The Los Angeles Angels are "close" to acquiring left handed starter, Scott Kazmir from the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for two prospects, reportedly pitcher Alexander Torres and third baseman Matthew Sweeney, according to MLB.com's Lyle Spencer.

The Angels have been looking for help in their rotation and the 25 year old southpaw should fit in nicely, despite having a down year this year with an ERA of nearly 6.

The Rays signed Kazmir to a long term deal after the lefty posted ERA's under 3.5 each of the last three years. However, as the Rays began looking to shed payroll and with Kazmir's ERA skyrocketing, Tampa began looking to unload his contract.

To be honest, it seems like the Rays are selling low on Kazmir. Since the All Star break he's pitched much better with only 3 bad starts mixed in with several quality outings. With young left handed pitching so hard to come by, I'm a little surprised the Rays agreed to this deal.

After a LOT of back and forth, the Boston Red Sox have acquired former closer Billy Wagner from the New York Mets.

The Red Sox claimed Wagner off waivers and a brief soap opera ensued about whether or not Wagner would accept a trade to Boston.

With the deadline for a deal closing in, Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated is reporting that the deal is done.

Wagner was effective in his first appearance back off the DL but his health is still no doubt an issue and he may be limited to pitching only once every three days.

Even so, the veteran should help solidify the late innings for the Red Sox, as a setup man for closer Jonathan Papelbon.

In exchange for the pricey reliever, the Mets will reportedly receive two players to be named later, and likely will have to kick some cash into the deal as well.

Update: Well that goes to show what I know... Heyman is now reporting that the Red Sox are actually picking up all of the remaining $2 million on Wagner's deal (for just over 5 weeks of service!). If that's the case I'd be surprised if the PTBNL's were significant at all.

Buster Olney of ESPN.com reports that Blue Jays RF Alex Rios has been claimed on waivers by a unknown team The Blue Jays now have 3 things they could do:

• They can give the claiming team Rios and is humongous contract.
• They could work out a trade with the claiming team.
• They could also just pull Rios off of waivers completely.

Rios still has 6 years left on a seven-year, $69.35 million contract that he signed in April 2008..

The following teams have reportedly did not claim Rios:

• Mets
• Red Sox
• Giants
• Reds
• Mariners

We will keep everyone updated once more information comes out.

As you know, July 31st is known as the trade deadline. But in fact, teams can still acquire players after that, however the players involved in a trade must first pass through waivers.

When players are placed on waivers, any of the 29 other teams can claim him which usually results in the player's current team pulling him back off waivers. In some rare instances, teams will in fact allow players to leave via waivers although the more usual scenario is that teams will work out a trade for that player during the 48 hour window they're given to negotiate.

If a player passes through waivers unclaimed, he can then be traded to any team at any time. However, a player must be on a team's active roster by August 31st in order to be eligible for post-season play.

Now that we've explained the process, who are some of the players we might still see traded this year?

ESPN's Jerry Crasnick gives these starting 9 (which actually includes 14 players)  as the most likely to be dealt:

1. Jon Garland & Doug Davis
2. Heath Bell
3. Lyle Overbay
4. Justin Duchscherer
5. The "Matt Stairs" type which Crasnick says this year includes Nomar Gargciaparra and Kevin Millar
6. The "utility man" category under which Crasnick files David Eckstein, Mark Teahen, and Jamey Carroll.
7. Carl Pavano
8. Reds Relievers of Arthur Rhodes and David Weathers
9. Miguel Batista

Heath Bell would obviously the biggest target on this list and as Crasnick mentions, would probably be claimed. However, even if he's claimed by a team that's not in contention, the Padres may be able to work out a deal.

That being said, I think Rhodes or Weathers are the much more likely releivers to be dealt.

There are also plenty of contending teams that could use a back of the rotation starter like Pavano, Davis, or Garland so I wouldn't be surprised to see their names pop up on several different radars.

We also always seem to hear about one BIG name that passes through waivers making them elligible to be dealt (Manny was put on waivers a couple years back) but deals that big usually happen before August if they're going to happen at all.

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The injury plagued New York Mets have reacquired infielder Anderson Hernandez from the Washington Nationals.

The Mets traded Hernandez to the Nationals last year to complete a deal for Luis Ayala but today sent minor league infielder Greg Veloz to Washington to get Hernandez back.

Hernandez is batting .251 for the Nationals with 23 runs driven in.

With the way the Mets are going down with injury, it wouldn't surprise me to see them trade for just about any warm body they can get. In just a two game series with the Cardinals the Mets had 3 players leave the game due to injury with one of them, pitcher Jonathon Niese, hitting the 60 day DL with a torn hamstring.

Today is the second day of the return of the This Date in Baseball History series. Like we said yesterday, everyday we will post a milestone of some sort that happened today X amount of years ago.

2005-

Albert Pujols becomes the first player to connect for 30 home runs in each of his first five big league seasons. The Cardinals first baseman has hit 190 homers during this five-year span from the start of career in 2001, equaling Eddie Mathews' total (1952-56) and with 25 fewer than Ralph Kiner (1946-1950). -Source National Pastime

Note from Ben: As a Cardinals fan, I can not tell you how lucky I feel to be able to watch Albert play everyday. He really is amazing. Ok, enough of the Cardinal loving schmooz fest.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for quite a while may remember the This Date in Baseball History series we used to do.  Well, we're happy to announce that we're bringing it back from the dead. As the title suggests, everyday we will post something remarkable that has happened on this date in baseball's long and storied history.

2007-

"In the second inning at Petco Park in front sellout crowd of 42,497 fans, Barry Bonds drives a Clay Hensley fastball over the left-field wall for his 755th home run tying Hank Aaron’s 33-year-old career home run record. The opposite-field drive [came] ironically off a pitcher who failed a steroid test as a minor leaguer in 2005." - source National Pastime

We're now just two weeks away from the deadline for teams to sign their draftpicks and most teams still have a lot of work to do.

In case you're not familiar with the draft rules, any player that remains unsigned after the deadline won't be allowed to play this year, and will have re-enter the draft next year. Teams that don't ink their draft picks receive a corresponding pick in next year's draft to compensate for what by that time will have become a lost or wasted pick.

While prospects and teams usually end up coming to some sort of agreement, there have been players such as J.D. Drew and this year's first round pick Stephen Strasburg who do hold out for a variety of reasons (the most obvious being $). So, without further ado, I present the list of unsigned first round picks.

1. Nationals - Stephen Strasburg.
2. Mariners - Dustin Ackley.
3. Padres - Donavan Tate.
6. Giants - Zack Wheeler.
7. Braves - Mike Minor.
8. Reds - Mike Leake.
9. Tigers - Jacob Turner.
11. Rockies - Tyler Matzek.
12. Royals - Aaron Crow.
13. A's - Grant Green.
14. Rangers - Matt Purke.
15. Indians - Alex White.
16. Diamondbacks - Bobby Borchering.
18. Marlins - Chad James.
19. Cardinals - Shelby Miller.
20. Blue Jays - Chad Jenkins.
22. Twins - Kyle Gibson.
27. Mariners - Nick Franklin.
29. Yankees - Slade Heathcott.
30. Rays - Levon Washington.

Italicized=Scott Boras Client.

As you can see, only 10 of the First Round Picks have signed a contract with their respective teams. Not surprisingly, several of the players remaining unsigned are Scott Boras clients.

In my opinion that is totally absurd. If these players really want to play baseball they most likely wouldn't be asking a 10 million dollar price tag.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out considering the new economic climate that seems to be taking around the league.

MLB Rumor Blog is proud to introduce our newest rumormonger, Scott Wallace!

Scott is a long time baseball fan & a die hard Mets fan but please, don't hold that against him. As long as he keeps wrangling the rumors like this, I won't keep slipping references to the 2006 NCLS into my correspondence with him.

When he's not scouring the web for rumors to keep you lovely folks in the loop, you can usually find him in the forums over at ProSportsAddicts.com.

Be sure to drop a comment here and give him a big MLB Rumor Blog welcome!

According to Jeff Baker of the Seattle Times. The Red Sox, Mariners, and Padres were discussing a 3 way trade that would send Felix Hernandez to Boston and Adrian Gonzalez to Seattle. At first Boston told Seattle they could pick any of these 5 players:

RHP Clay Buchholz
RHP Daniel Bard
RHP Justin Masterson
LHP Nick Hagadone
RHP Michael Bowden
LHP Felix Doubront
OF Josh Reddick
SS Yamaico Navarro

Seattle turned the offer down and in response, Boston got the Padres involved. The offer that emerged was:

Seattle gets: Adrian Gonzalez and Clay Bucholz along with a couple more Boston specs.

Boston gets: Felix Hernandez

San Diego gets: Brandon Morrow, Phillip Aumont and Carlos Truinful (from Seattle). They would also get a couple of top prospects from the Red Sox.

But the Mariners reportedly rejected this deal as well. My question to you is, would you have done the deal if you were the GM of the Mariners?