Mas weighing options amid Marlins’ refusal to grant exclusive window

Miami businessman Jorge Mas is considering whether to continue a pursuit of the Miami Marlins because he and the team haven’t agreed on multiple key issues, according to a source close to Mas.

Though Mas has continued his pursuit of the Marlins in recent days, the source said Mas is now “weighing all options” in the wake of the Marlins’ continued unwillingness to give him an exclusive negotiating window.

Mas and the Marlins also haven’t been able to agree on a price. The Marlins want at least ...

Players’ View: Who Can Handle the Ninth?

Larry Andersen, Philadelphia Phillies broadcaster, and former reliever: “I don’t know if you can actually tell prior to guys doing it. I use an analogy. If you put a tightrope from the top of the foul pole in right field to the top of the foul pole in left field, and you put a net there, anybody will try it. That’s a setup guy or a middle guy. The closer has to do it without the net. You feel the tension — your whole body tightens up — because one mistake and it’s over. You have to ...

Likely destinations for all the top stars on the block

The Brewers may be the most aggressive team pursuing Gray, who pitched three years for Brewers pitching coach Derek Johnson at Vanderbilt. The Brewers, whose rebuild has suddenly been accelerated by their first-place status in the NL Central, not only have the prospects, but also a fiery owner wanting to land him….

The Astros, 62-30, actually may be the team that most needs Gray. Sure, they’ll cruise to the AL West title with or without him, but with the way the Astros have dominated this ...

Weighing Yankees’ 1st-base trades, which are crucial for Matt Holliday

In theory, they could acquire someone such as Atlanta’s Matt Adams, Texas’ Mike Napoli or Toronto’s Kendrys Morales with the idea that they are the first basemen the rest of this year and then become the DH next year, providing also a better security blanket for Bird, who so far has shown a penchant for both injuries and slow healing. But that would mean not bringing back Matt Holliday, who has proven an asset as both a hitter and a clubhouse sage, particularly for Aaron Judge.

Anyway, ...

... and OMNICHATTER is all out of bubblegum, for July 18, 2017

Could Mike Trout and Bryce Harper become baseball’s all-time greatest superstar duo?

We’ve noted that Trout is on a best-ever kind of pace. What, then, does it mean if Harper emerges as an equal? What if we don’t just have Superman, but Batman too?

Would that mean we are seeing the best tandem of hitters we’ve ever seen in the game at the same time?

Using Bad Math to Get The Result You Want 101:

For Trout and Harper in 2017, I prorated the numbers for the full season. Then I made one fantastical leap: I assumed Harper’s 2016 numbers were an injury-caused fluke and gave him the ...

Apologetic Starling Marte returns, vows to ‘regain trust’ | TribLIVE

It will be interesting to see how he plays.

Mexico City Would Be MLB’s Highest Home Run Haven

Mexico City makes sense as a site for a few reasons, so it’s only logical for Manfred to keep the option alive. First, it’s enormous, with the largest metropolitan population (roughly 21 million) of any North American city, with the possible exception (according to some sources) of New York. Second, it’s a largely untapped market. As Manfred told Jayson Stark in an ESPN story last year, “a team in Mexico opens up the Mexican television market, which is significant in ways that are much ...

Amid maddening inconsistency, Herrera’s flashes for Phillies can’t be ignored | David Murphy

From the last part of 2015 through the first part of 2016, Herrera put together the near-equivalent of an entire season in which he drew 62 walks in 667 plate appearances, or 9.3 percent. During that stretch, he tallied 45 extra-base hits. He then put together a nearly yearlong stretch in which his walk rate plummeted (to 6.2 percent), but his extra-base-hit rate remained steady (7.0 percent). Over the last 37 games, his walk rate has undergone another proportionate drop (to 3.9 percent), but ...

Noah Syndergaard, Matt Harvey resume throwing | MLB.com

This is very sad.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 7-18-2017

Bridgeport Evening Farmer, July 18, 1917:

J. Franklin Baker of the Yankees was yesterday exonerated of blame for the alleged tampering with a player to influence him in jumping his contract with the St. Louis Browns. The exoneration followed the receipt of a letter from Baker in which he denied that he had approached Allen Sothoron, pitcher, to induce him to leave the Browns and join the Upland club of the Delaware County league in Pennsylvania.

Well, that answers the question I posed yesterday ...

Fangraphs: 2017 Trade Value: #1 to #10

Yeah, it finally happened. For the first time since 2011, Mike Trout is not atop this list… by the slimmest of margins, Carlos Correa is our new most valuable player in baseball when contracts are included in the discussion.

Would you trade Trout straight up for Correa?

Tomase: Steroids kept Red Sox great Dwight Evans out of Hall of Fame—advanced stats could’ve put him in

Evans is a prime example of a player whose career would be viewed very differently if he played today. He led the league in on base percentage once, OPS twice, and walks three times. As one of the game’s more unconventional leadoff hitters in 1985—he never stole more than eight bases in a season—he walked 114 times and scored 110 runs. Drop him to fifth or sixth, as the Red Sox did during the rabbit-ball year of 1987, and he responded with the best power numbers of his career, hitting .305 with ...

Dodgers asking $12 million a year for naming rights to field

Now, America’s third-oldest MLB venue is looking to defy MLB’s legacy as the most traditional sport even more aggressively by selling naming rights to the field in Chavez Ravine, home to the Los Angeles Dodgers since 1962. Numerous industry sources tell us that Dodger Stadium’s field — thus, it would be X Corp. Field at Dodger Stadium — has been on the market since early spring with an asking price of $12 million per season.

Sources tell us Entitle, the joint-venture naming-rights ...

Despite largest first half ratings drop, Royals still lead MLB in average local rating

But according to John Ourand and David Broughton of the Sports Business Journal, the sport’s local ratings have not been great this season. Per SBD, 18 of the 29 U.S.-based MLB teams have seen ratings fall, with the defending champion Chicago Cubs the most surprising of the laggards.

With a drop of 37%, the Royals have the largest negative ratings change of any team in baseball this season, though they still possess the highest local rating at 7.69. The White Sox, Marlins, Giants, and ...

This baseball-themed baby gender reveal didn’t quite go as planned | MLB.com

I knew the gender before the ball exploded. Throwing like a girl was a dead giveaway.

Cornering (and) the international market. | Texas Rangers Blog | The Newberg Report

Playing with the international bonus pool.

Mets should let a Jacob deGrom trade offer blow them away

Now, say you have Jacob deGrom. If you are the Mets, you love deGrom. He is a keeper, the one you planned to stick with throughout his prime.

But you are Sandy Alderson, and you notice the supply for top starters is thin and the demand great. Do you stick with the original strategy and ignore the market place? Or do you see what he is worth?

Because you have an idea of the value, but say a desperate team is willing to double that value, better positioning your team for years to come. And, lo ...

Monday, Monday, so good to OMNICHATTER, for July 17, 2017

How Aaron Judge Built Baseball’s Mightiest Swing - The New York Times

Approach or mechanics?

The Oakland right-hander Jesse Hahn, who struck Judge out twice and walked him once, said that Judge’s newfound ability to lay off pitches out of the strike zone is “a very superstar-like quality; very few guys can do that at that young of an age.”

As he patrolled center field last weekend at Yankee Stadium, the Brewers’ Broxton had a clear view of just how together Judge looked at the plate. Broxton said that when he faced Judge in the minors last year, he was ...

One year removed from his first start, Dylan Bundy still building identity in starting rotation - Baltimore Sun

Aces don’t usually throw 92 MPH.

In 32 starts since joining the rotation this time last year, Bundy is 16-13 with a 4.41 ERA and a 1.269 WHIP while striking out 7.8 batters per nine innings. This year, 12 of his 18 starts qualify as quality ones, and his 4.33 ERA leads the team. His peripheral stats indicate the 4.41 ERA could be flattering — his fielding-independent pitching (FIP), which calculates ERA based on factors in a pitcher’s control, is 5.02 as a starter.
...
When he worked as a ...

How the Colorado Rockies learned to (somewhat) tame Coors Field | SI.com

On the riddle that is Coors Field.

Are Red Sox bidding against themselves for Todd Frazier? | WEEI

I don’t see the Red Sox giving up a really good prospect for him. Their prospect depth isn’t fantastic right now.

Too early to tell If Aaron Judge has been hit by Derby jinx

People here often defend Davidoff apparently because he references stats that they like.  But this column definitively shows he is just another hack.  The notion that Judge was tired on Friday through Sunday afternoon, but ‘fresher’ Sunday night is particularly piquant.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 7-17-2017

Pittsburgh Press, July 17, 1917:

If agents of a mysterious independent club in the east have been dickering with George Sisler by mail, telegraph or phone, trying to get Sis to quit the Browns, their efforts have not beein received by Sisler.
...
Not only Sisler but Allan Sothoron, Tom Rogers and Earl Hamilton—these four members of the eighth-placers have received attractive offers to quit the Browns and join this mysterious independent organization in the east.
...
[Sisler:] “No one has come to ...

NPB should do more to spice up All-Star experience

If NPB officials need any ideas, there’s already a blueprint in South Korea, where the Korea Baseball Organization has done something similar for several years.

This year, in addition to one home run derby held across two days, the KBO held a Perfect Pitcher competition, a timed event where hurlers tried to knock down bats, and a Perfect Hitter event, where batters aimed for targets while hitting off a tee. The league also held its minor league All-Star Game as part of the All-Star weekend. ...Read More...

RoyalsRetro (AG#1F) Posted: July 17, 2017 at 09:39 AM | 1 comment(s)
  Beats: all-star game, japanese baseball, korean baseball

OTP 17 July 2017: Love is baseball, family. Keep the politics out

This is baseball, and it’s our cocoon, our special time together, protected from the harder realities of life. Here, the sun is always shining, even if it rains.

If you don’t understand that, you’ve probably never lifted a child up over your head to watch adults scramble after a ball or circle the bases after crushing a home run. Or maybe you’ve never slid head first into a mud puddle without a care of how you would get past your mom and into the laundry room. Maybe you’ve never sat ...

Bob Wolff, Sports Broadcaster for Nearly 80 Years, Dies at 96

In the 1950s, when the original Senators were continuing to finish far from first place, Mr. Wolff knew that their long-suffering fans needed diversions from the team’s habitual losing.

On Memorial Day 1957, the Senators were playing a doubleheader against the Yankees at Griffith Stadium when he picked out an ostensibly typical fan in the stands to interview on the radio between games.

In a memoir, “It’s Not Who Won or Lost the Game — It’s How You Sold the Beer” (1996), Mr. Wolff ...

Billy Beane insists A’s committed to major rebuild

“Really, what’s been missing the last 20 years is keeping these players,” Beane said. “The frustration isn’t that we’ve had success, the frustration is that after success, we haven’t kept them, and we need to change that narrative by creating a good team and ultimately committing to keeping them around, so that when people buy a ticket, they’ll know that the team is going to be there for a few years.”....

“First of all, we have to take a look at where we are - we’re in ...

Angels Designate Danny Espinosa For Assignment | MLB Trade Rumors

Espinosa was acquired from the Nationals last offseason as a possible answer to their long-standing hole at second base, though 2017 has been a disastrous year for the 30-year-old.  Espinosa has hit just .162/.237/.276 over 254 plate appearances for Los Angeles, owning both the lowest wRC+ (40) and the sixth-highest strikeout rate (35.8%) of any player with at least 250 PA this season.