Twins pummel Mariners behind club-record 28 hits

This is run support.

WaPo: Daniel Murphy Asked An Umpire To Move, Got F-Bomb Instead

But Tuesday, Murphy’s ability to play defense diminished greatly when umpire Alan Porter stood in his line of sight early in the game.

Porter did not respond well to a request from Murphy, barking at the player, who appeared to try to reason with him. When the conversation was over, and Murphy could no longer see what Porter was saying, cameras caught the umpire muttering expletives at Murphy.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig makes pair of obscene gestures to stands after hitting a home run

Probably expressing his protest over the Cleveland logo!

Not shown there for obvious reasons is that Puig flipped the ol’ bird—two of them actually—toward someone or a group of people in the Progressive Field stands. Yes, two very visible middle fingers toward fans.
The gesture happened on Puig’s trip back to the dugout after crossing home plate. The area is very close to the on-deck circle, so we can probably do the math, right? People are all over Puig in the on-deck circle about how much he ...

Triple-A manager says New York Yankees prospect Gleyber Torres not yet ready for majors

Across town they have a SS ready defensively in AAA but the team is wedded to playing Jose Reyes, a shortstop who can’t field or hit.

“If you ask me today, if the call comes, he is not ready,” Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders manager Al Pedrique said Tuesday. “He is headed in the right direction. I like where he is at for a 20-year-old kid to be in Triple-A. He’s very mature, but defensively, he needs more work at third and second.”

Safeco Field, home of the Mariners, is getting a name change

Since before the late Dave Niehaus threw out the ceremonial first pitch on the day it opened, the emerald jewel of a stadium in the Sodo district has been known as Safeco Field.

But that will change after the 2018 season.

The Mariners and Safeco Insurance announced Tuesday that the naming-rights agreement for the stadium will not be extended following next season.

“Safeco Insurance has been a great partner of the Mariners dating back to the earliest days of the franchise, including the ...

Rovell: Senators aim to stop use of municipal funds to finance stadiums

Cory Booker, D-N.J., and James Lankford, R-Okla., are sponsoring a bill that would prohibit teams from using municipal bonds, whose interest is exempt from federal taxes, to help finance stadium construction.

. . .

The largest federal subsidies, according to the report, include the New York Yankees ($431 million), the Chicago Bears ($205 million), the New York Mets ($185 million), the Cincinnati Bengals ($164 million) and the Indianapolis Colts ($163 million).

Anything you say can and may be used against you in OMNICHATTER, for June 13, 2017

Posnanski: Almost Hall of Famers

1980: Here’s a fun trivia question: Before Ken Griffey was drafted in 1987, there had been 22 drafts meaning their had been 22 first overall picks.
Which first overall pick had the most WAR in his career?
If you are like me (which I know you are not) you immediately thought of Harold Baines, the first overall pick in the 1977 draft. Rick Monday had a terrific career. Both are good guesses.
But the answer (somewhat shockingly) is Darryl Strawberry in 1980.
Strawberry is, of course, one of the ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 6-13-2017

Pittsburgh Press, June 13, 1917:

Adolfo Luque, Cuban ballplayer, who started in to make good as a pitcher, has given up hurling and is going in for outfielding because of his ability to hit the ball. Manager Clymer of the Louisville Colonels thinks so much of his ability that Luque is the only extra outfielder now carried on the club.

After hitting .225 as a position player with the 1917 Louisville Colonels, Luque went back to the mound and it was the right move. As a big league pitcher, he won ...

Astros’ Carlos Correa is driven to become the best player in the game | FOX Sports

Proving you don’t have to go short on talent when you sign under slot.

Royce Lewis, Hunter Greene going 1-2 in the draft could help sell MLB to black youth

Will it really have much of an impact?

JetHawks’ Rodgers extends hit streak to 20 | MiLB.com News

He’s playing in a bandbox but what he’s doing is still pretty impressive.

Mariners select Kentucky 1B Evan White in first round of MLB draft | The Seattle Times

This is a very good pick at 17.

Twins take California high school shortstop Royce Lewis

With the flatter bonus structure, some analysts have said it will be more difficult to use the extra slot money to make an impact. We’ll see how much the Twins will save with this pick and what they can do with it. Boras gets to add another 1st overall pick to his portfolio.

Lewis becomes the 11th first-overall pick advised by powerful agent Scott Boras. That run started in 1983 with small college right-hander Tim Belcher, who didn’t sign with the Twins, and now includes six of the past 12 top ...

Cardinals send DeJong back to Memphis, signal changes to bench | Derrick Goold: Bird Land | stltoday.com

He says about the guy heading back to the minors.

The 23-year-old batted .244 with a .244 on-base percentage and a slugging percentage just below .400. He homered in his first at-bat, but he had only one extra-base hit to go with 11 strikeouts in his final 30 at-bats.

He proved proficient at second base, earning praise from Reds’ leadoff hitter Billy Hamilton for robbing a single from him last week in Cincinnati.

“They don’t make that play in the minors,” Hamilton said.

Rays Select Brendan McKay, Will Allow Him To Pursue Hitting and Pitching

“We were thrilled to select Brendan McKay as our fourth overall pick. This is a very rare talent, a player as a position player and as a pitcher warranted top of the draft consideration.” Rays Senior Vice President of Baseball Operations said. “At pick four, you never know how things are going to go ahead of you, but all we can say is that we our staff is thrilled to have selected him and hopefully have him in our organization.”

Although he was announced as a first baseman on MLB ...

Who is ‘The Freeze’? Meet the former college track star racing Braves fans between innings. - The Washington Post

The man behind the ski goggles and arctic-blue bodysuit — 26-year-old Nigel Talton of Fort Valley, Ga. — has been a member of the Braves’ grounds crew since 2012 and a track athlete since his junior year at Peach County High School, where he also played football.

Day 1 of 2017 Draft complete; Rounds 3-10 next | MLB.com

How does he look in jeans?

The top of the 2017 Draft was filled with upside, as the top three picks were all high schoolers for the first time since 1990, when Chipper Jones, Tony Clark and Mike Lieberthal went 1-2-3. The Twins nabbed toolsy shortstop/outfielder Royce Lewis with the No. 1 overall pick, making a last-minute decision to take him over Louisville two-way standout Brendan McKay.

“We see him as an impact player on both sides of the ball,” said Twins vice president of player personnel ...

Everything goes right for Mets — except Yoenis Cespedes | New York Post

Just when everything was looking up for the Mets.

When Yoenis Cespedes came back Saturday despite admittedly not being 100 percent, the cynics wondered how long he would last before getting hurt again.

The answer was two days.
...
But unlike the hamstring and quad injuries that cost their best player over three dozen games, the Mets insist Monday’s sore left heel isn’t new and isn’t serious. And it’s also not going to take the shine off a 6-1 win over the defending world-champion Cubs ...

Time for Major League Baseball to give Ozzie Guillen another chance

It will take an executive with a strong personality and an open mind to hire a larger-than-life manager likely to immediately change the culture of an organization.

Many are drafted, but few will OMNICHATTER, for June 12, 2017

Projecting Brewers Center Fielder Lewis Brinson | FanGraphs Baseball

Brinson’s come a long way since his early days as a professional, especially in the strikeout department. He struck out an alarming 38% of the time in Low-A back in 2013, but has hacked several percentage points off that mark since. His 22% strikeout rate in Triple-A this year is still a bit high, but not alarmingly so. He’s made this improvement without giving up much in other categories, either. His 20 extra-base hits, seven steals, healthy walk rate, and center-field defense more than ...

Explaining the economics behind Twins’ draft indecision

According to Baseball America, a Twins official said signability “will play a significant role.” With Twins general manager Thad Levine already on record as saying there is no “generational talent” in this year’s draft pool — no matter what Sports Illustrated would have you believe about Greene — it stands to reason the Twins will look for value.

LIVE: 2017 MLB Draft Day 1 | MLB.com

Remy Diagnosed With Cancer

In a sobering reveal on Monday, Red Sox TV color analyst Jerry Remy announced he has been diagnosed with lung cancer for the fourth time. He begins treatment in two weeks.

“Still strong,” Remy wrote on Twitter. “Please see your doctor.”

He will work the upcoming road trip then go for treatment.

WaPo: Fancy Stats: Today’s Yankees Are A Modern-Day Murderers’ Row

The Yankees have 14 games in which they hit three or more home runs this season, the most in franchise history over the first 60 games of the season. And this year’s squad also has three five-homer games in 2017, the most in the majors. This season, the Yankees have 102 home runs in 60 games, putting them on pace for 275 home runs over a 162-game season, which, if sustained, would eclipse the major league record set by the 1997 Seattle Mariners (264). The most ever by the Yankees was in 2012 ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 6-12-2017

Washington Times, June 12, 1917:

Kenneth Williams, who is starring in the outfield for the Portland, Ore., team in the Pacific Coast League, has been purchased by the Browns, and will be tried out next spring.

That worked out pretty well for the Browns.

Give Baseball Scouts a (Perfect) 80 for Tradition

“Eighty you’re a franchise player, 20 you’re nothing and 50 you’re average,” said Detroit Tigers General Manager Al Avila, the son of a scout and the father of a major-league catcher. “It’s always been that way.”

And if it hasn’t, there may be no one alive who remembers otherwise. Art Stewart, a senior adviser to Moore with the Royals, is 90 years old, born on Babe Ruth’s birthday in 1927. Stewart took his first scouting job with the Yankees in the early 1950s, when a ...

Aaron Judge hits MLB’s longest HR in 2017 | MLB.com

Wow!

OTP 12 June 2017: McCain Stays Up Late to Watch Baseball

The obvious baseball/politics tie-in of the week:

Arizona Sen. John McCain is blaming his convoluted line of questioning at Thursday’s James Comey testimony on his decision to stay up late the night before to watch a baseball game.

Many on Twitter were left scratching their heads after the 80-year-old Republican senator grilled Comey during the hearing about why the FBI closed its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, while continuing its probe of the Trump ...