OMNICHATTER is ready to discuss new business, for July 14, 2017

Gwinnett Braves Announce Finalists for Team Renaming Constest

“The final six options are the Gwinnett Buttons, the Gwinnett Big Mouths, the Gwinnett Gobblers, Gwinnett Hush Puppies, Gwinnett Lambchops and the Gwinnett Sweet Teas.”

Those are some truly lousy choices for team name, save one.
There is only one real choice here: “Gwinnett Buttons”.
The name would honor Georgia signer of the Declaration of Independence, and county namesake, Button Gwinnett.

And it won’t sound so strange when Lin-Manuel Miranda & Stephen Colbert bring their hit, one-song ...

The Marlins are completely weird, but one day they’ll be a baseball powerhouse

The Marlins won, and they said “nope.” Then they won again, and they said, “Eh.” They got a brand new stadium, and they pretended like they weren’t going to say “nope” again, but then they said “NOPE,” all-caps. Those decisions might have made sense to the people making them at the time, but they led to some pretty thick scar tissue for anyone interested in Miami baseball.

That will change. New owners are coming in, with Derek Jeter fighting against Jeb Bush, unless they’re ...

Michael Pineda has torn elbow, seems headed for Tommy John

Michael Pineda has been recommended for Tommy John surgery, according to Yankees general manager Brian Cashman.

Pineda has been diagnosed with a partial tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. He will receive a second opinion, but surgery — which would keep him sidelined possibly until 2019 — is likely. Pineda will become a free agent after this season, meaning his stint in pinstripes is likely over.

Red Sox Designate Pablo Sandoval For Assignment

The Red Sox announced that they have activated struggling third baseman Pablo Sandoval from the disabled list and designated him for assignment. Sandoval is midway through the third season of a five-year, $95MM contract.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 7-14-2017

Chicago Eagle, July 14, 1917:

...the magnitude of the sugar industry in the continent south of us, resulting from the demand growing out of the war, has attracted many Cuban baseball players to the continent and these men have organized baseball teams and started to play the great American game.
...
As a result, baseball promises to become at least as well known, if not as popular, in Latin America as it is in the West Indies. The South Americans are a sport-loving people, and once the ...

The baseball schedule needs more days and fewer games

To this end, both MLB and the Players Association are trying to reduce the scheduling burden.

Besides the four extra off-days, the new CBA addresses other concerns, specifically travel. MLB has created an algorithm that produces an efficiency metric to score the difficulty of each trip based on such variables as travel distance and arrival time. To lower the scores, there will be more day games on getaway days to try to avoid 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. arrival times in the next city and shorter ...

Colby Rasmus to ‘Step Away’ from MLB, Placed on Restricted List by Rays

Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Colby Rasmus is taking a leave of absence from Major League Baseball.

The Rays announced Thursday that they’ve placed Rasmus on the restricted list and released a statement in support of his decision:

Per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, Rasmus is not expected to return during the 2017 season.

Nationals declare ‘major legal victory’ after court ruling vs. MASN

An appeals court has ruled that a committee of Major League Baseball owners and executives can determine the amount of rights fees the Washington Nationals can earn from television broadcasts of their games.

The Nationals declared Thursday that they’ve “won a major legal victory” with this ruling.

This is the latest chapter in a lengthy dispute between the Nationals and the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, which is controlled by the Baltimore Orioles. MASN was established in March 2005 after the ...

Cubs Acquire Jose Quintana

In a stunning development, the Cubs have acquired lefty Jose Quintana from the crosstown rival White Sox, per club announcements. Top prospects Eloy Jimenez and Dylan Cease are going in return, with first baseman Matt Rose and infielder Bryant Flete also included in the package.

Alex Rodriguez shares his four-point plan to save baseball

Rodriguez wants the league and its broadcasters to implement live footage of what’s going on at all times within the ballpark. He wants MLB and Google to come together on sharing background information and social media posts from players. On every month’s first Tuesday, Rodriguez calls on the owners to charge just $10 per ticket.

Rodriguez’s final point is to implement microphones on every player, coach and manager during games. This certainly would appear to be the toughest one to get ...

If Mike Trout played the rest of his career in Korea - an OOTP experiment

I used OOTP, a highly realistic baseball simulation game, to get the answers I wanted. I placed Mike Trout on Korea’s KT Wiz, the team playing in the biggest hitters’ park in the league. To ensure Trout didn’t get homesick before I was through with him, I deleted the MLB and all its players and prospects. The only baseball league in the world is the Korean Baseball Organization, and its superstar is Mike Trout. At only age 24 going into the first season, can the Millville Meteor become ...

Red Sox third base prospect Rafael Devers on a fast track to the majors

That might be a bit of an exaggeration in discussing a 20-year-old, but there are markers of change. Devers’s beaming smile no longer glistens with a mouth full of braces as it did in his prior Futures Game. He features a wisp of a mustache — the source of jibes among his Double A Portland teammates — but an impossibility for him as a teenager two years earlier. And the tattoo on his arm of his daughter Rachel’s name attests to a fundamental life change.

“Two years ago, I was playing ...

One night with Phillies pitching prospect Sixto Sanchez and his 100-mph fastball

Hopefully he can stay healthy.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 7-13-2017

Bridgeport Evening Farmer, July 13, 1917:

One of the queerest plays that ever happened on a baseball diamond came in the fourth inning of the second game [of a doubleheader between the Giants and Reds].
...
Two men were out and Chase was on second base when Neale came to bat. As Perritt started to wind up preperatory to pitching a fan threw back a ball which had been fouled into the stands…Harrison, the field umpire, called time. Perritt, who already was in the act of pitching, let the ball go ...

KC Royals don’t exactly follow MLB Spanish translator rule | The Kansas City Star

Do they really need a dedicated translator if they have other multilingual staff?

Taking advantage of a loophole in the rule, the Royals have a translator in coach Pedro Grifol who is not professionally trained to interpret responses verbatim. While pieces of their interviews have been lost in translation, players still endorse Grifol’s approach.

“Sometimes in the heat of the moment you say things,” former Royals designated hitter Kendrys Morales told The Star in Spanish. “But it’s ...

Orioles’ Trey Mancini looks to extend his rookie roll by continuing to learn and adapt - Baltimore Sun

How’s those Trumbo and Davis contracts looking now? Maybe the Orioles should have made signing Manny Machado a bigger priority.

COLUMN: CAN’T SOMEBODY SPEED UP THE GAME OF BASEBALL?

I’ve criticized the All Star game format and the pace of play separately and previously. The reason for the huge drop in ratings for the game, however, isn’t either of those things. When I was a kid, the only chances to see a NL player (and some AL players) were the Saturday afternoon game of the week and the All Star Game. We can watch every player *every day*. I can literally watch any game I want to watch Friday.

The reasons are varied, and not hard to find. Interleague play has taken the ...

Braves top prospect Ronald Acuna, 19, promoted to Triple-A

Would they really want to add him to the 40 this season?

Last week Acuna was named the No. 1 prospect in the Braves’ talent-rich minor league system and No. 10 overall by Baseball America in its midseason Top 100. He won’t turn 20 until December and it’s within the realm of possibility that Acuna could make his major league debut at some point this season if the Braves have an outfield need.

Ken Rosenthal Now Writing On Facebook Because Fox Sports Sucks

Ken Rosenthal, who has been at FOX Sports since 2005, tweeted this afternoon that he is “wait[ing] to find a new writing home” now that FoxSports.com is all-video. Yikes.

Rosenthal is one of the industry’s top baseball reporters, and is flexible in his ability to break news and transactions and still file insightful columns. That he of all people would be displaced from his writing platform is bleak.

In the meantime, Rosenthal will be posting his columns to Facebook, he says

As I wait ...

N.J. baseball star Jason Groome’s father arrested on drug and weapons charges

Jason Groome, 43, of Barnegat, is accused of distributing, possessing and possessing with intent to distribute cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. He was also charged with possessing a 9 mm handgun and possessing the handgun while committing a drug offense.

...Groome’s son is Jason Groome, 18, who was drafted by the Boston Red Sox last year.

Aaron Judge and Bryce Harper are no Steph Curry, and that’s on baseball

Yea, why can’t Aaron Judge be more like that showy self-promoter Steph Curry?

That admiration for self-restraint is something with which baseball must grapple, because it is simultaneously admirable and constraining. Baseball players who adhere to the traditions and mores of the sport believe no one player is more important than the team, that showmanship designed to draw attention to yourself has no place in the game, that individuality should be suppressed. On one hand, that’s what you want ...

It’s Time To Debate The Future Of Baseball

To weigh in on the present and future of baseball, The NY Post organized an All-Star panel of players past and present, an MLB competition committee member and two Hall of Fame voters. Mets outfielder Curtis Granderson, Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia, YES broadcaster David Cone and Mets general manager Sandy Alderson joined The Post’s Joel Sherman and Ken Davidoff to discuss all things baseball:

Why baseball purists will always be wrong

It does not take too much digging to find baseball obituaries offered for, among other things: the advent of televised games, the designated hitter, the wild card, the league that won the All-Star Game being handed home-field advantage for the World Series. The game has escaped imminent demise more often than James Bond. It always has been evolving — in rules, in style of play, in embracing technology.

“This is a historic fact — every innovation in base ball has been bitterly fought ...

Baseball Tackles Workplace Mystery: How to Build Team Chemistry?

Victor Conte knows!

“Chemistry is absolutely critical, but very few teams or managers or general managers know how to create it or even have any idea how to create it,” said Houston Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, the leader of perhaps the most data-driven front office in the majors. “You know it’s important, but you don’t know what the levers are to change it.”

But what if they did? Corporate managers and armies of consultants have wrestled with this question for decades, and ...

Ratings: MLB All-Star Game Ticks Up

Fox’s coverage of the MLB All-Star Game drew 8.6 million total viewers and a 2.2 demo rating during primetime, ticking up from last year’s fast nationals (8 mil/2.0). The year-ago contest went on to tally 8.7 mil and a 2.2 in the finals.
Over on NBC aka the only other broadcast-TV game in town, America’s Got Talent (12.3 mil/2.4) dipped a tenth week-to-week but led the night in both measures. World of Dance (7.2 mil/1.7) also ticked down.

Here are historical All-Star Game ratings

How Thomas Boswell ranked all 30 MLB ballparks, and grouped them in four tiers

7. New York Yankees. They almost ruined it with the “new” Yankee Stadium. It will never be as good as the old place. In its worst elements, it’s a crass cash factory for the rich. In its best elements, it still feels like its Yankee Stadium, white facade and all. The park doesn’t “play” as well as it once did with far too many cheap home runs to right and right-center field. The Babe would hit 75 homers in this bandbox….

17. Kansas City used to be in my top 10 easily. Then they ...

Taking Back the Ballparks

In two years, the Seattle Mariners will have a new stadium to call home, without changing their address. The ballpark to be formerly known as Safeco Field is undergoing a corporate name change. In 2019, King Felix, Robinson Cano and Kyle Seager will be playing in Boeing Park, or Microsoft Yards or Starbucks Lot. Whatever the new moniker, chances are it will be a downgrade.

As corporate names go, Safeco isn’t bad, much closer to Citi Field than Guaranteed Rate Field. But even if the new name ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 7-12-2017

Ottawa [Illinois] Free Trader-Journal, July 12, 1917:

When the Providence International league team arrived in Newark, N.J., recently to play the Bears they discovered that Tom Needham’s players were unable to take the field. The trunks and grips in which Newark’s bats, gloves, masks, shoes and uniforms were packed had gone astray, and President Price was at a loss to know what had become of them. So the game had to be postponed. The Providence and Newark players had an afternoon off and made ...

Juiced baseballs? Rob Manfred says he’s ‘certain’ balls are within specified limits - CBSSports.com

A Jonah Keri two-fer.

How much more would it cost narrow the specifications allowed?
According to Wikipedia:

A baseball is a ball used in the sport of the same name, baseball. The ball features a rubber or cork center, wrapped in yarn, and covered, in the words of the Official Baseball Rules “with two strips of white horsehide or cowhide, tightly stitched together.” It is 9.00–9.25 inches (228.60–234.95 mm) in circumference, (2.86–2.94 in or 72.64–74.68 mm in diameter), and masses ...