Can Oswalt Have His Cake And Eat It Too?

Roy Oswalt wants to pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals or the Texas Rangers.  Roy Oswalt wants to start and is not open to moving to the bullpen.  Roy Oswalt also wants a one year deal worth ten million dollars.

The Cardinals and Rangers have full pitching staffs that will see a hurler from each team spend time in the bullpen that have seen time on the mound at the beginning of a game.  There simply is no room for Oswalt in the rotation of either team and little room in the budget for either team, yet both are still engaged in “fluid talks” with the veteran right hander.

The Cardinals are the most logical fit.  While they have three pitchers (Jake Westbrook, Kyle Lohse, Kyle McClellan) that can fill the fourth and fifth spots in the rotation, Oswalt would be a markable upgrade and McClellan or Westbrook could easily pitch out of the bullpen.  The team is attempting to free up some cash by trading one of the aforementioned pitchers but is finding fewer buyers than what they would like.  A pure salary dump seems near impossible and the team is seemingly standing it’s ground with a lower offer than what Oswalt desires.

The Rangers have met with Oswalt, but seem to have less room for him in the rotation.  Many experts seem to feel, at this point, the Cardinals are the most likely landing spot for him, but it still takes an offer and a signature on the contract.

Roy Oswalt has a lot of demands and is summing them all up by saying there are two teams he wants to pitch for.  He is the first player in recent memory that has said “I want to play for this team, for this much, in this position.”  Talk about having your cake and eating it, too.  He may have an air tight list of demands, but it still requires the specific team to meet the demands.  The teams and the pitcher have entered a virtual staring contest over the situation.

I wonder who is going to blink?

Bill Ivie is the editor here at I-70 Baseball as well as the Assignment Editor for BaseballDigest.com.
He is the host of I-70 Radio, hosted every week on BlogTalkRadio.com.
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