Other Baseball

The Baltimore-NYY and Oakland-Texas races would be really interesting if they weren't all going to the playoffs anyway.

In the wake of some of the Carlos Gomez discussion, I thought this article might be worth a look. Latino players bring much- needed flair to baseball. | SportsonEarth.com : Jorge Arangure Jr. Article Whichever side you lean more strongly toward, I think this article makes some thoughtful points well worth considering.

Who would you pick? 1b Miguel Cabrera Adrian Gonzalez 2b Devon Travis Dee Gordon 3b Josh Donaldson Matt Carpenter SS Marcus Semien Zack Cozart C Stephen Vogt AJ Pierzynski DH Nelson Cruz OF Mike Trout Matt Holiday Adam Jones Corey Dickerson Hanley Ramirez Matt Kemp P Chris Archer Gerrit Cole

that's all I wanted to say. I consider it good for baseball if they don't win the World Series next year. Feel free to vent below. Also, is Jeter trying to improve the team he owns or his old team? I mean, why would you do that trade prior to the Winter meetings where he may have gotten a better offer? I realize Stanton could nix other potential trade and that this was about dumping salary, but shouldn't you try to get something better for a superstar? Just my 2 pennies.

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/a-federal-grand-jury-is-investigating-major-league-baseball/ 'News broke this past weekend that Major League Baseball is currently the subject of a federal grand-jury investigation targeting the league’s business practices in Latin America.'

According to Sherman and Martino, the Mets filed a grievance against Cespedes and stopped paying his 29mil salary last September. They’ve now come to an agreement for 10 mil guaranteed and 20 mil in incentives. Speculation by Jeff Todd that it has to do with his ranch incident last spring. Tons of links below... fascinating, I can’t think of another incident like this. https://mobile.twitter.com/Joelsherman1/status/1205629286755061761 https://mobile.twitter.com/Joelsherman1/status/1205607761054179328 https://mobile.twitter.com/martinonyc/status/1205597454550224896 https://mobile.twitter.com/timbhealey/status/1130565124052410368 https://www.mlbtraderumors.co…

Here is my proposal for blowing up the MLB draft..... Part 1 has the goals and a summary Part 2 has the details Eventually I will publish part three (and maybe 4) which analyzes the money distribution and makes predictions about what I think would actually happen.... https://mikesixel.com/fixing-the-mlb-draft-part-one/ edit: There is an intermittent issue with my site.....which they are working to fix. If you get an error, apologies in advance....just try reloading.....

Can we please just go ahead and put this farce of pitchers hitting to bed and admit that we're pretty much playing with a DH already? If I compiled this correctly, in 15 NL playoff games so far, managers have only let their pitchers walk to the plate 42 times (notice that I didn't say "hit," for reasons that will become clear). That's essentially 2.5 plate appearances per game. Not per team per game, but per game. So essentially, half the starting pitchers bat once and half of them bat twice. (There was that fluke when Graterol stayed in to hit flail before being pulled, since Roberts didn't want to waste another pinch hitter in a 6-2 game, and since Roberts certain…

A place for baseball's many amusements that don't warrant a thread of their own. http://nbchardballtalk.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/ericchavezcodyeppleyballhead.gif

This... Is... Awful. Comcast SportsNet's White Sox Intro Video Is One Of The Worst Things Ever Put On Television And Possibly Harmful To Your Health

Former Twins prospect Brock Peterson was just called up by the St Louis Cardinals. Peterson, 29, is batting .306 for Memphis, leads the Pacific Coast League with 22 home runs and has 66 RBI in 93 games. Good luck to him.

Blue Jays calling up the 22 year old from Buffalo with a 4.39 and 1.54 WHIP in 34 1/3 innings.He had a 3.82 and 1.39 WHIP in 66 innings in AA. Great k/9 but walks have been an issue, he's going to be pitching from the pen. The Jays now have their top 2 pitching prospects up with the big league team, both under the age of 24. Sure would be nice if the Twins had a couple of guys to do this with...........................oh,wait.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/11755817/mlb-postseason-shares-colorful-history Fun read on players dividing postseason shares. Includes some nice quotes by LaTroy Hawkins and how they gave a bunch of money to a minor league coaches widow. Also, Jim Caple has been one of ESPN's best writers for years. Glad he is still with them.

http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/the-pre-integration-committee/ Obviously, Poz loves the HOF and he's done a pretty good job of pointing out the problems of baseball's racist history. He points out that 127 of the 217 players in the HOF played during the "pre-integration" era. So while we may complain that Jim Rice or Jack Morris or Tim Raines don't belong in the HOF, there sure are a lot of players in the HOF that they were better than.

Today (Thursday) begins the 2017 Minnesota State Baseball Tournament. I don't know how many of our readers are interested, but certainly some of you are aware of it, maybe even involved in it. And, there are several players in it who were drafted this week. So, if you're into it, or see articles on it, let's talk about it here. Please post links or share stories as you'd like and are able. Here are the four brackets: All championship games will be on Monday at Target Field. Class A (Mini-Met in Jordan) Pillager vs #1 Parkers Prairie #5 Fosston vs #4 Red Rock Central/Westbrook-Walnut Grove Ely vs #2 Legacy Christian Academy Wabasha-Kellogg vs #3 Martin Luther/GHEC-…

Here is the pitching box Grateral 1.1 innings one run Kolarek 0.2 innings no runs Dodgers take lead May 5.1 innings 3 runs Gonzalez 1 inning one run Baez 0.2 innings no runs Kolarek gets the win even though he only made it through the second inning and only recorded 2 outs?? Doesn't make sense to me https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/gametracker/boxscore/MLB_20200916_LAD@SD/

Christian Encarnacion-Strand making loud noise. https://www.mlb.com/news/christian-encarnacion-strand-impressing-with-loud-power?partnerId=zh-20230304-844026-mlb-1-A&qid=1026&utm_id=zh-20230304-844026-mlb-1-A&bt_ee=LGfhrWvHCzGp%2BKSiEcD1hNSOsjV%2BwaiMco%2FPmxPC2obVzWyjRjcIm7AFGiHTPvCG&bt_ts=1677940998229

The Twins took Jason Varitek with their first round pick in the 1993 MLB Draft (21st Pick) but he failed to sign with the team. The Red Sox went on to draft him the next year and he is forever etched in their club's history. Any thoughts on Varitek as he is set to retire?

I just saw that on MiLB.com that Terry Doyle took a no-hitter into the 9th inning for Chicago's AAA Club in Charlotte. He took a no-hitter into the 8th on Memorial Day. http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120607&content_id=32951058&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb

This is a bit insane. I always sorta liked Oliva, tough guy, could hit LHP. Morneau tried to run through him once and ended up coughing up blood and missing a few games back in the day. http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/dodgers-guerrero-has-part-of-ear-bitten-off-by-teammate/

Line drive to Kinsler who throws it away trying to double the guy off second base. Salvador Perez was on third and never tagged up and ran home. Det challenged without ever appealing the play and Perez was ruled out. I hate replay. They got the call right but got it wrong at the same time since there was no appeal. Just a typical replay cluster ****. Please get rid of it.

The average MLB fastball has increased dramatically for both starting pitchers and relievers over the past 10-15 years. In 2007, 11 pitchers averaged 95+ on their fastball, in 2011 the number jumped to 35 pitchers, and in 2015 according to Fangraphs that number has increased to 87 pitchers. Check out the Velocity by Years charts from Pitchf/x. That is an increase in 2 mph for every fastball thrown in 6 years. What is behind this massive increase in velocity in such a short period of time? Here are some of my theories: 1. Statcast vs Older Radar Guns ~ Statcast measures the peak velocity of a pitch at any point from its release to the front edge of home pl…

I'm not sure if he was a reasonable possibility anyway, but Matt Weiters is accepting his qualifying offer from the O's. Since I doubt Suzuki is going anywhere, Murphy must be our 'Big Move' to address the backstop position. Who gets more AB's in 2016, Zuke or JR?

Details still sketchy, but it appears that the Chicago White Sox will acquire All Star 3B Todd Frazier in a three-team trade involving the Reds and Dodgers. More to come, I'm sure... To the Dodgers: Micah Johnson, Trayce Thompson, Frankie Montas To the Reds: Jose Peraza, Brandon Dixon, Scott Schebler

That's not really the meat of the story, but wow. Blaine Boyer and Adam LaRoche went to SE Asia to try to rescue under age girls.....wow. That's about 1/30 of this story, which is a very good read on LaRoche and his decision to retire (among other things). http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/15159499/adam-laroche-goes-deep-decision-walk

Who's going to win it all?

I saw that the Angels were only going to accept electronic tickets on MLB ballpark app or tickets bought at their box office. Will this block stubhub? Other teams were considering doing this.

Major League Baseball announced today that they officially recognize the Negro Leagues as major leagues. A terrific decision that goes toward remedying the fraught history of the sport. I thought it would be appropriate to start a thread where everyone can discuss it.

MLB Trade Rumors just released a piece saying several high end free agents may try to sign big deals for themselves before the CBA expires. It does take a lot away from Jeff Passan's column on the GM meetings this week, but given the CBA expires before the Winter Meetings take place. It's really hard for me to believe that more than three of the top 20 free agents would sign long term deals. I'd be really interested to see if one of the top shortstops on the market signs a deal before then. It will certainly set a market price for other shortstop, depending on who it is. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/11/corey-seager-marcus-semien-rumors-sign-before-cba-lockout…