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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

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Friedman tries to see through smoke on Day 2

Posted Dec 8, 2009 by Roger Mooney

Updated Dec 8, 2009 at 08:22 PM

Rays executive vice president of baseball Andrew Friedman actually stepped out of his suite at the Marriott Indianapolis Downtown on Tuesday but mostly to stretch his legs, he said.

He spent the second day of the Winter Meetings meeting with general managers from seven teams and had some form of contact with several others.

Friedman is still looking for arms for the bullpen, calling the free agent market “strong to quite strong.”

He said he has been aggressive with guys he has listed in their first tier.

“Then we’ll systematically move down the list,” he said.

Friedman said signing a free agent might take longer to materialize, and that a trade could happen faster, though he didn’t indicate that he is close to making a trade.

The hardest part of the process, he said is trying to determine which part of what the other GMs are telling him is fact and which is fiction.

“Everyone we’ve talked whether it is on the free agent front or trade front have an unbelievable market. Everyone,” Friedman said. “Everyone has five to seven teams inquiring about (the player in question). It’s getting hot and heavy. We have to sift through that. One of the challenging parts is the timing of different moves. That’s why going about it in a systematic way works best for us. And our belief is more often than not it’s going to work out for us in the process, though the result may not be optimal. But we’ll have to wait for some time to determine that, and so we can’t necessarily always react to that or we’d be dome with everything we’re looking for in the end of November. Everyone’s popular. It’s almost like there’s 40 teams in baseball. There aren’t enough spots for all these guys if all the teams have interest in everyone.”

The Cubs are still looking to move right fielder Milton Bradley, and reports Tuesday afternoon had them moving Bradley to an American League.

If it is the Rays than the Cubs have to agree to the Rays demands of picking up a significant portion of the $15 million Bradley will be owed over the next two seasons, otherwise the deal is off. The Rays will not budge on their request.