More on shortstops 

Posted 10:42 AM by Sean
I realized yesterday that I had forgotten that Omar Vizquel is also a free agent this winter. Vizquel is 37 and made $6.25 million last year, but will probably come significantly cheaper in a one- or two-year deal this time around. His three-year splits:

vLHP: .262/.311/.371
vRHP: .282/.356/.400

Word is that the White Sox are most interested in Vizquel, and he seems like a guy who's not guaranteed to be any better than Eckstein in 2005, so the Angels probably aren't all that interested.

Meanwhile, via Halofan, we learn that the Chicago Sun-Times is apparently reporting that the Angels are interested in Nomar Garciaparra, with the intention of moving Eckstein to second base. I couldn't find the original Sun-Times article, but this one indicates that the Cubs "might be willing to cut a deal" with Garciaparra if he's willing to sign for three years at $7-8 million per. If the Angels have to offer more than that to obtain Garciaparra, I would hope like hell they'd try to get Renteria first. In any event, I suspect that this is typical column-filler at this point; of course the Angels are "interested" in Garciaparra, because they're exploring all their options.

For the record, Eckstein's played fourteen games at second base, all of them in 2001.