one saying that nothing is imminent between the Bucs and Pads.
UPDATE (6:05 ET) – DK is now saying that one of the Pirates’ conditions for a deal is a Major League ready starter, which is obviously causing people to freak out with bad memories of Dave Littlefield. I’ll just say that a starter doesn’t have to be the whole deal. Jeff Karstens was a Major League ready starter, but his inclusion didn’t make make the Nady/Marte trade a bad trade. Charlie Morton was a Major League ready starter, but the McLouth trade could still be a win for the Pirates in the long run. For now, I’m giving Huntington the benefit of the doubt and will assume that this is simply him saying, “Look, if we deal Maholm for Prospect X, we’re also going to need someone to plug into our rotation for the time being because we just don’t have anyone else right now.”
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