Taking Back the Ballparks - Chicago White Sox

The latest ballpark to undergo a name change, dumping the harmless U.S. Cellular (which did provide a pretty good nickname, the Cell) to the ridiculous Guaranteed Rate Field, complete with its downward trending arrow. G-Rate Field, as absolutely nobody calls it, is the closest thing to a home park in MLB I have now, though I’d actually tab the U.S. Steel Yard in Gary as my true local diamond.

Whatever you call this field, it’s one of the odd ducks of major league stadia. It’s of similar ...

Michael Wilbon Weighs In On Jacob deGrom With Worst Baseball Take Of Year | MLB | NESN.com

I can’t watch the show. It’s like trying to follow the logic of two drunks arguing at the bar.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 11-16-2018

El Paso Herald, November 16, 1918:

KANSAS CITY MAY ENTER MAJOR BASEBALL FOR SEASON OF 1919

Baseball Experts Believe Packing Center Better Baseball City Than St. Louis, Where Two Major League Teams Divide Interest
...
Kansas City is said to be waiting to be struck by National league lightning. A story has been started to the effect that the franchise of the St. Louis Cardinals will be transferred to Kansas City and that Omaha will replace the Reef Town in the American association. There may be ...

How Kevin Brown Became Baseball’s First $100 Million Man

Twenty years after he declared himself “the new sheriff in town,” ex-Dodgers general manager Kevin Malone wants to emphasize one fact about the contract that permanently changed Major League Baseball: the charter plane trips for Kevin Brown’s family were not his idea.

“Everybody criticized us for granting a charter plane to fly Kevin’s family from Georgia for his starts,” Malone, the first general manager to sign a free agent to a nine-figure contract, states. “The Rockies ...

With win over All-Stars, Japan builds for 2020 Olympic gold

Coming off a strong showing against a team of Major League Baseball All-Stars, Japan manager Atsunori Inaba has every reason to be confident about his team’s chances of winning a gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Japan won the six-game exhibition series 5-1 against an MLB squad featuring National League Rookie of the Year Ronald Acuna Jr., fellow nominee Juan Soto and veteran catcher and nine-time gold glove winner Yadier Molina.

The tour was a chance for Inaba to gauge the progress of ...

Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen has kissed Rob Manfred’s ring

Let’s take a trip back to early last February. The hot stove season was as cold as ice. Despite spring training being less than two weeks away, scores of players remained unsigned and rumblings emerged that, perhaps, collusion was to blame.

The players were frustrated and there were reports that they were approaching the union to ask what, if anything, they could do about it. Some suggested some sort of wildcat strike or work slowdown or whatever. None of that seemed feasible or legal, but ...

Ben Zobrist, start designing your customized cleats. MLB grants players more shoe freedom.

ATLANTA—Baseball’s shoe police can go home.

Major League Baseball and its owners approved an amendment to the basic agreement that finally loosens restrictions on the design and colors of players’ footwear in games.

Players, such as Ben Zobrist of the Chicago Cubs and Mike Clevinger of the Cleveland Indians, were furious last season that they were being warned and fined by Major League Baseball if their footwear did not adhere to league-mandated rules.

Beats actually doing something ...

Marlins get rid of orange, cite South Florida cultures with new look

The Miami Marlins have unveiled new colors and a new logo in a rebranding effort under Derek Jeter’s year-old ownership regime, and the old orange is out.

Blue, black, red and gray are the new colors. The logo features a darting marlin above baseball seams and “Miami” in script.

Eh. I do like the cityscape background, but I preferred the old angular font.

Yelich, Betts Win MVPs

Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts was named the 2018 American League Most Valuable Player on Thursday, adding an appropriate finishing touch to a magical year for a team that won a franchise-record 108 regular-season games and its fourth World Series in 15 seasons, and Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich earned the NL MVP honors after leading Milwaukee to an NL-best 96 wins and a return to the playoffs for the first time in 2011.

Indians’ Trevor Bauer pleads his own Cy Young case using a spreadsheet on Twitter

The winners of the 2018 Cy Young award were revealed on Wednesday night, with Jacob deGrom of the Mets taking the NL side and Blake Snell of the Rays getting AL honors. Trevor Bauer of the Indians finished sixth in the AL, garnering one third-place vote, three fourth-place and four fifth-place.

Bauer didn’t appreciate how the vote went down.

Bauer listed a bunch of stats, and how he compared to Snell - with the obvious intent of showing how Snell wasn’t really any better than him.

1.  I’m ...

Rickey Won’t Quit

This isn’t a news article, but a direct link to a new Rickey 30 for 30 podcast about his age 46(!!) season with the San Diego Surf Dawgs. 

I got a kick out of it, I hope you do too.

Fox Sports inks multi-year rights agreement with Major League Baseball

FOX Sports and Major League Baseball have reached a new multi-year, multiplatform rights agreement expanding the network’s television, digital and Spanish-language rights and cementing FOX Sports as the home to baseball’s marquee events for the next decade. The agreement was announced today by Baseball Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr. and Executive Chairman of 21CF Lachlan Murdoch.

AL Central Offseason Preview

Kluber will be 33, but he’s a Cy Young finalist after going 20-7 with a 2.89 ERA in 2018. He’s signed through 2021 (including club options for 2020 and 2021) at below-market rates for a pitcher of his caliber, so he’s an attractive trade target.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 11-15-2018

New York Evening World, November 15, 1918:

Rumblings of a new disturbance in baseball came yesterday afternoon at the meeting of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues [in Peoria], when strong protest was made against the present system of drafting players from the minor leagues.

A resolution presented by A.R. Tearney, President of the Three I League, was passed without a dissenting vote.

The resolution demands that the American League and the National League relinquish the ...

An Update to Prospect Valuation | FanGraphs Baseball

Very interesting work. A couple of quibbles…the discount rate seems a little too low (maybe because they don’t factor in the teams’ player development costs); and, since prospects are already team property, approximate player value pegged to the player’s free agent value is less useful than approximate trade trade value. Nevertheless, some great work.

What follows are the present-day values of prospects based on the study performed above. The results are presented in present-day WAR and ...

How Mets, deGrom could get their contract extension done

My concept: A five-year, $155.5 million accord that would pay deGrom $20 million in 2019, $27.5 million in 2020 and then $36 million annually from 2021-23. The $31.1 million average would beat the annual value of all pitchers except Zack Greinke (I assume positionally that both Bryce Harper and Manny Machado will exceed the $31 million average of Miguel Cabrera this offseason). The $36 million seasons will top the most ever given in a single year to a pitcher (Max Scherzer has $35 million ...

Pirates acquire three players in trade with Tribe

Pittsburgh sent outfielder Jordan Luplow and infielder Max Moroff to Cleveland in exchange for utility infielder Erik Gonzalez and Minor League pitchers Tahnaj Thomas and Dante Mendoza, both 19-year-old right-handers. The 27-year-old Gonzalez could be part of the Pirates’ Opening Day roster, given their uncertainty at shortstop and second base.

Manny Machado doesn’t fit with Giants even if they clear infield space | NBCS Bay Area

Does anyone really think the Giants are going to spend much money this year?

Manny Machado: Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner wants ‘essential’ chat

He is Manny Machado, one of the greatest young players to hit the free agent market.

And this time, after all the years of trying to get below the luxury tax, the Yankees have no financial restrictions on signing the guy who could be the centerpiece of their infield for the next 10 years.

The $300 million question is whether the Yankees have the same interest in Machado as he has in them.

The Yankees have yet to publicly declare their interest in signing Machado, 26, and say they first want ...

2018 Cy Young Award winners | MLB.com

No surprises.

Prospects who stood out in Arizona Fall League

This is a surprising development for the Cubs.

Nico Hoerner, SS, Cubs’ No. 6
The Cubs’ 2018 first-rounder’s inexperience has been a non-factor in the AFL, where he’s hit .321 and looked like a player straight out of Double-A, and one possibly even on the cusp of the Majors. That’s not to say that Hoerner will springboard up the ladder in such fashion in 2019—but he certainly could. At the plate, he has a knack for barreling the ball to all fields, can handle velocity and adjust to secondaries, ...

Time running out for officials to reach stadium deal with Rays

Less than two months remain until the window closes on the three-year agreement that the city of St. Petersburg gave the Tampa Bay Rays to explore stadium options in Tampa.

But the team and elected leaders have yet to publicly reveal how the community would help pay almost $900 million to move the team to a new ballpark in Ybor City.

Zack Greinke trade makes sense for these teams

This is a very funny line.

Yes, Greinke is 35 and has a big contract—three years and $104.5 million remaining through 2021—but that might lower the required return.

Mike Elias Orioles general manager | MLB.com

Looks like the Orioles will soon join the revolution.

Update:

I’ve heard Mejdal will indeed come join Elias to build an R&D department in Baltimore. https://t.co/za2SDn0pek

— keithlaw (@keithlaw) November 14, 2018

Dodgers Rumors: All signs pointing to J.T. Realmuto being a Dodger

...Miami Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto has become a popular candidate for Dodger fans to get excited over. Realmuto reportedly wants out of Miami and the Dodgers have space for him now behind the plate.

These Dodgers rumors have now picked up steam with MLB Network’s Peter Gammons reported on Tuesday that the Dodgers are the most interested team in the Miami Marlins catcher. No longer is this something to merely get excited about but an actual possibility that the front office could make ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 11-14-2018

Philip [South Dakota] Pioneer, November 14, 1918:

When this cruel war is over, perhaps the major league clubs—and some of the minors, too, for that matter—will adopt the scheme of some of these ball teams of military aviators and make their trips in airplanes. Several instances are recorded of aviators setting out to play a ball game with some other service team making the trip through the air.

Baseball teams traveling by air? It’ll never happen. That’s just crazy.

Sale of Baseball Prospectus

...it is our pleasure to announce that today marks the newest of the many eras of Baseball Prospectus. A group of the site’s senior staff has purchased Baseball Prospectus, effective immediately. For the first time in a long time, BP will be run by BP again. By the people who have worked to make the site what it is.

Over the coming months, we’ll be making general improvements to the site as we refocus our energies on making BP the best it can be. This is an exciting time for us, as we’ll ...

2018 Manager of the Year winners | MLB.com

The established formula for winning the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s Manager of the Year Award is a regular-season result that greatly exceeds preseason expectation. Brian Snitker and Bob Melvin fit that formula perfectly in 2018, which made the announcement Tuesday night that they were selected as their respective leagues’ top skippers relatively unsurprising.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 11-13-2018

Memphis News Scimitar, November 13, 1918:

MAY SELL CARDS TO KANSAS CITY

When major league baseball is resumed, the home games of the St. Louis Nationals will be played in American league park in the Mound city unless they are played in Kansas City, Phil Ball, president of the St. Louis American league club, said after a conference with B.B. Johnson, president of the American league today.

Ball said that he had been approached by Cardinal stockholders who asked whether they could lease the ...

NYPost: Why Mets may be in hurry to reach David Wright settlement

With the help of Major League Baseball, the Mets are working with their insurance company to try to come to a settlement on the $27 million they still owe the medically unable-to-play David Wright, an industry source said.
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Because Wright played in the Mets’ next-to-last game of the season as a farewell (after a final comeback from his spinal stenosis fell short), the Mets would have to pay him fully for the first 59 games of next season, as per the terms of their policy. Starting in the ...