FanHouse GreggZaun

The Charm City will not have to wait much longer for the most anticipated rookie debut of 2009. The Orioles are planning to call up and start catching prospect Matt Wieters Friday night against the Tigers, Baltimore general manager Andy MacPhail said during MASN's broadcast of Tuesday night's O's-Blue Jays game.

Wieters, currently playing for the Triple-A Norfolk Tides, was widely considered to be the best prospect in baseball entering the 2009 season after he hit .355 with 27 home runs and 91 RBI across two levels last year.

He's done little to douse that optimism so far this season, hitting .285 with a .367 on-base percentage, 15 extra-base hits and 26 RBI in 38 games at Norfolk.

MLB Power Rankings: Where MLB FanHouse's editors, writers and bloggers team up to break down the who's who and the what's what in the baseball world.

Let me put this simply: you want no part of being No. 1 in the FanHouse MLB Power Rankings. It just brings discord, losing and possibly suspensions to your baseball team. Such was the case with the white-hot Dodgers and Manny Ramirez, who now have to deal with a 50 game-ban of their star slugger. Who's doomed this week? Let's just say that no one would be too shocked if they weren't there again next Wednesday.

FanHouse continues its 2009 MLB Preview with a look at the Toronto Blue Jays.

There's no team in baseball in a worse spot than the Blue Jays. They've had to contend with the megapowers in New York and Boston for years, watching their competitive payroll and over-.500 seasons amount to nothing more than third-place finish after-third place finish. No matter how much they have spent and how much they have won, it has never been enough to catch the Red Sox or the Yankees.

Fantasy baseball draft season is coming, so you best be prepared by delving through every major player on each team. Fantasy FanHouse is here to help with a quick once-over.

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Team who just can't buy a break. They can't get any big names to sign with them (Mark Teixeira, A.J. Burnett), they are getting majorly outspent by the two big boys in the division, and the Rays skyrocketed past them last season due to an impressive franchise turnaround. I've seen people tout these guys as the "2009 version of the Rays." My reply? You have got to be kidding me. There's not near enough here for a run at .500, much less the World Series.

For the better part of the last decade there's been little to cheer about in Baltimore during baseball season. Things are finally starting to look up in the Charm City, though, and catching prospect Matt Wieters is a huge reason why. Drafted fifth overall in the 2007 Rule 4 Draft, Wieters has scorched through the minors and figures to be the Orioles' full-time catcher by the end of 2009.

Baltimore has decided to ease Wieters into the starter's role, but after trading incumbent Ramon Hernandez at the Winter Meetings, it still needed a veteran catcher to pair with the stud prospect as he gets comfortable in the big leagues.

The O's are on the verge of finding their man, according to MASNSports.com's Roch Kubatko, and will likely announce the signing of Gregg Zaun sometime next week.

While the Baltimore Orioles are still one of the teams interested in signing Adam Dunn after losing out on local boy Mark Teixeira, the team also has a hole to fill behind home plate. After trading Ramon Hernandez to the Reds earlier this month, it appeared as though the Orioles were clearing room for catching prospect Matt Wieters to take over the role. Now it seems that not everybody in the organization is convinced that Wieters will be ready to take on that responsibility when the season starts.

Which is why they've contacted Scott Boras about Ivan Rodriguez to see if he'd be interested in becoming an Oriole.

Former Oriole Gregg Zaun remains the free-agent catcher most likely to end up in the Orioles lineup on Opening Day, but there have been conversations with agent Scott Boras about veteran Ivan Rodriguez. Whether he would be a good fit to mentor Matt Wieters and eventually step aside for the O's top minor league prospect has been a subject of some discussion in the O's front office.

I don't see Pudge ending up in Baltimore because at this stage of his career I'm sure he'd rather be on a team considered a World Series contender, and with the Orioles playing in a division that includes the defending AL champion Rays, the Red Sox, and the U.S. Treasury New York Yankees, the Orioles are not a World Series contender.

Especially if that non-contender is only signing him as a temporary solution until their other catcher is ready to take over. Of course, if Rodriguez did sign with Baltimore, I suppose they could just do what the Tigers did if he doesn't appreciate losing his job to an unproven prospect and just trade him at the deadline when they're out of the playoff race.

With the trade deadline right around the corner, our MLB editor brings you the top five rumors every day until July 31.


- The Jason Bay market appears to be heating up. Both the Rays and Cardinals have had serious discussions with Pittsburgh about acquiring the left fielder. Tampa Bay would seem to have the upper hand since it has the better farm system and does not play in the same division as the Pirates. GM Neal Huntington is believed to have asked for shortstop prospect Reid Brignac and pitching prospect Jeremy Hellickson, with Hellickson believed to be the sticking point. There is also late word that the Red Sox could jump into the Bay talks as part of a three-way deal that would send Ramirez to Florida, prospects to Pittsburgh and Bay to Boston.

The Star has a pretty good roundup of the verbal slapfighting going on between Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi, he of the tactless public disposition, and Gregg Zaun, 37-year-old catcher and mediocre hitter extraordinaire. Zaun wants to be traded, Ricciardi wants to trade him, but the two can't seem to agree on anything else:

"I'm just disappointed that he went to the media with this," general manager J.P. Ricciardi said when told of Zaun's comments. "We have a good enough relationship that he can talk to me."

"This shouldn't be a controversial moment for anybody. I just answered a simple question: `Would I welcome a trade,'" an exasperated Zaun said. "It's unfortunate that he feels like I'm addressing it through the media, because I really am not."

"We'll gladly move him if we can find someone who wants him and that's where we're at," Ricciardi said. "Right now, there's been no takers for him, there's been no inquiries about him."

It seems difficult to believe that nobody wants Zaun. Zaun is a switch hitter and he's a catcher with a decent bat and an average OBP. A few teams could platoon him -- say, the Yankees -- and get decent return for their trade. It doesn't help that Ricciardi seems bent on destroying Zaun's value before trading him. Saying "no one wants you, dude" is not exactly the best way to get people to, you know, want your player.

If Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, a free agent at the close of this season, signs with an American League team, Blue Jays catcher Gregg Zaun may want to invest in some extra helmet padding. Especially if Schilling has any friends in Canada who might have heard Zaun covering the ALCS broadcast for Rogers Sportsnet, where he offered his candid opinions on the future Hall-of-Famer.

[Zaun] told viewers that Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling "never met a microphone or camera that he didn't like." When host Jamie Campbell, who does a great job of teeing up questions for Zaun, asked him if Schilling were beatable, Zaun said he was. He then chronicled how age had robbed Schilling of his skills.

Those were brave words from someone who may face a high hard one from Schilling next season.

Brave, indeed. But, honestly, I'm more intrigued by the fact that Canadian audiences get to enjoy a Tim McCarver-free broadcast. Shouldn't we all have to suffer together?