Other Baseball

Ouch. Mets stud Zach Wheeler tore his UCL so will have to get TJ surgery. Wheeler has a ton of potential and is only 25 so this hurts a lot. He hadn't had a break out season yet but he and a healthy Matt Harvey could have really made an exciting Mets rotation. Now it looks like they'll use Dillon Gee to replace him. Maybe they'd want Pelfrey back. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/03/zack-wheeler-has-torn-elbow-ligament-tommy-john-likely.html

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/03/phils-willing-to-eat-about-50mm-of-howards-salary.html So, Howard is owed 60m but the Phillies will eat 50 of that, so basically, Howard is available for 2 years at 5m each year. But, obviously, the Phillies, with one of the worst farm systems in baseball, want real young talent back for him. The Twins are also on Howard's no trade list so that would have to be worked out. I would guess that the Phillies would want something like Rosario, Thorpe or Polanco - not a top 100 prospect but someone kind of close. Howard was awful last year - .223/.310/.380 line and actually hit a little better against lefties than righties. But only…

Mark Armour and Dan Levitt have a guest post at John Thorn's MLB blog this morning. This is a short essay on the history of Baseball Operations, riffing off Moneyball, which serves sort of as an introduction to their new book. http://ourgame.mlblo...-the-evolution/ Give yourself some time to read it. It's a meal, not a snack.

Now that NotGraphs has faded into the mist, where do you go to find your pseudo-baseball related snark and satire? Twinkie Town has some good stuff from time to time, but over at Banknotes Industries (named after the Minnesota Native Brian "Banknotes" Harper) I recently found an article about Jeff Francoeur tha had me in stitches. I share it here for your enjoyment. http://www.banknotesindustries.com/news-around-baseball/2015-season-preview-in-jeff-francoeur-pranks/

Another team losing a starting pitcher. Stroman out for the season with a torn ACL.

After losing Profar for the year, now they have lost a true ace in Yu Darvish. The three time all star (in three seasons) has avg over 11 k/9 over his career, finished second in the cy young two years ago and probably would have been a top 5 guy again last year but his season was cut short due to injury, ending in early August. Now it looks like he'll have to have TJ surgery.

So there's that... https://twitter.com/TNT_Mariners/status/575002614716178432

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/12448205/denard-span-surgery-core-muscle-miss-washington-nationals-opener Bummer. Span had surgery on a "right core muscle injury" and will miss 4-6 weeks. Hopefully, he recovery goes well. He's a FA at the end of the season and a good season will lead to a pretty nice payday for him.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/03/dodgers-willing-to-pay-half-of-ethiers-contract-in-trade.html Dodgers are willing to pay half his salary to get rid of him. (He'll make 18m the next 3 seasons + an option year). He'll be 33 this year and his bat fell off a cliff last year but before that, he was a pretty decent hitter - ignoring defense, he was a pretty consistent 3 WAR hitter (sort of like Cuddyer but a touch better) and posted a 123+ OPS from 06-13. Last year his playing time was cut, he only started 99 games, and now the Dodgers are trying to get rid of him. Not sure he's a fit for the Twins (although I might think about it since I'm not sold on Vargas). Fr…

Former Minnesota Twins' player Chuck Knoblauch has been using his Twitter account again on a regular basis and took the opportunity to throw shade at the recent announcement that the New York Yankees will retire Andy Pettite's number 46: https://twitter.com/chuckknoblauch/status/567154579192565760 Like Knoblauch, Pettitte was also implicated on the Mitchell Report for using HGH, which the pitcher confessed to in 2007. Knoblauch, on the other hand, never fully confessed to his usage of the banned substances. In the aftermath, Knoblauch would wind up engaging people who questioned why the second baseman would attack a former team member who, you know, aided in getti…

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/02/red-sox-to-sign-yoan-moncada.html 31.5m signing bonus. Because Boston had gone over its international spending allotment, they have to pay another 31.5m to mlb. "Moncada, a 19-year-old switch-hitting infielder, is the most sought-after international prospect in recent history. Said to be a true five-tool talent, scouts have likened his upside to that of Robinson Cano and Chase Utley (in his prime). Prospect specialists at Baseball America, MLB.com, Baseball Prospectus and Fangraphs have all suggested that Moncada would rank in the top five to 15 prospects in Major League Baseball upon signing, which will make him Boston’s new No.…

http://deadspin.com/curt-schilling-goes-dadmode-on-twitter-trolls-bashing-h-1688969687 Don't really care about Schilling but this is a good story - he tweeted his congratulations to his daughter for getting into college. Several people tweeted some pretty bad things in response and a lot of sexual references to his daughter. He outed two of the jerks and they are now dealing with their new fame.

Over at Vikings Journal, I just wrote up a post comparing the growth in MLB payrolls and the NFL salary cap, given the news that the NFL salary cap went up about $10 million this year. I came up with a somewhat surprising result. I don't want to double-post a thread in our forums, but you may want to check it out if you're interested in that sort of thing.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-30-offseason-mlb-nationals-dodgers-mariners/ Does anyone else strongly disagree that the Mariners are the best team in the A.L.?

Pretty sad news. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/02/josh-hamilton-meeting-with-mlb-regarding-disciplinary-matter.html Reports seem to indicate he was using cocaine. His early career was destroyed by drug use and yet he had a pretty amazing run with very little minor league time after basically missing all of 2003-2005. Hopefully, he gets better.

http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/white-sox/post/_/id/23010/sale-looking-less-likely-for-opening-day White Sox ace Chris Sale broke his foot jumping out of a truck. There's probably a joke there. His injury might open a spot for Carlos Rodon (who I still can't believe fell to #3 in the stupid draft - Houston and Miami will regret that) to make the rotation out of ST.

Derek Wetmore wrote an article on what is important in a pitching coach. He chatted with several pitchers about what is important to them in a pitching coach. The four thoughts were: Communication Understanding of Mechanics Knowledge that every pitcher is different. The mental part of the game.There are 4-6 quotes on each topic. This is a tremendous article. What are your thoughts? What would you add to his list?

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/adam-lind-says-blue-jays-will-smile-more-without-colby-rasmus-111335222.html Interesting story. Obviously, some people like Rasmus as a bounceback candidate this year but character issues (and bad play) dogged him. Former teammate Adam Lind took a shot at him, saying Toronto would be a happier place without him. The article suggests he was burned out "toward the end of the season and simply wasn't receptive to critiques. That he knows how to hit, but doesn't know how to adjust or deal with adversity on the field." And "wasn't receptive to critiques" is probably a nice way to put it. I think those last two things - …

Pioneer Press's Mike Berardino chatted with Twins legend Tony Oliva about Minnie Minoso. This article includes some great video as well. My favorite part of the video was " There is so much great information about the history of baseball in this article. In 1993 and 2003, Minoso came to St. Paul and actually got plate appearances for the St. Paul Saints, thanks to Mike Veeck. Mike's father Bill owned the White Sox and helped Minoso play in five decades of MLB. Mike had him come and play with the Saints so that they can say he played in seven decades of professional baseball. Minnie Minoso passed away early on Sunday. Most believe that he was between 89 and …

Jon Heyman ‏@JonHeymanCBS · 1m1 minute ago Johan santana has agreed to sign with blue jays. Santana is still only 34. Wouldn't bet against him. I'd like him to have some success and retire on a high note. At least for now that's one reunion tour that isn't happening,

ESPN has a nice article on Lloyd McClendon, the only black manager in baseball right now. "The lack of African-American managers parallels a shortage of black players on the field. African-American representation on big league rosters peaked at 19 percent in 1986 and fell to 8.13 percent last season. St. Louis, Arizona and San Francisco did not have an African-American player on the roster when MLB celebrated Jackie Robinson Day last April."

Not really sure where to put something like this so I guess I'll just make it its own topic. In his chat today, David Schoenfield had this bit: Sam Goodyear (London, UK) What about Edgar, did he mentor A-Rod? David Schoenfield Maybe a little. But Edgar was pretty quiet. I'm just saying if you're 20, 21 years old and your teammates kind of treat you like you're piece of dirt, maybe it's a little more difficult to develop a mature, well-grounded personality. Not an excuse for anything he did, of course, but baseball doesn't exactly create the best atmosphere for players to grow up and develop the ability for self-reflection or rationalize decisions. This was in talki…

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/55243/rangers-profar-to-have-shoulder-surgery Profar was the #1 prospect in baseball and got a cup of coffee in the majors at 19 but his last couple years have been destroyed by injury. He's still just 22 but hasn't played in a professional game since 2013 and is now out indefinitely.

Former, long-time big league catcher Gregg Zaun recently did an interview in which he discussed how Orioles' veterans, including Cal Ripken, Brady Anderson and others treated him (and presumably others). He talked about both physical and mental bullying kept him in line. It's not surprising to read all of these stories and accounts because back in the day, many just thought it was OK. I think it's disgusting. Even worse, Zaun basically said he wishes more of that would be in today's game. Uggh!

http://deadspin.com/holy-crap-jesus-montero-is-in-shape-1687055215 Somehow he dropped 40 pounds and it looks like it was mostly fat. I'd bet a lot of money that a PED or two was used to drop that weight (didn't Vargas get caught using something like that?) but I hope he gets his stuff together. His ice cream incident was pretty embarrassing and it would be nice if that wasn't how people end up remembering him.

Earlier in the offseason we sat down with former Twins and U of M pitcher Cole DeVries to have him talk about his career. We recorded a conversation on the No Juice Podcast (which you can listen to here) in which we discuss general baseball topics. This project -- which we hope to do more if there is interest -- is about getting the stories about their careers: What were the highs, what were the lows, what was that moment like when you broke into the big leagues, what was it like when your career came to an end. While the feature five-minute video will be posted on Monday to celebrate the first day after pitchers and catchers report, please take a look at this short cl…

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/02/d-backs-agree-to-new-television-contract.html "Arizona’s current television contract, which expires at season’s end, has an average annual value of about $31MM per year, Piecoro notes. He adds that the new contract is believed to at least triple that amount. It’s unclear how much the total value of the contract is, because the length of the deal isn’t currently known, but club officials have recently said they were discussing lengths in the 15- to 20-year range. Piecoro reports that there are indications that the new deal is indeed in line with those previously discussed parameters, which would suggest the total value is at least $1…

Alex Speier of The Boston Globe wrote a very interesting article talking about "Neuroscouting." As Theo Epstein described it in the article: Part of it is to measure hand-eye coordination. They have their area scouts have the potential draft picks use a computer program. Mookie Betts was one of the first to do it, and he described it here: I happen to think that this is pretty cool. I think a lot of it is proprietary, but you can't help but wonder how many teams are doing this kind of thing with potential draft picks?

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-lasting-effect-of-concussions/ It's an interesting read and pertains to a few players who wear, or have worn, the Twins uniform.

Andrew McCutchen has a fabulous piece on the difficulties of getting noticed if you are from a lower income bracket. The story is a bit about Jackie Robinson West being stripped of the little league title but it is more of a personal account of moving up the travel ranks and getting noticed. It touches on so many things we've talked about -- minor league pay, minority participation and more. Interesting perspective. Give it a read. http://www.theplayerstribune.com/left-out/