Phil Gosselin and Scott Schebler were rubbing it in against the Mariners yesterday. Serves the Mariners right for ending an inning on us with the bases loaded and one out. Jaime Barria is still waiting to see if he will have another option year after all. Aaron Slegers and Dillon Peters are both dealing with back spasms. Max Stassi is slated to make his catching debut in the coming week. Reid Detmers appears to be the real deal. Shohei Ohtani is back! Mike Trout is the best center fielder in baseball (duh). Jose Iglesias makes an otherworldly play.
Sleaze Bag Of The Day
Relief pitcher Sam Dyson is suspended for the entire 2021 season due to domestic violence.
COVID-19 Links
Several guys, including Pedro Strop and Franmil Reyes are kicked out of spring training for a while because they violated COVID-19 protocols. These two apparently dined together at a restaurant and Reyes got a haircut on Friday. Our old friend Sean Newcomb is on a COVID-19 timeout.
Links From Around Baseball
Justin Bour got a minor league gig in the Giants organization. Jose Alvarez is now also with the Giants. As expected, the Astros are taking a good long look at Jake Odorizzi. They liked what they saw so much, they signed him to a two year deal with a player option for a third year. Several other starting pitchers still remain in the free agent pool. Ichiro batted in a Mariners intrasquad game at the age of 47 and apparently raked. Not to be outdone, Ian Kinsler is getting himself ready to play for Israel in the Japan-hosted Olympic Games.
Major League Baseball will be having Lou Gehrig day on June 2. The Nationals released pitcher Jeremy Jeffress for unspecified “personnel reasons.” Just speculation, but he may have just gotten popped the third time for a drug of abuse, which would earn him a lifetime ban from MLB. MLB Trade Rumors thinks the Nationals just decided to cut bait on Jeffress rather than risk paying him an MLB salary. The Pirates acquired Duane Underwood from the Cubs and in a corresponding move designated right hander Carson Fulmer for Assignment. The Astros are having a tough year about pitching. Prospect Forrest Whitley was advised to undergo Tommy John surgery. He is seeking a second opinion.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
AL Comeback Player of the Year 2021
Justin Upton.
That’s my first observation this Spring. The way the ball is jumping off his bat this last week has me in awe.
Great he only needs to comeback for 2 more years
Fully loaded with great links, like usual. Appreciate the time and effort, charles. I’m gonna try and be more active here. Hope all is well everyone.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/03/mlb-to-adopt-modified-loan-based-revenue-sharing-plan-for-2021-season.html
uh Oh, some small market teams may have to adjust their spending this year or float a loan until the other half of their expected revenue gift arrives in 2022.
At last subprime lending comes for the elite!!!
I vote the surrender rule either concedes a run for everyone on base, or one run for every out remaining.
If they are going to play spring training with sandlot rules, they might as well make it fair.
This is practice
We took Scott Schleber over Eddie Rosario?
Rosario took a 1 yr deal for just $8M ( Indians ).
I’m not sure this was a binary decision but if Schlebler makes the team I think he makes $975,000 so this could be a heck of a value. I’m not sure how Rosario stacks up defensively.
Schleber is terrible defensively, with the lateral range of a desert tortoise.
strikes out a lot too…..we already have two expensive overpaid rally killers ( Pujols & Upton ).
Uh huh. Go check out Rosario’s defensive metrics before you develop another forlorn man crush.
This conversation is kind of academic considering both Adell and Marsh are waiting in the wings and at least one of them will get promoted once the season is underway for a few weeks.
where would he play, RF full time?
I’s rather have Fowler for $1.75 mil and Schebler for under $1m, while at the same time not blocking Adell/Marsh in case they get brought up.
What about another experienced proven bat to help out Trout besides Rendon?
I don’t wanna hear about Albert and Justin Upton either. These two bad contracts were Arte and Eppl*r’s fault and nobody else’s. Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi would not have done those two two debacles.
Really? I though both JUp’s and Grandpa’s contracts were great bargains for the Angels.
Rosario is a left fielder essentially, less that 100 games in RF. His power is nice, his OBP sucks. Plus paying him more than what he got from the Insians essentially pigeon holes us in RF, doesn’t allow for much flexibility if/when the young guys are ready.
anyone have any news on the new play-by-play announcer?
Not yet.
I too am curious. I like everyone on our announcing staff except Jose, which sometimes I feel like puts me in a minority maybe? Victor is going to be hard to replace though…
Just in – Astros pitching prospect Forrest Whitley, who has been advised to undergo TJ surgery, injured his elbow banging on a trash can lid.
We could’ve royally screwed them by signing Odorizzi a couple of weeks ago.
Would have loved it!
This is getting kind of old tbh.
Whitley is on the Astros, sure, but he wasn’t on the team they won the WS, and now we’re basically making fun of his injury? Meh.
It will never get old. By I do agree we should limit it to people that were actually on the team of cheaters.
Well I figure they must have had minor league instruction in trash can lid banging. Maybe Forrest was too good at it? It will never ever EVER get old. Blatant cheating. How soon some want to forget.
It was meant as pure humor and sarcasm. There was nothing serious about the comment. Thanks for presenting a completely unnecessary high road. And it’s way too soon to say the trash can lid banging story is getting old. That was Black Sox bad. And basically no punishment.