Once upon a time Brandon McCarthy was considered a top pitching prospect and in December of 2006 the White Sox traded him to the Rangers for John Danks and Nick Masset.
That trade didn’t exactly work out well for Texas, in part because of Danks’ emergence as one of the league’s best southpaws and in part because McCarthy’s career has been wrecked by injuries.
He didn’t pitch in the majors at all this season and was limited to just 56 innings at Triple-A because of a stress fracture in his shoulder, but McCarthy pitched well in the minors when healthy, has a 1.96 ERA in four Dominican winter league starts, and is still just 27 years old despite seemingly being around (and more often than not on the disabled list) forever.
Jon Paul Morosi of FOXSports.com reports that McCarthy “has been scouted heavily in recent weeks” by a number of teams, including the Astros, Diamondbacks, Brewers, Padres, Mariners, Tigers, and A’s. Even setting aside his injury history McCarthy often struggled in Texas and Chicago because he’s an extreme fly-ball pitcher and both of those ballparks boost power hitting. San Diego, Seattle, and Oakland would be good fits for him in terms of limiting his weaknesses.