The Athletic: Padres recently took out $50 million loan to help cover payroll: sources

Despite selling more tickets this season than all but one Major League Baseball team, the San Diego Padres took out a loan for about $50 million in September to address short-term cash flow issues and meet their obligations, including player payroll, people briefed on the team’s finances told The Athletic.

MLB teams commonly tap into lines of credit to pay their bills, prompting some officials in the sport to suggest any concern should be tempered because the Padres were ultimately creditworthy enough to draw the loan. But other officials briefed on the team’s finances who were not authorized to speak publicly viewed the Padres’ situation as worrisome.

“The Padres organization continues to have access to all the resources, ...

OT - November* 2023 College Football thread

The longest month.

* 30 days hath November, except in the college football thread, where it runs through Championship Week before giving way to the Bowl Spectacular.

State AGs Urge Supreme Court to Review MLB Antitrust Exemption

On Monday they filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to review a case involving two minor league baseball teams, the Tri-City ValleyCats and Norwich Sea Unicorns, that lost their MLB affiliations during the MiLB reorganization a few years ago. Through their attorneys at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, the ValleyCats and Sea Unicorns petitioned the Supreme Court last month.

As detailed in Sportico, the case centers on whether MLB and its teams unlawfully conspired under federal antitrust law. MLB won at the district court and federal appellate levels, with judges explaining MLB is exempt from antitrust scrutiny per the Supreme Court’s 1922 decision in Federal Baseball Club v. National League—a decision the Court upheld 50 years later ...

Rob Manfred says MLB might look to further limit the number of pitchers teams can carry

“Historically, starting pitchers have been some of the biggest stars in the game,” Manfred said Friday before Game 1 of the World Series. “And I think the way that pitching is being used right now has caused a diminution in that star kind of quality for some of our starters, and I do think it’s an issue that we should talk about.”

Manfred works for the 30 team owners, and he said they care about the disappearance of the starting pitcher for the same reason the league implemented a slate of rules designed to alter the aesthetic of the sport.

“I think they care because it’s relevant to how our fans see the game,” he said. “To the extent that what we did this year in terms of rule changes was successful, I think that it was ...

Dick Bremer, Twins TV broadcaster for 40 years, retires to become a team ambassador

Dick Bremer, the television voice of the Twins for the past 40 seasons, will leave the broadcast booth and join the team’s front office as a special assistant.

He retires as the longest-tenured television broadcaster for a single team in Major League Baseball.

The Twins are assessing their broadcasting options for next season as Diamond Sports, parent company of Bally Sports North, works through bankruptcy.

Bremer’s new role will include being a team representative at Twins community and fan events.

In a news release, Bremer said, “In those 40 years, I broadcast 4,972 Twins games. Over the last year or so, I thought it would really be cool to make it to 5,000. Then, I thought to myself, how selfish would that be? A broadcast should ...

The story behind the greatest bat flip in World Series history

Tom Lawless was never a slugger. He never hit home runs. He’ll tell you that himself, using almost any other possible description for a ballplayer.

“Never a power hitter,” Lawless said in a Zoom call. “More of a line-drive hitter, base stealer, scoring runs kind of guy. Middle-infielder. Small guy. Table-setter kind of guy.”

The most he ever hit was 13 during a Minor League season in Indianapolis in 1983. He had two over his entire eight-year MLB career. His career slugging average was .258. He had 24 total RBIs.

But on one chilly October night in 1987, at the old Busch Stadium, Lawless transformed into a home run legend.

Tied up with the Twins, 1-1, in the fourth inning of Game 4 of the World Series, the mustachioed utility-man from ...

Dodgers’ Mookie Betts hopes MLB teams consider signing ‘awesome guy’ Trevor Bauer, report says

“My experience with Bauer is not anything remotely close to what everyone else’s experience is. I love him. I think he’s an awesome guy. The personal things? I have no control. I have no say. Obviously, nothing ever came from it,” Betts told the Los Angeles Times.

“He’s an awesome pitcher. He’s a great guy, somebody who wants to take the mound every fifth day. But, at the end of the day, I don’t make the decision. That’s a decision that’s not as simple as baseball.”

Bauer and a woman who accused him of beating and sexually assaulting her in 2021 settled their legal dispute this month, according to Bauer’s attorneys. Bauer was placed on administrative leave by MLB in July 2021 after the allegations were made by the ...

Fox isn’t showing the pitch clock during the World Series. Fix it, Fox!

As was explained in a demonstration last February in Arizona, the clocks were specifically placed at ballparks so that they did not show in the center field camera shot that most TV channels use for nearly every pitch. This was a good idea — there’s no need to distract the viewer with the constantly counting clock a major feature of the picture you’re seeing. But since it is an important part of the game — and a violation of the timer results in a ball or a strike — TV channels made it a part of their on-screen scorebox graphic. Thus, if you wanted to glance at it you could, but you didn’t have to.

That is, every TV channel except Fox.

Fox didn’t show the timer during its regular season coverage either….

To sum up the ...

How the Diamondbacks were built with challenge trades that dared to believe in key stars such as Game 1 starter Zac Gallen

Rare in an era in which swaps often occur between contenders and rebuilders and involve major-leaguers and prospects, this type of swap flips like for like. A challenge trade eschews the inherent delayed gratification — and, therefore, the relative safety of delayed judgment — of deals that spring from opposing locations on the win curve and instead epitomizes the boldest type of player evaluation a front office can express: We believe in that player so much that we’ll give you this really good one in return.

Game 1 starter Zac Gallen, NLCS MVP Ketel Marte, breakout catcher Gabriel Moreno and veteran outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. were all acquired by Hazen in challenge trades. They are all players who initially inspired faith from ...

Washington Nationals Mourn The Loss of Frank Howard

The Washington Nationals join the Howard family in mourning the loss of Washington Senators great Frank Howard. Howard’s decades-long career as a player, coach and manager leaves an indelible legacy on the sport of baseball, and he will long be remembered as one of the best players to ever wear the Curly W….

“Hondo” came to D.C. on Dec. 4, 1964, as part of a seven-player trade with the Dodgers, and a love affair between player and town began almost immediately. Teammates, media and fans alike marveled at Howard’s tape-measure home runs, many of which taunted cavernous D.C. Stadium’s dimensions.

Howard represented the Senators in four Mid-Summer Classics and led the American League in home runs twice (44 in both 1968 and ’70). ...

Nippon Ham pitcher Uwasawa seeking MLB move

Nippon Ham Fighters starting pitcher Naoyuki Uwasawa said Saturday he will try to sign with a major league club this offseason through the posting system.

The 29-year-old right-hander had a 9-9 win-loss record with a 2.96 ERA in 24 games in 2023, throwing 170 innings, the most in the Pacific League. He was 70-62 with a 3.19 ERA in 173 games over nine seasons, all with the Fighters.

“Teams need pitchers that can eat up innings,” Uwasawa told a press conference in Kitahiroshima, just outside Sapporo. “I can contribute by going many innings without getting an injury.”

Why you, as a baseball fan, shouldn’t worry about the ratings for Rangers-Diamondbacks

I don’t know when, as sports fans, our now-omnipresent fascination with ratings began. I don’t remember people griping about the ratings when, say, the worst-to-first Braves and Twins played in 1991 or the Buffalo Bills played in their fourth straight Super Bowl or the Chicago Bulls played in six of eight NBA Finals. But now, as if we’re all TV execs worried about ad dollars, every postseason matchup gets filtered through a lens of ratings viability. Big teams and big stars: good! Small-market teams and unknown players: bad!

Ridiculous. Maybe this fascination with ratings has arisen because we’re living in a particularly argumentative era, and fans swing ratings as a cudgel to pound home whatever larger point they’re trying to ...

Is Diamondbacks Vs. Rangers the Most Unlikely World Series Matchup Ever?

FanGraphs projections gave the Rangers a 4.9 percent chance to reach the World Series (ninth best in the AL), which seems low but was much higher than the Diamondbacks’ mere 1.2 percent chance (10th best in the NL). Multiply those two probabilities together, and there was a 0.06 percent chance of this matchup, or about 1 in 1,700.

If you want a single answer for just how unexpected this World Series matchup is, that’s your number: about 1 in 1,700. In the 10 years of FanGraphs playoff odds data, dating back to 2014, that’s tied for the lowest probability of any eventual World Series matchup. Previously, in 2015, the projections didn’t believe in the Mets or the Royals (who had just made the World Series but were infamously ...

D-backs’ Ketel Marte hits in record 18th straight postseason game

Marte, 30, unseated Hall of Famer Derek Jeter, 12-time All-Star Manny Ramirez and Hank Bauer, a seven-time World Series champion with the New York Yankees. The first four games of Marte’s streak came in 2017, and he has hit safely in all 14 of Arizona’s games this postseason, the latest Arizona’s 9-1 victory against the Texas Rangers that evened the series.

“I know what type of player I am,” Marte said. “When I’m healthy, I can do very well.

“I never imagined doing something like this,” he continued. “But ... I believe in my talent.”

Potential Yankees, Mets free agent target could get $200 million, report says

Per Mike Puma of The New York Post:

A person connected to the front office of a team that may pursue Yamamoto indicated there’s a good chance the Yamamoto bidding will start somewhere in the $200 million range for six or seven years.

That would give Yamamoto the third-largest contract in MLB history, trailing only Yankees’ Gerrit Cole ($324 million) and Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg ($245 million). Depending on the number of years, it would either be the sixth-largest (if it’s six years, he’d earn $33.3 million per year) or the eighth-largest contract (if it’s seven years, he’d earn $28.6 million per year) by annual average value.

Postseason Starting Pitching Ain’t What It Used to Be, After All

So much for the return of postseason starting pitching. For the fifth year out of the last seven, starters are averaging fewer than five innings per turn, and the dropoff from the regular season is the second-largest we’ve seen in the last five years….

As a group, this year’s postseason starters just haven’t been that effective. Thanks in no small part to the extra off-days built into postseason schedules, managers have become increasingly willing to turn the ball over to their bullpens rather than stick with starters, whether they’re struggling or not (just ask Suárez, José Berríos, Brandon Pfaadt, et al). Via that last column, you can see that while starters are actually allowing more runs per game (not per nine innings) than ...

Sean Casey says he won’t return as Yankees hitting coach

Sean Casey says he will not return as the New York Yankees hitting coach next season, citing his desire to spend more time with his family.

Casey announced his decision Wednesday on his podcast, “The Mayor’s Office with Sean Casey,” ending speculation about the three-time All-Star first baseman’s future with the Yankees.

Casey emphasized that spending more time with his daughters, ages 13 and 17, is a priority because of his divorce from a few years ago.

2023 Fielding Bible Award Winners

This year’s winners are:

Position Name Team
Player of the Year Ke’Bryan Hayes Pirates
1B Christian Walker Diamondbacks
2B Andrés Giménez Guardians
3B Ke’Bryan Hayes Pirates
SS Dansby Swanson Cubs
LF Steven Kwan Guardians
CF Kevin Kiermaier Blue Jays
RF Fernando Tatis Jr. Padres
C Gabriel Moreno Diamondbacks
P Zack Greinke Royals
Multi-Position Mookie Betts Dodgers

A’s Las Vegas ballpark construction timeline revealed

Construction on the Oakland Athletics’ Las Vegas ballpark is scheduled to begin in April 2025 and be completed in January 2028.

The tentative timeline was noted Wednesday during a presentation by Mortenson-McCarthy, the A’s ballpark construction manager, to the Las Vegas Stadium Authority….

One aspect of the draft lease agreement that differs from the Raiders and Allegiant Stadium is what happens to the facility after the initial 30-year lease is up. The A’s have the right to extend the lease with four 15-year extensions and one nine-year extension. The A’s will also have a purchase option on the the stadium after the initial 30-year lease expires.

The two sides are also still working on what happens in the event that the A’s ...

Braves re-sign Pierce Johnson to two-year, $14.25M deal

he Braves re-signed reliever Pierce Johnson to a two-year, $14.25 million contract Wednesday in the first offseason move for the team that posted baseball’s best record this season.

Johnson, who provided the Braves with a hard-throwing option out of the bullpen after being acquired from Colorado, will make $7 million each of the next two seasons. The deal also includes a $7 million club option for 2026 with a $250,000 buyout.

Sources: Yankees, Padres have had preliminary Juan Soto conversation

The Yankees have already had one preliminary conversation with the San Diego Padres this offseason about superstar outfielder Juan Soto, league sources say. Talks have not yet progressed beyond that initial check-in.

The Yankees need more offense. They need a left-handed bat. And after missing the playoffs in 2023, they could use a conversation changer. Soto would certainly check all those boxes.

Most pie-in-the-sky, star-studded trade ideas are too complex to actually happen. Fantasy rarely becomes reality. But the fact that the teams have briefly talked makes this a topic worth following, at least tangentially.

The strong expectation of rival executives is that Soto, 25 years old and entering his final season before free agency, would ...

10 broadcasters up for Hall of Fame’s Frick Award

The 10 finalists for the 2024 Frick Award are: Joe Buck, Joe Castiglione, Gary Cohen, Jacques Doucet, Tom Hamilton, Ernie Johnson Sr., Ken Korach, Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper and Dan Shulman. The winner of the 2024 Frick Award will be announced on Dec. 6 at baseball’s Winter Meetings in Nashville, Tenn., and will be honored during the July 20 Awards Presentation as part of the July 19-22 Hall of Fame Weekend 2024 in Cooperstown. All of the 2024 Frick Award candidates are living except for Johnson.

Criteria for selection is as follows: “Commitment to excellence, quality of broadcasting abilities, reverence within the game, popularity with fans, and recognition by peers.”

Mets get permission to interview Craig Counsell

The Mets have received permission from the Brewers to interview Craig Counsell for their managerial opening. Andy Martino of SNY first reported the news. Martino notes that the Mets will interview Counsell soon.

The Brewers had previously indicated they would make interested teams wait until Counsell’s contract officially expired at the end of October to interview him….

With his current Milwaukee contract set to expire on October 31, Andy Martino of SNY reported today that Counsell would “welcome the challenge” of managing in New York, per two league sources.

D-backs embrace the chaos, advance to World Series

Two years ago, Arizona lost 110 games. Rebuilt behind rookie Corbin Carroll, a more developed rotation and a wholly unrecognizable bullpen, the D-backs turned around their fortunes and won 84 games this season. They have since won nine more to reach the World Series, becoming the first NL team with a negative run differential to win the pennant.

Quiet for so much of the NLCS, Carroll broke out with three hits, two stolen bases, two runs scored and a sacrifice fly. It was Carroll’s RBI single off Ranger Suárez in the fifth inning at Citizens Bank Park that scored the tying run, and his stolen base moments later that allowed him to score on Gabriel Moreno’s hit to right. With that, the D-backs took a lead they would never relinquish.

...

Source: Craig Breslow to lead Red Sox’s baseball operations

Craig Breslow will be the new head of baseball operations for the Boston Red Sox, with the former big league reliever accepting the team’s offer Tuesday, a source told ESPN’s Buster Olney, confirming a report in The Boston Globe.

Breslow was a longtime pitcher in the majors, including five seasons with the Red Sox—the first in 2006, and then a four-year run from 2012 to ‘15. A lefty reliever, he was part of Boston’s title-winning team in 2013.

The 43-year-old Breslow was most recently the assistant general manager for the Cubs.

50 Years Ago, Nolan Ryan Turned in His Biggest Accomplishment on the Mound

How fast was he?  Forget the radar gun, he was flat-out fast.

Ask Hall of Fame slugger Reggie Jackson.

“Every hitter likes fastballs just like everybody likes ice cream,” Jackson said. “But you don’t like it when someone’s stuffing it into you by the gallon. That’s how you feel when Nolan Ryan’s throwing balls by you. You just hope to mix in a walk so you can have a good night and only go 0-for-3.”

Dusty Baker reportedly ready to step down as Houston Astros manager after ALCS loss

The Texas Rangers rolled over the Astros 11-4 in Game 7 of the ALCS on Monday, ending Houston’s bid for a third straight trip to the World Series.

According to The Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli and Chandler Rome, Baker has expressed to multiple people inside the organization that this season will be his last as the team’s manager. Baker has not made that official, and declined to comment when asked directly about that report by The Athletic.

Baker, 74, just wrapped up his 26th season managing in Major League Baseball. He holds a career 2,183-1,862 regular-season record and won a World Series title with the Astros in 2022. Baker went 320-226 in Houston, which is good for the second-best winning percentage in franchise history. He led ...

Giants expected to hire Bob Melvin as new manager as veteran leader leaves Padres, per report

The San Francisco Giants will soon announce the hiring of Bob Melvin as their new manager, according to Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic. Melvin is currently under contract with the San Diego Padres, who granted the Giants permission to speak with him a few days ago.

Melvin, 62 this week, will become the second Padres manager to be hired away by the Giants in the last two decades. The Giants previously plucked Bruce Bochy from San Diego prior to the 2007 season. Bochy later delivered three World Series championships to the Giants organization. The Padres are still seeking their first-ever World Series title.

Melvin has managed in parts of 20 big-league seasons, including stints with the Padres, Oakland Athletics, Arizona Diamondbacks, ...

Stephen Vogt candidate for Guardians manager job, sources say

Longtime major league catcher Stephen Vogt has emerged as a serious candidate for the Cleveland Guardians’ managerial job a little over a year after he retired from playing, sources told ESPN.

Vogt, 38, is currently a coach with the Seattle Mariners and had already interviewed for the San Francisco Giants’ open managerial job, which could soon be filled by San Diego Padres manager Bob Melvin, who was granted permission to talk with the division rival. Vogt will have an in-person interview with the Guardians this week, sources said.

Following the retirement of manager Terry Francona after 11 seasons and six playoff appearances, Cleveland has considered a range of external candidates—Giants bullpen coach Craig Albernaz, New York Yankees ...

Adolis Garcia, Rangers cruise past Astros, win ALCS

Adolis Garcia admired, flaunted and celebrated. He flung his bat and roared towards his own dugout and cupped his hands around his ears, seemingly basking in every moment that Game 7 of this American League Championship Series provided. At one point, as the Texas Rangers kept piling on runs and the home crowd grew increasingly more distraught, he even heard faint “MVP” chants.

They were prophetic.

The Rangers raced past the defending-champion Houston Astros in their own building on Monday night, capturing a 11-4 victory to punch their ticket to the World Series. And Garcia—the man who triggered a benches-clearing incident during a controversial hit by pitch in Game 5, then provided the devastating blow with a prodigious grand slam in ...