After the 2015 season ended the Hot Stove season began and
almost immediately many free agents were linked to the New York Yankees, none
more than Chicago White Sox right-hander Jeff Samardzija. Samardzija, a Notre
Dame football standout and former member of the Oakland Athletics and Chicago
Cubs, was offered a qualifying offer that he declined this offseason thus
attaching draft pick compensation to any team that signs him whether it be the
New York Yankees, the early favorites, or another team. Another team like maybe
his former team, the Chicago Cubs.
According to CBS Local News in Chicago the Cubs Theo Epstein
met with Samardzija for dinner last week and presumably spoke about where he
will be throwing his 200 innings in 2016. Samardzija is currently residing in
Arizona during the offseason and is coming off a somewhat disappointing
contract year where he posted an 11-13 record with a 4.96 ERA and 1.29 WHIP.
What Samardzija lacks on the back of his baseball card though he more than
makes up with projections, durability, the lack of miles on his arm and his
ceiling with the right pitching coach, like a Larry Rothschild.
Samardzija spent the first six-and-a-half seasons with the
Cubs, who drafted him in the 2006 MLB First Year Players Draft, before being
traded in 2014 in the deal that sent shortstop and top prospect Addison Russell
to Chicago. Samardzija has worked with Cubs pitching coach Chris Bosio before,
for two-and-a-half seasons to be exact, and had his best seasons under Bosio so
Chicago is thinking that they can get him back to the pitching success he had
in 2013 and 2014 if signed.
This will be an interesting negotiation since Samardzija
already turned down a contract extension worth a reported $80 million from the
Cubs and Epstein before he was traded. Stay tuned because the Yankees just got
some serious competition for the right-hander from Notre Dame.
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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)