Orioles would eat Kevin Gregg’s salary to make him go away

By Aaron GleemanFeb 13, 2012, 10:47 AM EST
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Baltimore has spent the offseason adding veteran relievers and in the process have pushed last season’s primary closer, Kevin Gregg, into a low-leverage role.

Not surprisingly the Orioles are interesting in trading Gregg, who’s owed $5.8 million this season, and Roch Kubatko of MASNSports.com reports that “they’d eat a chunk” of salary to facilitate a move.

Gregg has racked up 144 career saves without ever being a particularly good fit at closer, and in fact his 4.07 ERA is the second-highest among all active pitchers with at least 100 career saves ahead of only Danys Baez (4.25). No one else is above 3.75. And that includes a 4.37 ERA and 53/40 K/BB ratio in 60 innings last season.

With that said, if the Orioles are willing to eat, say, $3.8 million of his $4.8 million salary and would accept a low-level prospect in return Gregg could help possibly some teams as a veteran middle reliever.

Brewers have 3 positive COVID tests at alternate site

Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports
Associated PressSep 19, 2020, 9:56 PM EDT
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MILWAUKEE — The Brewers had two players and a staff member test positive for the coronavirus at their alternate training site in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Milwaukee president of baseball operations David Stearns confirmed the positive results Saturday and said they shouldn’t impact the major league team. Teams are using alternate training sites this season to keep reserve players sharp because the minor league season was canceled due to the pandemic.

Stearns said the positive tests came Monday and did not name the two players or the staff member. Players must give their permission for their names to be revealed after positive tests.

The entire camp was placed in quarantine.

“We have gone through contact tracing,” Stearns said. “We do not believe it will have any impact at all on our major league team. We’ve been fortunate to get through this season relatively unscathed in this area. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get all the way there at our alternate site.”

Milwaukee entered Saturday one game behind the Reds and Cardinals for second place in the NL Central, with the top two teams qualifying for the postseason.

The Brewers still will be able to take taxi squad players with them on the team’s trip to Cincinnati and St. Louis in the final week of the season. He said those players have had repeated negative tests and the team is “confident” there would be no possible spread of the virus.

“Because of the nature of who these individuals were, it’s really not going to affect the quarantine group at all,” Stearns said. “We’re very fortunate that the group of players who could potentially be on a postseason roster for us aren’t interacting all that much with the individuals that tested positive.”