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 ...

Q&A: Damon Minor on Giants’ Steven Duggar, Chris Shaw, Aramis Garcia

For the past two seasons — either in Triple-A Sacramento or the Arizona Fall League — Damon Minor has worked with the Giants prospects trio of Steven Duggar, Chris Shaw and Aramis Garcia. In 2018, Minor saw all three of them as the River Cats’ hitting coach before each player made their major league debuts in San Francisco.

NBC Sports Bay Area recently spoke to Minor, as the former Giants first baseman assessed each hitter’s development at the plate.

The sort of analysis one must ...

MLB Trade Rumors: Phillies ‘Expecting to Spend Money’ in Pursuit of Bryce Harper, Manny Machado

First task of the Phillies negotiators: making sure that Harper and Machado have no knowledge whatsoever about the nature of Phillies fans.

Braves’ Braxton Davidson hits walk-off home run in AFL championship, appears to break foot on way to plate

Major League Baseball’s Arizona Fall League held its championship game on Saturday in Scottsdale, Arizona. Atlanta Braves prospect Braxton Davidson hit a walk-off home run to give the Peoria Javelinas a 3-2 win over the Salt River Rafters.

Judging by the bat flip, he’s clearly on the highest of highs from the walk-off win. The 22-year-old ranked third in home runs (six) during the 2018 AFL season.

But after Davidson rounds the bases and as he’s about to join his teammates at home plate for ...

Heyman’s Latest: Mets, Machado, Red Sox, Dodgers, Marlins

Jon Heyman of Fancred hears that the Mets have decided they’d rather spread their money around to various areas than splurge on Machado.

Oh good, more mid-tier free agents.  THAT IS WHAT THEY ALWAYS DO AND FAIL.  A 3 WAR player isn’t an “impact bat.”  It’s a supporting cast member.

Report: Dodgers’ Kenley Jansen to Undergo Heart Surgery, Expected to Return for Spring Training

Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen will undergo heart surgery on Nov. 26 and is expected to be fully recovered prior to spring training, Ken Gurnick of MLB.com reports.

Jansen announced the upcoming surgery on Friday at the Dodgers’ annual Thanksgiving Turkey Giveaway. Recovery is expected to take anywhere between two to eight weeks depending on what the doctors find during surgery.

“If we don’t find anything, so let’s say they go in and nothing happens, everything is good, I will be done in two ...

MLB rumors: How Dodgers’ Dave Roberts could replace Giants’ Bruce Bochy

The Giants already made one drastic change to their franchise this offseason in hiring Farhan Zaidi away from the Los Angeles Dodgers as their new president of baseball operations. Another year from now, could they add another prominent figure from their archrival?

According to FanCred’s Jon Heyman, the Dodgers and manager Dave Roberts appeared close to a multiyear contract extension a week ago, but they now sit at a standstill, unable to come to an agreement. Roberts is said to be on vacation ...

The View is Always Better When You’re the Lead Dog

Mike Trout, the best player in baseball, was not named American League MVP yesterday.

He does, however, join a pretty exclusive club.

Carson Cistulli From Fangraphs Joins the Blue Jays

Here is a surprise, the Jays scouting department is going in a more esoteric direction.  All scouting reports will now need to be in the form of a haiku or sonnet.

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.