glory

Wow, Sale has 5/145 left on his contract. Wish Dombrowski stayed in Boston a bit longer.

Yeah don't watch the NFL. I'm sure it can get annoying depending on who is mic'd up, but baseball letting players show their personality is a good thing, even if it's only spring games.

I'm liking MLB trying new things. Giving the players a mic in the regular season might not be as popular with players due to the games actually meaning something, but this is a great way to show their personalities. If they have done this before, I haven't seen it.

“The Airport” is ridiculous. Please don’t do that to Nate.

I’m really rooting for Alford but man between the K’s and the D it’s not looking good.

I wonder if a tanking team is going to give Tebow a chance before he decides to hang it up. Might sell a few tickets even though he will not be good. He’s popular in the States.

https://www.mlb.com/prospects/2020/bluejays/ Don't know if this was posted, but updated top 30. Looks like a new layout as well. 1. Nate Pearson 2. Jordan Groshans 3. Simeon Woods Richardson 4. Alek Manoah 5. Alejandro Kirk 6. Orelvis Martinez 7. Gabriel Moreno 8. Miguel Hiraldo 9. Adam Kloffenstein 10. Anthony Kay 11. Kendall Williams 12. Eric Pardinho 13. Otto Lopez 14. Griffin Conine 15. Leonardo Jimenez 16. Estiven Machado 17. Dasan Brown 18. Rikelvin De Castro 19. Patrick Murphy 20. Reese McGuire 21. Anthony Alford 22. Santiago Espinal 23. Kevin Smith 24. Thomas Hatch 25. Julian Merryweather 26. Will Robertson 27. Riley Adams 28. Sem Robberse 29. Yennsy Diaz 30. Josh Winckowski

Don't really pay attention to MLB's YouTube channel, but glad to see they are providing different kinds of content now. Seems like a no brainer to do more stuff like this during the off season.

I guess my pleas of having Keith Law's name and content banned from this forum will never be enforced.

I don't see both Drury and Panik on the roster together. Seems like they'd have the same role except Panik can at least act like a competent big league hitter every now and then. I'm only going by the article that Panik is in the lead to make the team. If that's the case, then I would think Drury heads to AAA. I'm not a fan of Tellez either, especially as a DH, but if he's making the team, then I can't imagine he'd be a bench player since he provides no defensive value at all. He's either the starting DH or in Buffalo, imo. If they like Fisher as much as they seem to, then they could leave DH open and have a five man crew of Fisher, Panik, Drury, Alford, and McGuire (one of them would play the field/DH, most likely Fisher, while the other four on the bench). But again that puts Drury and Panik both on the bench and that seems like a pointless situation to be in, especially since Drury has been awful lately.

I think the most likely scenario is a bench of Fisher, Panik, Alford, and McGuire, with Tellez at DH. They seemed to imply that Bichette is going to play 150+ games at short next year, so they don't really care to have a SS on the bench (Espinal likely gets the call up if Bo has to miss time). The OF of Gurriel/Grichuk/Hernandez is a scary mix of injury prone and inconsistent, so two extra OF's on the bench may not be a bad idea. Biggio can cover 1B and OF, and Shaw can cover 3B, so there's some versatility there. I prefer keeping DH open so players can move around, but Shatkins seems to like Tellez. Sounds like Drury was tendered a contract just to keep his rights and put him in AAA. They must really, really like him.

Considering the timing of the TJS, Severino obviously misses all of 2020, but likely misses most or all of 2021 as well if you use 18 months as the more realistic cut off for a SP after the surgery. That's a really bad break for the Yankees. Severino looks really good now for signing that extension. He will make $10.5m in 2020 and $10.75m in 2021 which are both likely to be wash seasons. If he went through year to year arb, he would have been f***ed.

Honestly I don't know why they haven't signed Puig. Can be the primary DH and play the field occasionally as well. Seems like an easy fix. Tellez optioned to AAA, Fisher as the 4th OF, and Alford traded to Baltimore for international money (because that's probably what will happen at some point) to clear up a 40 man roster spot.

Didn't read the article, but if Tellez makes the team I'd imagine he'd be the starting DH. Fisher hasn't proven anything with the bat or the glove, Alford is probably a 4th OF at best, and Panik is Panik.

The Astros being booed in every stadium is actually one of the bright spots for MLB this season. In a league that wants more fan interest, having a universal villain that every fan base despises is an unintended benefit to this whole thing. Thankfully none of the fans will listen to Boyd so his quote is meaningless. Also as mentioned, the Astros have shown zero remorse through this whole process.

Alford as a lottery ticket 4th OF is better than Tellez starting at DH. Hoping he wins a spot. I’m not a Fisher fan but if someone is going to pull a 2017 Justin Smoak I’d bet on Fisher before Tellez.

Once you replace Tellez with Shaw, I actually like that lineup as far as the current roster goes. Leaving the DH spot open to move players around is a lot better than sticking Tellez there and hoping he has a wRC+ above 95.

When I had NBA League Pass many years ago, the same local blackout restrictions were there. I'm guessing it still is. The regional TV networks pay for the exclusive rights to broadcast games so if MLB (or any other league) has an app that prevents people from watching the TV network, then it doesn't make sense for the network. The blackouts exist to make people watch their local TV broadcast and/or go to the games live. I'm not sure in today's day and age that works as much as it used to since attendance is down, but last time I checked regional TV ratings for baseball games are pretty high, so it's working in that sense. The good thing about MLB.tv is that the games become available to view after they are complete, plus you can see highlights as they happen in the video section as the game is going on. It's not the same as having access to watch it live, obviously. Ideally the league could get big money from TV networks and still be able to avoid blackout restrictions on their app, but I don't think that makes any sense for the networks. It's probably going to hurt them long term but that's never been a concern for Manfred, unfortunately. It's all about money now.

People were questioning why he took $40m from the Yankees last year coming off a 5.4 WAR season, but he's been hurt ever since signing the contract save for a couple of starts at the end of last season/playoffs (20 innings total counting reg season and playoffs). Pitchers are so damn risky.

My takeaway is the players want Manfred to vacate the title, not necessarily punish individual players. Players know the MLBPA is working in their best interests so they'd never openly question Clark or the association. Since the players went unpunished, meaning they are still walking around as 2017 champions with no remorse, it's going to cause issues. As far as players not wanting to hurt their teams by getting ejected/suspended, look at the Rangers/Bautista stuff that happened. It's going to happen. Possibly many times. It probably wouldn't happen in meaningful games/moments, but on a lazy June afternoon in a blowout game, certain players are going to react. With LeBron chiming in, that's another 40+ million people who follow him who now know about the scandal if they didn't already. It's not going away any time soon.

Opposing players are going to take suspensions just to hit some of these Astros players. A few brawls or two (or 10) would help the game.

I thought the O's were going to give him 600 PA this year. Disappointing.

From an Athletic article (I don't have a sub so just a snippet): "Any potential punishments to Astros players would have prompted grievances and wound up before an arbitrator. And in the words of an official with knowledge of these matters, MLB would have been 'smoked'. Another person experienced in this area said that MLB's case would have been 'brutal' and the league would 'look a fool'...." That's why I don't really blame Manfred for no penalties for the players. It was out of his control. Everything else he did/said was trash, though.