A second pitching coach change occurred today, as Mark Connor resigned from the Orioles post for personal reasons. Rick Adair will take his place. Today's links…
- A couple of young pitchers were added to 40-man rosters today, as the Blue Jays added Zach Stewart in place of Kyle Drabek and the Cubs promoted Chris Carpenter in place of Casey Coleman according to ESPN's Bruce Levine. Both teams already had one open spot on the 40-man roster.
- Andrew Miller's agent Mark Rodgers implied his client will not opt out of his Red Sox contract tomorrow, in a discussion with Scott Lauber of The Boston Herald. Lauber notes that Miller has a second opt-out date on August 5th.
- Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski suggested he might look for offense at the trade deadline, talking to Jim Bowden of MLB Network Radio (Twitter link). The Tigers currently rank sixth in the AL with 4.48 runs scored per game.
- Minor league infielder Matt Lawson retired, tweets MLB.com's Jordan Bastian. The Indians acquired Lawson and cash considerations from the Mariners for Aaron Laffey in March. At least they still have the cash. Laffey currently has a 1.98 ERA in 27 1/3 innings for the Mariners.
- More bad news for the Indians: pitching prospect Jason Knapp, acquired in the Cliff Lee deal, will miss the rest of the season due to shoulder surgery according to the team (Twitter link).
- An unnamed agent guesses contracts for ten prominent free agents in Jeff Passan's latest Yahoo article. The agent guessed eight years and $200MM for Prince Fielder. Meanwhile, Fielder's former Brewers teammate Bill Hall had all kinds of praise for the first baseman in this conversation with Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle.
