“Earlier this season, the slugger formerly known as Kendry was said to be seeking ‘Billy Butler money’ after ‘Country Breakfast’ signed with the Athletics for 3/$30 million. Now Morales replaces Butler, signing with the Royals and ending the possibility of Kansas City using a platoon at DH, à LA the 2014 Oakland Athletics.”
The Tigers upgraded the lineup and their bullpen, but was the price too great?
If you ever wondered what a succesful small-market GM could do with a big-market team with deep pockets, then buckle up: Wednesday, Andrew Friedman and company unleashed the hottest and sexiest GM porn anyone has… Read more »
If you’re a Los Angeles Dodgers fan—Hell, if you’re a baseball fan, or a sports fan, or even a ceiling fan—the last 24 hours have been bedlam. When Jon Lester agreed to sign with the… Read more »
Welcome back. I’m scrapping the format I used for the first post in this series. You’ll see one of several reasons soon. No big, long introduction needed here. Let’s just recap some baseball talk. Episode… Read more »
Dale Scott is news, and worth celebrating.
“On Tuesday, Ken Rosenthal reported that the Reds are open to trading Aroldis Chapman. Most people assumed that if the Reds made a move it would involve one of their starting pitchers. However, could dealing Chapman provide a big enough return to help the Reds boost a slumping offense?”
“Tim Dierkes tweeted that the Royals had interest in free agent Asdrubal Cabrera, the long-time shortstop of the division-rival Indians who finished the 2014 campaign playing second for the Washington Nationals. While the Royals may be looking to move their 2014 second baseman to make room for Cabrera, the Royals also have two players on their 40-man roster who could replace Infante themselves.”
“There have been examples of Rule 5 draftees finally figuring it out and becoming great players, either for the team that selected them, or another club in the future.”
“Fresh off the back of Monday’s Brandon Moss for Joe Wendle deal, Billy Beane moved again by flipping Jeff Samardzija and Michael Ynoa for Marcus Semien, Chris Bassitt, Josh Phegley, and Rangel Ravelo. So how do we feel about this as A’s fans? Some places would have you believe that this is a complete rebuild, but is that the case? First, let’s look at the players involved.”
“Joe Buck: Here’s the 0-1. That’s in the air to left center. That ball iiiiis…down. And it gets passed to the wall! Gordon is gonna dig for third. A mistake in the outfield…and Gordon is being waved home! There’s gonna be a play at the plate…the relay from Crawford…Posey takes it on a hop. Gordon topples over Posey aaaand…”
“Has Billy Beane lost his mind? I mean, really. For years, the baseball world thought he was crazy, just, you know…like a fox. But after unloading three of his best players in the span of about a week for seemingly nickels on the dollar, you have to start wondering if these are the machinations of an evil genius, or a lunatic. Or maybe just a desperate man who went all-in and lost.”
After a flurry of rumors Monday night, the Chicago Cubs and Arizona Diamondbacks completed a trade on Tuesday. Catcher Miguel Montero, 31, became a Cub, and Chicago sent minor-league pitchers Jeferson Mejia and Zach Godley… Read more »
In 2008, the Chicago Cubs won their second straight division title. It wasn’t like its predecessor, though. That 2008 title was a matter of course. That Cubs team was dominant. They won 97 games, led… Read more »
Late Tuesday night, it was announced that the Cubs had signed free agent Jon Lester to a 6-yr, $155-million contract: “The fact is 2014 Jon Lester was completely different from 2011-2013 Jon Lester. Instead, he looked like the Jon Lester who was lost years ago. What changed that made the Red Sox nearly double their initial offer for Lester in a matter of months? Let’s take a look.”
“We all know by now that every team that makes the postseason doesn’t always start off strong. The 1985 World Champion Royals, the last Kansas City team to make the postseason prior to 2014, were a .500 team at the All Star Break that year. The 2014 Royals were nearly the same, claiming a 48-46 record at the break – six and a half games behind division nemesis Detroit.”
“Reporter Scoop Chevelle gives his review of the winter meetings: Weather – ‘The weather is warm enough that you could walk around in just your underwear. In theory.'”
“In this series, I’ll take a look at contenders who didn’t make the playoffs as well as tankers who never came close to see if it really is possible to turn failures into contenders with some reasonable adjustments through free agency.”
Panda is gone, what do the Giants do now?
“While the terms of the contract are unkown at this time, the Braves have reportedly signed 31 year-old third and second baseman Alberto Callaspo with the intention of starting him at 2nd base in 2015 and possibly using him at 3rd base vs. right-handed pitchers.”
What the Mets have done, and where they could be headed.
We asked our resident Giants and Royals fans to walk us through their respective 2014 seasons, from spring training to the 7-game World Series. In part 2 of the week-long series, Darius Austin and Walter Cook look back at SF’s preseason expectations.
“It illustrates the dynamics of what happens when a band of outsiders infiltrate a world dominated by the status quo of business and offer a collective ‘eff you’ to the establishment.”
“Oh Yankees, enjoy Andrew Miller for the next four years. We in Boston enjoyed watching him for the last two. However, his time in Boston was not entirely great. Boston can thank Bobby Valentine (I cannot believe I just typed that) for Miller’s transformation.”
“I’m not sure when it began—maybe the picture I saw was the very first—but I saw visual evidence of cement being poured in the Chicago Cubs’ off-season bleacher reconstruction project on Monday. After weeks of striking pictures of the stadium’s long-time horizon line being demolished, and a fair few pictures where nothing seemed to be happening, and nothing was left, Monday was the first concrete reminder that there will be bleachers there again, and soon, at least for me.”
“Brandon Moss is now on the wrong side of 30, and he’s a left-handed DH. If the team is trying to become more well balanced and fit for a long term run, then moving Moss seems fairly self-evident. Moss was moved to Cleveland in exchange for 24-year-old 2nd base prospect named Joseph Wendle. Is that fair market value for Moss? Let’s take a look at Moss’ performance first in order to evaluate his value.”
There’s never this much buzz around the MLB Winter Meetings. As much as everyone wants it to, because it sure was nice back when half the winter’s player movement packed itself into three or four… Read more »
We asked our resident Giants and Royals fans to walk us through their respective 2014 seasons, from spring training to the 7-game World Series. In part 1 of the week-long series, Brandon Schlotfeld looks back at KC’s preseason expectations.
“The Minnesota Twins recently added pitching prospect Alex Meyer to their 40-man roster which protects him from being selected in the upcoming Rule 5 Draft. Meyer was originally the 23rd overall pick of the Washington Nationals in the 2011 draft before he was dealt to the Twins organization in exchange for Denard Span. Last season the 6’9″ righty went 7-7 with a 3.52 ERA and 1.381 WHIP over 130.1 innings at Triple-A Rochester. During 2013, I had the opportunity to sit down with Meyer when he was a member of the New Britain Rock Cats for an interview.”
“Welcome to EW Rewind. This is going to be a regular feature here. Our intention is to go back through the full catalogue of old episodes of Effectively Wild, and recap them for you. We’ll run through the episode a little bit, highlight any of the show’s meta elements that hit a high note or appear for the first time in a given episode, and (there will be some content here) refresh the topic or topics to some extent.”
