Tag: MLB

All 30 MLB Teams Will be Wearing Marjory Stoneman Douglas Hats This Weekend to Honor School Shooting Victims

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I read the other day that this was initially going to just be a Miami Marlins thing since Stoneman Douglas is right in their backyard. I also read that because of the MLB’s tone deaf rules the players would only be allowed to wear the hats in pre-game, but it looks like they’ve reversed course in a big way.

Now ALL 30 MLB teams will be wearing the high school’s hat with the option to wear it in-game. Thats awesome. Its small condolences to the kids who had to go through hell this week, but its a great way to show support and solidarity with the community.

If you remember both New York teams donned first responder caps in the wake of 9/11 as a way to show support. Its a small gesture, but sometimes those can go pretty far.

John Henry Just Son’d Tom Werner Saying “We Don’t Need to Be Popular, We Need to Win.”

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ABC – As the Boston Red Sox stepped out into the sun Monday for their first full-squad workout of spring training, owner John Henry maintained that he’s more concerned about W’s and L’s than the team’s Q rating. “We really don’t need to be popular,” Henry said. “We need to win.” But despite winning 93 games and the American League East title for a second straight season in 2017, questions were raised about the Red Sox’s likability. Although attendance at Fenway Park remained almost unchanged, regional television ratings were down 15 percent on New England Sports Network, according to Nielsen Media data, while sports-talk airwaves were filled with the grievances of dissatisfied fans.

If you’ve ever read “Feeding the Monster” then you know exactly what I’m talking about here. In the behind the scenes book covering the inner workings of the Red Sox you read about a young Theo Epstein going to battle time and time again with Tom Werner and the entertainment side of the Sox over player personnel.

Theo wanted to build a farm system and sign smart, albeit boring, free agents to, ya know, win. Tom Werner isn’t against winning per se, but goddamnit the Red Sox needed to be sexy. He wanted more big names, more story lines.Winning be damned. The team had to be marketable to more demos with more attractive stars. Seriously. Read the book, Werner said that shit. You think hits like Roseanne just fall into place? No way. It takes years of creative genius steering the ship and shame on Theo for not listening to the Neilsen Rating System more when building his roster. Guy never stood a chance as a baseball executive going up against brainpower like Tom Werner.

Goddamnit. Can you tell I’m still bitter about the Red Sox running the best baseball mind of our generation out of town?

Anyways, if we’re going to take John Henry at his word, it seems like he may be smartening up. He’s not exactly George Steinbrenner so he’s not going to just punt on everything that doesn’t directly lead to winning. But, Henry is a smart dude, he knows that popularity follows winning, not the other way around. If the Red Sox are hammering opposing teams all summer on their way to a World Series then they’ll be pretty damn popular. However, if the team is focused on signing guys based solely on their marketability (i.e Pablo Sandoval the Panda) well thats how you find yourselves in a shit storm you’re still digging out of 3 years later.

I Think the Red Sox Yankees Rivalry May Finally Be Back

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Its been a tough decade for the so called blood feud between the Red Sox and the Yankees. Neither team has really been very good at the same time recently. After the epic postseason clashes of 2003 and 2004 the two sides haven’t played each other in the playoffs even once. Before last year, both teams hadn’t even made the playoffs in the same season since 2009. In 2007 when the Sox won it all, the Yankees got smoked in the divisional round. In 2009 when the Yankees won it all, the Sox got swept in the divisional round. And in 2013 when the Red Sox went the distance again, the Yanks straight up sucked and missed the playoffs winning only 85 games.

The guys much smarter than me over at fivethirtyeight.com actually put together a graph last year, based on each team’s World Series odds, to measure how meaningful games between the Sox and Yankees actually have been over the years.

“From 2007 to 2016, the typical Yanks-Sox contest was only about as important as any old opening-day game. In other words, it was fun but no big deal.”

So we’re on the up ladies and gentlemen. Last year Boston won its second straight AL East crown and the Yankees came within a game of advancing to the World Series on the back of young, homegrown talent. All of that was BEFORE New York added the best power hitter in the game in Giancarlo Stanton. The Yankees, who featured a guy in Aaron Judge who hit 52 home runs AS A ROOKIE, just added a guy who hit 59 home runs. Ridiculous.

Well, thank god the Sox finally responded by signing one Julio Daniel Martinez.

It took a lot longer than most expected, but it sure is nice to take a team that won 93 games and then add this guy: .303 BA/.376 OBP/ .690 SLG with 45 Home Runs and 104 RBIs.

And for all the Yankees fans in my timeline talking shit already (its not even St. Patty’s Day yet) I’m just going to quote my man Jared Carrabis:

“After finishing last in the league in homers last year, the Red Sox added the player who is second in the MLB in slugging percentage (.574) since the start of the 2014 season behind Mike Trout (.579) with a minimum of 300 games played.”

A consolation prize he is not.

My point being though is this could be the first time we see Boston and New York square off in the playoffs in more than a decade. Both teams are stacked, young, and trending upwards. Sure the Patriots have taken the No. 1 spot in town and the Sox have won 3 titles since 2004, but I honestly don’t think thats why the venom between the Red Sox and the Yankees has dissipated. No, its because both teams haven’t been trying to kill each other for that next ring. If the Yankees and their loudmouth fans in the Bronx are standing between Chris Sale and a World Series appearance, you better fucking believe fans are gonna be fired up.

All we need is the opportunity, and thats what we have here tonight.

The Red Sox Finally Sign JD Martinez

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Update: The JD Martinez deal is $110 Million over 5 years with opt outs after the 2nd and 3rd year.

LETS GO! According to Pedro Gomez of ESPN the Red Sox just signed JD Martinez after months of blue balling each other.

The total dollars have yet to be reported, but years wise it seems like a good deal for both sides. The $200+ Million deal Martinez was hoping for never materialized and he chose to wait it out hoping someone would get stupid and swipe their Free Agency credit card. Never happened and you can imagine JD is less than pleased with Scott Boras for setting those expectations.

But a 5 year deal is perfect for the team and if JD continues to hit 40+ home runs every year then he can opt out after 2 years and try his luck again.

Depending on who you listen to the Sox were offering anywhere from $100-$125 Million and as a Red Sox fan I am more than happy with that. I mean its not my money so I could care less how much these guys actually get paid, but as we’ve seen in recent years when the team buries itself with bloated contracts it hamstrings them in potential future deals. An abortion of a $95 Million deal for Pablo Sandoval, a $217 Million contract for media combatant David Price, and of course the $72 Million deal the Sox handed out to Rusney Castillo after seeing his And1 Mixtape. All huge commitments with the most successful of the 3 having been as a middle relief pitcher in the playoffs. That my friends is what they call a less than ideal ROI.

So assuming the JD deal is in that reported $100-$125 Million range, the Red Sox have set themselves up really well for the present without strapping themselves for cash in the future when guys like Mookie Betts come due for big money deals.

Dealer Dave finally got one right and I’m sure everyone in Dunkin Donuts will hear all about it Tuesday morning.

 

Vladimir Guerrero Just Spit In Montreal’s Face

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This is just the latest turn of the knife in the gut of Montreal baseball fans over the past 15 or so years. Vlad Guerrero, the last star of the Expos, nay, the last PRIDE of the Expos, Montreal’s beloved baseball team of yore, has chosen to enter the Hall of Fame as a Goddam Anaheim Angel (Blogger’s Note: Not a huge baseball guy anymore, per say, so IDK what the Halos call themselves these days location-wise). First they lost their team, now one could argue they’ve lost (see: been abandoned by) their identity.

For context, I actually know a bit about the maple syrupy ecosystem that is Monteal baseball twitter. That’s no lie, it’s a rabbit hole I have been down. And friends, It’s basically revisionist history 101. You see, I don’t doubt that folks from Montreal love baseball, hell I don’t doubt they loved the Expos as an idea, a concept. With that said, loving something via admiration is not the capitalistic way you express your fandom. You do that by, you know, showing up to watch your team play every once in awhile. So allow me to remind you that Montreal’s (Olympic?) stadium was routinely as empty as the Chinamen’s cars in The Departed. I remember being downright horrified the few times the Sox went up there for inter-league play. I think I asked my Dad if they were playing at a forgotten stadium in Chernobyl or something. The hot dog vendors were probably volunteers – both in terms of their time and the hot dogs. It was ridiculous. With allll of that said Montreal baseball twitter is in LOVE with baseball and obsessed with two things:

1.) Obviously getting the Expos back so no one can show up again, the rest of the league can get pissed off again, and the team can get relocated again to somewhere like fucking Temecula or something.
2.) Vladimir Guerrero. The cannon-armed right fielder who didn’t need no batting gloves.

Indeed I respect the fuck out of number 2. Vlad had it all. A 5-tool guy with a personality to boot. Just always seemed to love playing the game and enjoying the moment. So this must just absolutely SUCK for our neighbors to the French Canadian north. Instead of representing his original team, the team where he made his bones and is still largely remembered as the team he played for the most,  Vlad will enter the Hall as a member of the team forever known as being at the center of the movie that would serve as JGL’s launch pad. Just a whole lot to cry aboot.

 

Taking a Look at the 2018 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

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While I don’t have a ballot to cast, for the second straight year I have taken a look at all of the players on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America Hall of Fame Ballot. I figured if I’m going to gripe about the Hall of Fame selection process I might as well fill out a mock ballot myself to get a better handle on the process.

It’s not rocket science but there are some tough decision to be made. Voters may vote for up to 10 of the 33 players on the ballot. I selected eight on my mock ballot. They are:

Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Vladimir Guerrero
Chipper Jones
Curt Schilling
Sammy Sosa
Jim Thome
Billy Wagner

Obviously I’m not opposed to voting for suspected steroids users. I voted for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens because, whether or not they used steroids, Bonds was indisputably the best hitter in the game for much of his career and Clemens was indisputably the best pitcher in the game for much of his career. The same cannot be said for Manny Ramirez.

Bonds won seven MVP awards, including FOUR in a row 2001-2004. Clemens won seven Cy Young Awards and won the award back-to-back on two occasions, a decade apart. Ramirez never won an MVP award and quit on his team more times than I care to remember. He was also popped for PEDs twice. While strong cases could be made against Bonds and Clemens, those guys never failed drug tests. Testing didn’t start until 2003, but I have a hard time giving guys grief for doing business as business was being done at the time.

Maybe numbers were inflated, and careers extended, but Bonds and Clemens were far and away better than the rest of their contemporaries. Again, the same cannot be said of Ramirez.

Regarding Sammy Sosa, he won the 1998 NL MVP award and is the only man in history with three 60+ home run seasons. Sosa played in the same era as Bonds so he is not the best player of his era, but few players ever were as dominant as Sosa was for six straight seasons, 1998-2003.

Vladimir Guerrero made nine all-star games in 12 seasons between 1999 and 2010. He was a great offensive player and had one hell of an arm in the outfield. He didn’t compile huge numbers over a lengthy career, but he was one of the best players of the 2000s and he gets my vote for that reason.

Jim Thome was never the best player at his position, never mind the best player in the game. But he did compile huge numbers over a lengthy career. Mammoth numbers. He’s not in the 500 Home Run Club. He’s in the 600 Home Run Club. He’s eighth on the all-time home run list with 612. He also drove in nearly 1700 runs. He never won an MVP award, but it’s hard to not vote for a guy with those numbers on his resume. Guy just went to work and mashed for 22 years.

Chipper Jones was consistently very good for more than 15 years and was a big part of Atlanta’s run of division titles. The 1995 NL MVP made eight all-star teams, and I was pleasantly surprised by his 468 home runs and 1623 RBI.

As I said last year, Curt Schilling gets my vote because he was the best big-game pitcher of his era. He was 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA in 19 postseason appearances and won a ring in Arizona before winning two with the Sox. Now a noted meme curator, it’s been sad to see him self destruct in recent years but he’s a Hall of Famer nonetheless.

And in a flip from last year, I voted for Billy Wagner this year instead of Trevor Hoffman. Hoffman appeared on 74% of ballots last year and Wagner only appeared on 10% of ballots but Wagner was the better relief pitcher. The only number Hoffman has on Wagner is saves. Hoffman saved 601 games in 18 years and Wagner saved 422 in 16 years. But Wagner had a better win-loss percentage, a substantially lower ERA, he struck out more batters in almost 200 fewer innings, had a lower WHIP and a better strikeout-to-walk ratio. I know that Hoffman is getting in and Wagner probably won’t sniff even 20% but I’m taking a principled stand here. Wagner was better than Hoffman.

Regarding some notable candidates left off my ballot…

Edgar Martinez was a very good player for a long period of time but he wasn’t even the best player on his own team for most of his career (Griffey, A-Rod, Ichiro). There’s just not enough offensive production on his resume to separate him from the rest of the pack for me. It has nothing to do with being a DH, though.

Mike Mussina pitched very well in an era of inflated offense but he was never the most feared pitcher in the game, and he never won a Cy Young award.

Gary Sheffield posted very good offensive numbers for a long period of time, but it’s hard to think he would’ve bounced around as much as he did if he were truly one of the all-time greats. (Editor’s note: Dougie did his capstone project in a college Baseball Stats class arguing Sheffield should make the HOF. The most comparable HOFer? Jim Rice)

Larry Walker posted very good offensive numbers, but a lot of that production came in Colorado in the late 1990s. To give you an idea of what was going on in that era, he hit .379 with 37 HRs and 115 RBI in 127 games in 1999 and finished 10th in the MVP voting that season. He was a very good player in his era, but not head and shoulders above everybody else.

 

That’s all I got. Hit me up with your thoughts on Twitter @The300sBigZ

Derek Jeter, the King of Optics, Continues to be a Walking PR Disaster as Marlins Owner

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Derek Jeter, Mr. Yankee, the guy who did it “right” sure is piling up the PR blunders as he got bagged on TV at the Dolphins game last night after being a no show at the MLB Winter Meetings the day before. The perception of him as a newly minted CEO is somewhere between aloof and Jeffrey Loria 2.0. Not great. First he comes into Miami, after the MLB gifted him the team despite a better bid from Jeb Bush, and axes franchise icons left and right. This included firing a guy while he was in the hospital after undergoing colon cancer surgery. Not to mention Jeets wasn’t even doing the firing himself. He had a guy he had already fired deliver the bad news on his behalf.

Then it came out that he hadn’t even SPOKEN to Giancarlo Stanton. Ya know, the franchise’s all-time greatest player. May want to shoot him a text or something. Jeter then announces to the world his intention to gut the team’s payroll and likely trade off said Miami legend, Giancarlo Stanton.

Man, he must be fucking awesome at poker. Jeter then proceeds to work out finalized trades with the Cardinals AND Giants before actually asking Stanton if he’d accept a trade to either team. It was reported that the Marlins threatened Stanton to either accept one of the trades or he’d be a Marlin “for the rest of [his] life” surrounded by no talent on a losing franchise. Wow.

Naturally, once Stanton blocked those trades, Jeter was basically up shits creek with zero leverage and old friend Brian Cashman *knew* it. The goddamn Yankees snuck in under the cover of darkness and robbed Jeter blind by basically eating the contract, sending over Starlin Castro and a few bum ass prospects. For a guy who just hit 60 home runs. Unbelievable.

So after all that, you would think the CEO of the team, who had his dick sucked by the media for nearly two decades, would merely show up to the MLB Winter Meetings to answer a few questions and play some grab ass with the media. Nope, total no show. And the baseball nerds were PISSED. Even guys like Buster Olney are starting to turn on Jeter.

To top it all off, the very next day Jeter gets BAGGED on national TV sitting in the luxury box at the Dolphins game in Miami. A mere one hour flight from where the Winter Meetings are taking place in Orlando. And he knew it too.

In his first time speaking to the press as a member of the Yankees Giancarlo Stanton wasted no time in ripping the Marlins and how they go about their business. In a matter of a couple of months on the job Jeter has already blown through most of the goodwill he had earned over the years as a figurehead of the Yankees dynasty.

AND ITS NOT EVEN JANUARY YET.

Yea Jeets.

Japanese Super Prospect Shohei Ohtani is Leaving $200 Million On the Table by Coming to the MLB Early

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Yahoo – Baseball super agent Scott Boras is, in no uncertain terms, upset about the process that’s lead up to Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani’s arrival in Major League Baseball. Ohtani, after a posting agreement was finalized last week, is set to hit the open market Friday. The catch is: Since he’s an international free agent under 25, the market isn’t as open as it could be. MLB rules put a hard cap on how much teams can spend on international free agents under 25, so the most money Ohtani could possibly get is $3.5 million from the Texas Rangers. Some teams have as little as $10,000 to offer Ohtani. This isn’t about the money for Ohtani, who has long expressed his desire to play on baseball’s most competitive stage. To do so, he’s willing to leave upward of $200 million on the table. Were he over 25, Ohtani could be a true free agent and sign with any team for any amount. Since he’s a two-way star who can throw 100 mph and hit long home runs, getting upward of $200 million on the open market would be entirely plausible.

This guy is INSANE. He is leaving, literally, tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars on the table by coming to the MLB early. Because he is under 25 years old the international rules in place by MLB cap his earning potential $3.5 million. MAX. But if he had waited until he was 25 he could have entered the MLB as a true free agent and would have been free to go to the highest bidder.

Why the arbitrary age of 25?

“picking 25 years old as the cut-off means that a player like Ohtani will hit free agency around the same time as a player from the U.S. who went through the normal draft procedures.”

Just to put this into perspective, the most recent big name Japanese free agents coming MLB earned HUGE pay days. The Yankees signed Masahiro Tanaka for $155 Million. The Rangers signed Yu Darvish for $60 Million. The Red Sox even signed old friend Daisuke Matsuzaka for $51 Million and that was 10 years ago.

So this guy better hope he has the juice and actually performs well in the United States or he just sold low on a winning lottery ticket. Thats half the appeal with international players. You just never know how good (or bad) they’re gonna be. It’s impossible to project how their talent will translate to playing in the MLB. Thats how absolute bums like Rusney Castillo swindled $72 Million out of the Red Sox. Imagine if that guy had come over the US and played for peanuts in hopes of getting a big pay day later? That guy would be working at the Burger King off I-95 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island instead of earning $10+ Million a year to play 2 miles down the road for the PawSox.

Remember the last guy who wanted to pitch and hit in the major leagues? Red Sox super prospect Casey Kelly? Yea, turns out he couldn’t do either one well in the pros. Godspeed, Shohei.

 

Former Red Sox Manager of the Future Torey Luvullo Named Manager of the Year. For the Diamondbacks.

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ESPN – Torey Lovullo of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Paul Molitor of the Minnesota Twins are the 2017 MLB Manager of the Year Award winners. Lovullo, in his first season with Arizona, managed the team to a 93-69 record — 24 more wins than last season, the second largest win increase from 2016 among all teams — and into the playoffs for the first time since 2011.

Of course he did. The guy the Sox let walk for nothing ends up being the best manager in the league. So lets just recap all this real quick. Torey Lovullo was hired by the Red Sox and John Farrell to be his bench coach before the 2013 season (he also worked under Farrell for two years in Toronto).

Lovullo was widely considered a future MLB manager and interviewed for managerial jobs after most of those seasons before coming back to Boston. He was the interim manager for the Sox down the stretch in 2015 when Farrell was diagnosed with cancer. The Sox played extremely well under Lovullo, leading many to speculate that the Sox would dump Farrell in favor of his bench coach. The Red Sox kept Farrell at the helm though with Lovullo returning as bench coach.

Well the Sox gave Lovullo a two year extension for big money that all, but screamed he would replace Farrell once he was axed. The Sox instead stuck with Farrell through all of 2016 and let Lovullo walk to take the Diamondbacks managerial job, signifying they would be sticking with Farrell for the foreseeable future. Welp, just one year later after yet another playoff flameout the Sox finally did fire Farrell after the 2017 season, the same season in which Lovullo won NL Manager of the Year in his first season on the job.

So the Sox paid to keep Lovullo around as the heir apparent to Farrell, then refused to fire Farrell, let Lovullo walk, then a year later ended up firing Farrell anyways, all while Lovullo showcases an immense talent for the job and is named the best manager in the NL. Great asset management, John Henry.

 

Breaking: Giancarlo Stanton Reportedly Won’t Accept Trade to Red Sox (UPDATE: Maybe He Will?)

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Boston Herald – “A baseball source said yesterday that he’s been told Stanton will not accept a trade to either the Red Sox or the Cardinals, another team linked early and often in trade rumors. Perhaps there’s some flexibility in that stance, but Stanton’s preference is a factor.”

Welp, that was quick. The GM meetings aren’t even over and we’re already hearing reports that Stanton won’t waive his no-trade clause for the Red Sox. Glad I wrote 1,000 words on him earlier today. Now thats not to say this deal is completely dead. We’ve all seen some wild shit in the MLB offseason around no-trade clauses, contract terms, and the Players Union mucking things up. Namely how the Red Sox completed trade for Alex Rodriguez fell through after 2003 for various flimsy reasons.

If this definitely doesn’t happen and Stanton doesn’t want to come to Boston, the question is why? Before everyone freaks out and says “not everyone wants to play in Boston,” just relax. Look I get it, we are a very parochial town. We invented America for christ’s sake. You’re welcome by the way. But the guy is playing on a last place team and has publicly said he wants no part of a rebuild. Maybe he’s hoping to maneuver a trade to the Dodgers who seem to fucking print money these days. The same reports are also saying he won’t accept a trade to St. Louis. The only other (publicly) known trade suitors were the San Francisco Giants. Ya know the team that’s coming off a 98 loss season. I know he’s a Southern Cali guy, but if the guy really cares about winning then I can’t imagine he wants to go there. So maybe there’s a dark horse candidate out there somewhere that is going to surprise all of us.

Live look at my emotions while following the Giancarlo Stanton rumors today:

UPDATE:

Evan Drellich disagrees.

“The Red Sox may not be Giancarlo Stanton’s No. 1 choice, but he hasn’t ruled out them or anyone else as a potential destination at this point, a person with knowledge of Stanton’s thinking told NBC Sports Boston on Tuesday. The Marlins slugger, a bona fide star, is said to have a “completely” open mind about teams interested to trade for him, and is actively trying to be thoughtful about the process — one he ultimately controls because of a full no-trade clause.”

Giancarlo watch is BACK ON!