Some guys became available around MLB. If I'm Dana Brown, I'm looking for pitching help. Let's take a look at that, and more? I guess.
*Hector Neris declined his $8.5m option for 2024. Neris threw 133.2IP for the Astros in 2022-23 with a 2.69 ERA / 1.03 WHIP with 10.5 K/9. If I'm Neris, I'm taking a picture of Rafael Montero with me to any meeting and saying, "Give me more than he got."
*Lefty starter Eduardo Rodriguez has opted out of his contract with Detroit, leaving 3yrs/$49m on the table to go to free agency. Rodriguez has posted 3.0+ fWAR in three of the last four seasons.
*Marcus Stroman opted out of his deal with the Cubs, leaving 1yr/$21m on the table. Stroman has made 50 starts in the last two seasons, totaling 4.7 fWAR with Chicago.
*San Diego and Nick Martinez declined their respective options. Martinez was worth 1.4 fWAR in 2023, his Age 32 season, appearing in 63 games with nine starts.
MAN. If only we knew about what happened between the 2019 and 2020 seasons that changed the way Bellinger, or any member on the Dodgers, really, approached the plate. Crazy to think that after three seasons that included a Rookie of the Year and an MVP award that someone would just forget how to hit. I wonder what might have changed. Nice that he remembered how to hit without getting any signals in 2023 though.
*Chicago declined their $14m option on shortstop Tim Anderson for 2024, who said in 2020 that he - and presumably the rest of the White Sox - were going to approach the Astros trying to "knock everybody's heads off - from the owner down to the trainer."
*Within his Sunday Links post, FanGraphs' David Laurilia tells us that Former Astros Great Marwin Gonzalez became just the fifth player in MLB history to homer in both the World Series and the Japan Series. The Japan Series was a tale of two fanbases.
*Thank you to the University of Oklahoma, who made sure I get to watch college football the rest of the season with no anxiety whatsoever.
*Fluminense beat Boca Juniors in dramatic fashion to win the Copa Libertadores.
*Eight things running and the creative process have in common.
*Happy First Day of Daylight Saving to all of us who love the darkness.
In Josh Prager's book (my favorite non-fiction baseball book) The Echoing Green - $4.99 for Kindle currently - he goes back to the Shot Heard 'Round The World in the 1951 NL playoff game, detailing a system the Giants had to deploy a guy in an office in centerfield of the Polo Grounds to use a buzzer to signal to the dugout what signs were coming in. Voila! Bobby Thomson's legendary home run. It's a really good book. You should read it.
But first, Spring Training updates (these are short):
I think in general, during the playoffs, I was trying to do exactly what I did during the regular season, but there were times offensively I wasn't where I needed to be.
Josh James is working on his full wind-up delivery, meaning the Astros are going to give him a chance to make the rotation. James:
Right now, I'm not feeling too comfortable out of the windup because I've been primarily in the stretch, especially being a reliever all year...so just some stuff to work out of the windup to get comfortable.
Dusty Baker is a big fan of rest:
I believe in rest days and I believe in telling guys when they have rest days. There's mental rest days, there's baseball rest days, there's days you say, 'Hey man, go out and have a good meal and a couple of drinks and let your hair down a little bit and you won't be off for another couple of weeks.
Like I said, I have no problem when people talk about what happened during the regular season in 2017. You know, whatever people have to say, we've got to take that on the chin. Guys, it was wrong. It was wrong and we've got to own that and we've got to take that.
He's telling me we cheated them out of a championship? Game 7, he throws a ball away in the first inning and we scored two runs.
Cody Bellinger hit .143/.172/.393 with 17K:1BB in 29 PAs in the 2017 World Series while hitting in the clean-up spot (He hit 5th in Game 5). In 28 postseason games since the 2017 NLCS, Bellinger is hitting .141/.206/.263. And the more I think about this rant, I keep coming back to the takedown of Bellinger's reading comprehension skills. That's really funny.
*Correa said that Altuve would get mad when someone used the trash can when he was at the plate and that Altuve, Reddick, and Tony Kemp did not use the trash can. He admitted that he did. Over at SignStealingScandal, Tony Adams noted the following percentage of bangs:
Reddick: 3.9%
Altuve: 2.8%
Kemp: 0.0%
*On the 2017 Yankees:
The Yankees (in the ALCS). They scored one run in the first game, one run in the second game, they scored one run in Game 6, and they scored no runs in Game 7. If you expect to win with three runs in four games, you're out of your mind.
On Kurt Suzuki:
Oh, they won the championship. And he's still talking about that? Enjoy your ring. Enjoy your teamates. Enjoy what you guys accomplished. Congratulations to you guys. You guys played better than us. That was it.
Honestly, I'm too old to get in the middle. I really don't associate myself with this kind of stuff. I just kind of go about my business and try to stay out of everything and get ready to play baseball. That's what it's about: playing baseball.
Yeah, it bothers me...Everybody's entitled to their own opinion. I think facts are still coming out. Information is still coming out. I don't think this is something that's done now, even for us...People can speculate all they want. We dug our grave. We're in it. But I think emphatically, everybody made it clear that [wearing buzzers] wasn't true. I think we need to go out and prove that we're going to win. We can win. We have a great ballclub and we can do it the right way.
*Dusty Baker says MLB needs to step in and stop premeditated beanings of the Astros. Why is this coming up? Dodgers (of course it's the Dodgers) pitcher Ross Stripling, who was almost traded to the Angels, was asked about whether he would hit an Astros batter:
I thought about that if I was going to the Angels because they open in Houston, right. And I was like, 'Oh my gosh.' Ah...That's a good question. Would I do it? I would lean towards yes. In the right time and the right place.
Baker:
I'm depending on the league to try to put a stop to the seemingly-premeditated retaliation that I'm hearing about...I'm just hoping that the league puts a stop to this before somebody gets hurt. It's not good for the game. It's not good for kids to see it. I think both: stop the comments and also stop something before it happens.
I can see both sides here. Obviously the Astros don't want to get hit with the ball. Obviously the rest of the league is frustrated that no player actually got punished for the sign-stealing scheme. It's probably more frustrating for an opposing player to realize that they could get punished more severely in an act that they (rightly or wrongly) believe is an effort to police the games themselves, since MLB's message of punishment did not directly affect anyone actually banging a trash can or receiving a signal about what pitch was coming. It's an impossible situation. On a base, primal level, I get it.
*Brian T. Smith: The Astros can't move forward until they stop damaging themselves.
*Jeff Passan: This war of words between the Astros and everyone else isn't going to end soon. Passan:
There's more to come. There's always more with this Astros story that drips out with all the efficiency of a broken faucet. The coming days, weeks, months will teem with more details, explanations, facts. Manfred's report looks more and more like a Polaroid that needs to be shaken. The manifold characters all have their versions of the story to tell. There are reputations to be salvaged, careers to be saved, sides to be taken. This is just the beginning.
*Kenley Jansen says the sign-stealing scandal is worse than steroids and gambling. It's just behind Original Sin and slightly ahead of Murder. Jansen:
At least back then [in the steroid era], everyone had to be on steroids. It was a fair game.
Ooooh history is All The Way Revisioned now. This is fun.
*Kris Bryant agrees that the Astros' stealing signs was worse than steroids.
Why link to these statements? For when it comes out that perhaps their teams were stealing signs, as well.
*The New Yorker: Is stealing baseball signs really so bad? Bobby Valentine:
It's the same thought that I have when I'm on a highway, and I'm in the lane where everyone's going 82 mph, and then the guy in front of me gets pulled over. I think, Jeez, is he just unlucky? Everyone else was going 82.
Manfred told Ravech that any discipline of the players likely would have resulted in grievances from the MLBPA, citing Luhnow's failure to communicate to the Astros' players the contents of a 2017 memo outlining MLB's policy on the use of technology. Manfred says that although he doesn't absolve the players in Houston, he believes that Luhnow and Hinch were obligated to inform them of the memo and enforce MLB's rules.
In other words, Manfred didn't want a union fight.
*Leeds United 1 Bristol City 0. With Fulham's loss, Leeds are three points clear of automatic promotion to the Premier League. There are 13 games left. FiveThirtyEight gives Leeds an 80% chance of promotion.
There were actual baseballs being thrown. So here's how this is going to go: New baseball stuff will go at the top, sign-stealing stuff will go towards the bottom, and interesting things I come across will go below that. So if you want to skip the sign-stealing stuff, you don't have to do it at the top. Let's get to it, I guess...
*Justin Verlander was scheduled to throw on Friday, but didn't, because he threw a 60-pitch bullpen on Wednesday and wanted some extra rest.
*Lance McCullers is looking forward to a healthy 2020: I feel like I've put in a lot of hard work over this past 15, 16 months. I've come a long way, not only physically, but also mentally and just kind of where I'm at and moving to the season. I'm excited to get going again, obviously. I've had to wait a long time. It felt like a lifetime but here we are, and I'm very excited to just be able to contribute again to the team and not only run to the clubhouse to get waters and bananas and stuff like that.
Baker, on Altuve: That's Mighty Mouse. He's a bad little dude. He's one of the best players, I think, that I've ever seen. I was talking to him yesterday. I always wanted to win a batting title as a player. I came in third a couple of times and this dude has three batting titles.
*Brad Peacock has had a recurrence of the nerve damage in his neck. He's throwing at 90 feet, but his Spring Training is officially delayed.
*Forrest Whitley reported to camp 40 pounds heavier than last year in an effort to be more durable.
*ESPN has added a couple of Astros games to their April slate: April 7 vs the Mets, April 20 at Tampa.
*Forgive me if I'm a few days late on this, but FanGraphs revealed their Top 100 Prospects list. Forrest Whitley is the lone Astros prospect in the list, what with the graduation of Kyle Tucker and the Greinke trade. On Whitley: He wields one of the deepest repertoires in all of the mnors and, though the elite-looking changeup he showed during the 2018 Fall League was not present in 2019, all of his stuff is still above-average or better, both visually and on paper.
Game 4 Hero Jose Urquidy came in at 101. Meanwhile, Urquidy was one of five pitchers listed by The Athletic's Eno Sarris as having the stuff in a small sample size to warrant a breakout season in 2020.
Sign-Stealing Stuff *Chandler Rome: The Astros are seeking a return to normalcy on the field. McCullers: We apologized for it. I think you guys spoke to pretty much everyone on the 2017 team that's here in an Astros uniform. We meant what we said. We can't control how people feel yesterday or moving forward. We all addressed it. We all stand by what we individually said and we're looking forward to moving forward with a good 2020 club. Dusty Baker: It's all in the past now. I'm hoping the players don't have to answer any more questions about it. Because how many times can you say the same thing? It's time for us to get to work, put it behind us, ask for forgiveness. The guys said they were sorry.
*Nationals GM Mike Rizzo: Somebody's got to say the word over there - 'cheated' - and that's important to me. We keep skirting around the word, and they cheated. They were found guilty of it, and I haven't heard it yet...We did it with character, dignity and did it the right way. We feel good about that.
*The Athletic: New rules to prevent electronic sign-stealing are being discussed among MLB officials.
*Jake Marisnick: I'm a grown man in a situation that I can stop, and I didn't stop it.
*John Smoltz had a warning to players/teams/fans who are going all-in on the Astros hate, because it may turn out that they're not so clean, either.
*Trevor Bauer, unsurprisingly, has a lot to say about the Astros. A snippet: F*** you. You know? That's how I feel about their whole operation, especially, especially when you're so outspoken against stuff. If you take a stand and you're so firmly against stuff, you better f***ing make sure that you're not doing the stuff you're talking about.
Other Stuff *Minor Leaguers are getting a raise in 2021. Minimum weekly salary by level:
Rookie/Short-Season: From $290 to $400
Class A: From $290 to $500
Double-A: From $350 to $600
Triple-A: From $502 to $700
*The Astros were down 1-0, up 2-1, up 3-1, up 3-2, tied 3-3, then scored five runs in the 7th and 8th innings to run away with it and win their first home series since taking two of three from San Diego April 6-8. The Astros are 19-10 with a two-game lead over the Mariners. The Angels lost to the Yankees last night, who will visit Minute Maid Park starting tonight, bringing a nine-game winning streak and also likely bringing a bunch of fans in track suits with shaved heads and gold chains.
*Astros pitchers struck out the A's 14 times yesterday, giving them 16 10+ strikeout games on the season. Arizona pitchers have double-digit strikeouts in 17 games.
*Gerrit Cole: 6.2IP, 6H/3ER, 12K:0BB. Will Harris allowed Oakland's third run to score, costing Cole the win. Cole now has 13.18 K/9, behind only Robbie Ray (14.64 to go along with 5.53 BB/9) among qualified starters. In April: 41.2IP, 25H/8ER, 61K:8BB - 1.73 ERA / 0.79 WHIP. Cole's 61 Ks in April broke Mike Scott's 1987 record for April strikeouts. Hinch: Whatever word you want to say probably fits. Whether it's elite or dominant or exceptional or spectacular. It sounds historic with the strikeouts he had in our uniform.
*It was the first time this season that Gerrit Cole has not recorded 21 outs.
*Cole, McCullers, Verlander, and Morton rank in the Top 16 among qualified starters in K/9.
*Robert Ford and Steve Sparks mentioned this on the broadcast yesterday: The last time an Astros position player made an error was April 8 against San Diego. Oakland made four errors...yesterday.
*Carlos Correa's hit streak was snapped with an 0x4 day at the plate. He also grounded into his 6th double play of 2018. In 109 games in 2017 Correa GIDP'd twelve times.
*Astros fan Joe Foster got kicked out of Minute Maid Park for interference on Max Stassi's "out." It's not the first time that happened. Foster: Honestly, watching the replays, maybe the guy caught it, maybe he didn't, but he had a glove and I didn't so maybe he should have.
*The New York Times' Tyler Kepner has a fantastic article on Sig Mejdal and his experiment of going from the front office to the dugout. Mejdal: It's like you know a secret that's going to rock their world - not next week, but maybe next year or two years from now. And when you care about them, it's just this ominous future disappointment to many of them.
*NJ.com has a tale of the tape on who's better right now: the Yankees or the Astros.
*Aaron Boone: Do I think there's extra juice? Maybe, because we understand how good of a club they are and these guys went through such an epic series with them. But...we realize it's April.
Joke's on Boone because tomorrow it's May.
*Brett Gardner, to the New York Daily News' Mike Mazzeo (who referred to the Yankees as Murderers Row 2.0, and thus should be silenced): They won the World Series last year, and they're probably a better team right now than they were at this point last year. Obviously it'll be a good challenge for us. We're looking forward to it...They've got a really good team, maybe the best team in baseball. It's a tough place to play.
*Oakland 1B Coach Al Pedrique signed Jose Altuve as a 16-year old. Pedrique: I remember our first conversation. I asked him, 'Can you play?' He looked me in the eye and said, 'I'll show you.'
*Tanner Duncan tried out for East Carolina's varsity baseball team three times and was cut each time. He signed with Houston as an undrafted free agent. In 7.1IP for Quad Cities this season he has 12 strikeouts.
*The Cubs have played the Brewers seven times in 2018. They're 6-1 with five shutouts.
The Astros lost to the Braves 6-3 yesterday. Tony Sipp allowed 1H/1ER, 0K:1BB in 1IP. Collin McHugh gave up 2H/2ER, 3K:1BB in 1IP. Carlos Correa was 2x3.
Opening Day is 10 days away.
*A.J. Hinch set the starting rotation to open the season yesterday. It'll go like this:
SP1: Justin Verlander
SP2: Dallas Keuchel
SP3: Lance McCullers, Jr.
SP4: Gerrit Cole
SP5: Charlie Morton
The guy who won two Game 7s last postseason is this year's fifth starter. Deep. Hinch: I think we could go any order and have an argument. Really from the beginning of the rotation, that's a tribute to the pitching staff that (Luhnow) built to give us a deep rotation.
This is the order, in part, because Hinch is giving the home opener start to Charlie Morton. Hinch: I think that's something special that he's earned.
*The Astros sent five players to minor-league camp yesterday: Kyle Tucker, Garrett Stubbs, Jack Mayfield, Jon Kemmer, and Francis Martes. Hinch, on Martes: We want him to start, which is the main reason we wanted to send him out. His development has come fast, he got up to the big leagues very quickly and got pushed to the bullpen very quickly because of need. We want to make sure that he's continuing to develop as a starter.
*Jake Kaplan has a good piece in The Athletic about Tucker, and how we'll see him again soon.
*Cody Bellinger, famous for prematurely shushing the Minute Maid Park crowd in Game 5 and also for hitting .143 with 17K in 28ABs in the World Series, hasn't watched the World Series replays: I already knew. I knew what was coming and I still didn't...hit.
*The new federal spending bill could include an exemption of minor-leaguers from federal labor laws...which would result in continuing to play baseball for billionaires for less than a living wage.
