Seattle Mariners Fan

Links for Tuesday, as Andy Pettitte and Tim Lincecum celebrate birthdays…

• A’s assistant GM David Forst tells MLB.com’s Jane Lee that the club would like to add depth to its lineup, even after the Conor Jackson trade (Twitter link).
• Reds GM Walt Jocketty tells John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer that the club would consider trading for or signing a reliever.
• The Hanshin Tigers will pick up Matt Murton‘s option for 2011, according to Patrick Newman of NPB Tracker (via Twitter). Jack Moore of FanGraphs recently updated us on Murton’s success in Japan.
• Ben Badler of Baseball America hears that the Mariners will likely sign right-hander Jose Torres for $800K (Twitter link).
• MLBTR has an internship opportunity for a limited number of regular readers. Any skilled and experienced writers with an eye for detail should describe their experience as writers and editors in a couple sentences and e-mail mlbtrintern@gmail.com by the end of the day.
• Yunesky Maya was already unblocked, but he can sign with anyone now that he has been cleared by the FAC office, according to Enrique Rojas of ESPNdeportes.com (link in Spanish). 
• Chipper Jones could announce that he will retire after the season, according to Carroll Rogers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
• Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle says Nationals GM Mike Rizzo misread Stephen Strasburg and should have called him up early on in the season.
• From what Matt Cerrone of MetsBlog gathers, the Mets and Mariners have talked a lot about Cliff Lee.
• Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik declined to comment on whether the team would trade Lee now, according to Andrew Marchand of ESPNNewYork.com.
• Jay Greenberg of the New York Post says the Mets seem likely to keep relying on R.A. Dickey and Hisanori Takahashi, as tempting as Roy Oswalt may be.
• Buck Showalter and Phil Garner both told MLB.com’s Brittany Ghiroli that the O’s have yet to contact them about managing the club.
• Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times suggests the Cubs could benefit from becoming sellers. – it just wouldn’t be an easy sell to the fan base.
• David Ortiz tells Rob Bradford of WEEI.com that he misses Manny Ramirez, though the two didn’t socialize much beyond the ballpark.