Though it’s early in the process, the market for Yasmany Tomas is beginning to develop, tweets MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez. To this point, the Rangers, Phillies, Padres, Giants, Mariners and Dodgers have all shown strong interest in the young slugger. Most of those clubs are logical fits, though the Dodgers are a bit surprising given the logjam of outfielders the team already has under contract. The Dodgers are already unable to find regular at-bats for Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Carl Crawford, Yasiel Puig, Joc Pederson and Scott Van Slyke, so adding another outfielder to the mix would make a semi-surprising addition.
Some more news items from around the league…
- Braves right-hander Garrett Fulenchek and his agent, Craig Rose, have joined MSM Sports, MLBTR has learned. The 18-year-old Fulenchek was selected with the 66th overall pick in this year’s draft and will join the same agency that is home to No. 8 overall pick Kyle Freeland and Josh Harrison of the Pirates.
- The Royals and Orioles have built somewhat unconventional rosters, writes ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick, pointing out that their meeting in the ALCS marks the first time in the divisional era (beginning in 1969) that two teams that ranked in the bottom five of the league in walks will meet in an LCS or World Series. Crasnick looks at each team’s emphasis on defense as well as the Orioles’ emphasis on power and aggression and the Royals’ emphasis on speed. Somewhat incredibly, Baltimore ranked first in the Majors in homers and last in steals, while Kansas City ranked last in homers and first in steals. Crasnick spoke with Adam Jones, Buck Showalter and the Elias Sports Bureau’s Steve Hirdt for the piece, the latter of whom opined that clubs have gone from undervaluing walks to overvaluing them.
- Crasnick’s colleague, Jayson Stark, writes that players feel underrepresented as MLB experiments with new rules to increase the pace of play. No active players were included on the seven-man committee to look into the matter, though MLBPA executive director Tony Clark (a former Major Leaguer himself) is on the committee to serve as a voice for the players, commissioner-elect Rob Manfred explained to Stark via email. Nonetheless, players such as Curtis Granderson, Kevin Slowey and Brad Ziegler all went on the record with Stark, and a number of players who wished to remain anonymous brought up several issues they’ve taken with the endeavor. Some players feel that too much of the blame has been placed on them, when there’s been little talk of shortening commercial breaks or the consequences that an increasingly matchup-based game has brought about (i.e. more pitching changes). More than anything, players hope to have a voice in the matter before changes are implemented, Slowey and Granderson explained.
- Baseball America’s Matt Eddy compiled an “All-Rookie Team” for the 2014 season, highlighting the excellent work of Travis d’Arnaud, Jose Abreu, Mookie Betts, Nick Castellanos, Danny Santana, Billy Hamilton, Kevin Kiermaier, George Springer, Kennys Vargas, Jacob deGrom, Collin McHugh, Marcus Stroman, Masahiro Tanaka, Yordano Ventura and Dellin Betances. Names such as Matt Shoemaker and David Peralta also earned mentions, and you can read Eddy’s rationale behind his selections in the full article.
The Dodgers would be surprising if they weren’t planning on trading one or two of them for other pieces, which is probably more likely.
At first I was strongly against this idea, but my opinion is slowly beginning to change:
Pitchers must face three batters or pitch the last out of an inning before they can come out of a game.
At first I thought, no, that would hurt a team with a lot of lefty/righty specialists. But now I don’t care, pitchers are supposed to be able to pitch to everyone, and batters are supposed to be able to hit anyone. Let them compete.
Why are pitchers supposed to be able to pitch to everyone?
Must we also eliminate pinch hitters?
dh?
It’s not like you can make infinite moves. Maybe if they wanted to cut rosters to 24 would eliminate some of this. You only have so many players and it’s not like teams have 1 out pitchers for innings.
Getting rid of DH would be great. It ruins the game.
?
Honestly I would rather not watch a pitcher bat. Vast majority of pitchers are pretty useless hitters, DH saves us from that agony.
Speak for yourself. Some of us prefer a homerun to a well placed sacrifice bunt.
baseball is a game of 9 versus 9.
It is also a game in which pitchers managed a 0.306 ops in 2014.
That’s what happens when the entire sport forgets how to be a disciplined hitter. Nobody knows how to choke up, use a split handed grip, slap hit, or hit and run anymore.
Oh, then factor in how the strike zone has gone up about 30-40% in size.
That’s almost an exact quote from Ty Cobb during the 1950s
Bad baseball is, sure. if you’re interested in the 9th batter hitting below .200. There was only one pitcher in the entire NL who hit over .240 last year, and I’d still take 99% of batters as DH’s over watching a pitcher hit. Automatic outs are not good baseball. Getting some hits and then watching the pitcher come up and do nothing is not good baseball.
I don’t consider a game that includes a DH to be a baseball game. It is dhball. If you’re a fan of Dhball, go knock yourself out. I can’t stand it, it is boring. I much prefer baseball.
Watching someone that can actually hit is boring?
I don’t want a pitcher coming to the plate that the best you can hope for is that they make contact.
Most pitchers see 2 AB’s a game, occasionally 3. Then you get your guys that aren’t good enough to be full-time baseball players like in the AL.
First off, the Dh adds practically no offense. It is less than .2 runs per game. That means once every five games you might see one extra run, maybe. In a regular three game series it really makes no real difference at all.
Second, baseball is a game of 9v9. You put your nine best guys on then field, and they play the other teams best nine. That’s baseball. If you think your best nine are all dedicated hitters, good luck. Oh, you want to use a guy who specializes in pitching? Alright, well you’re giving up offense to do that. Your choice. Do what you think is best. 9v9, that’s the point of the game.
Not sure where you get the practically no offense. It’s closer to 0.44 runs per game if you swap a dh with a pitcher. Some of that is given back by pinch hitters, but there are very few pinch hitters in the NL that come anywhere closer to matching the production of a dh.
It’s only a game of 9v9 because you say so.
The AL scores .2 runs per game more than the NL and have done so for a very long time. Not all of which is accounted for by the DH, but in large part it is. The NL also has more pitcher friendly parks. For instance, pretty much the entire NL east is pitcher friendly, and pretty much the entire NL west is pitcher friendly. The central is more oven. The AL east is overwhelmingly hitting friendly. The AL central is pitching friendly, and the AL west is reasonably even from what I can tell.
The DH adds, at most, .2 runs per game.
@LazerTown:disqus is right, if you’re going to play that logic, you need to base it on the DH vs the pitcher and not on the AL vs the NL lineup. We’re talking about the advantage of having the DH instead of the pitcher in the lineup, not the strength of the rest of the lineup around the DH.
Watching somebody that can field a position hit, you mean.
Meh, you can have your opinion without calling the NL bad baseball. There’s much more strategy to any NL game than an AL game. Many people prefer this side of baseball. Some think the only strategy in the AL is to try to pull your pitcher before he gives up a 3 run HR. Baseball is a thinking persons sport, and the NL provides much more of that.
And you can have your opinion too. But please don’t tell me watching Bartolo Colon bat is good baseball. It’s entertaining sure, but it isn’t good baseball.
No DH! I like pitchers trying to bat. Its hysterical and it gives me three pitches to use the bathroom.
I’d like to see the Pirates trade for Scott Van Slyke and have him platoon with Pedro Alvarez at 1B next season
Shortening commercial breaks is a great idea.
I’ve thought the same thing as well. Surely the teams/networks could recoup the lost money through ticker ads during play or something else unobtrusive.
not gonna happen though.
As a fan, I agree with you. However, the reason that MLB and local broadcasts earn so much money for MLB and the local team is that they sell air time during the game which in turns greatly helps pay for the costly salaries of major league players! Fewer commercials translates into lower salaries, it is that simple. Crawler ads cannot contain the graphics and sound and therefore the attention that advertisers crave to promote their products.
Shortening game will not be easy but there are several ways to do so: 1) When you step into the batters box, you stay there until you hit the ball. No stepping out for a practice swing or adjusting the batting glove or anything else. 2) Pitchers get XX seconds to pitch the ball or throw over to first and violation results in a called ball or balk. 3) Catchers get one trip to the mound per inning. 4) Batter cannot call time out unless there is an equipment malfunction. Once the batter has stepped into the batters box, pitcher cannot step off the mound unless it is to throw to a base occupied by a runner. 5) Intentional walks are sent directly to first base, skip the throws. 6) Batter has 15 seconds to walk from on-deck circle to batters box. End the rituals of batters preening and adjusting and you shorten a game by 15 minutes. I have timed this several times at Twins games this season.
The Dodgers would make no sense for Tomas.
Out of those 6 only Pederson can really play center, so you have 5 options for 2 corner spots, and no dh.
I don’t get why they are hanging onto them all. They are paying them regardless. If you paid Crawford’s contract I’m sure they would get some prospects back.
The Dodgers are mad. Their puny $235 million dollar payroll won’t cut it. They will need to get to $300 mil+ to try to buy a championship. With this in mind, who on earth is their seventh outfielder? They should not get embarrassed. What if four of the outfielders went down with season ending injuries. They can get back injuries carrying bags of money to the bank. After Toma’s and maybe Stanton, then let’s fix the pitching before we get a ninth second baseman. We need four starters and seven more relievers. Let’s not try to be cheap anymore.
Dodger interest is not that surprising if you take into consideration that Crawford and Ethier are in their declining years. You do not know how much Kemp has left and Pederson and Van Slyke are essentially unproven. Biggest factor is that the minor league system has no competent outfield prospects ready to move up over the next few years. Also with terrible contracts, Ethier, Kemp and Crawford are not easily traded. Pederson and/or Van Slyke could be moved, but that leaves the Dodgers with no player to move up in a year or so from now when Crawford and Ethier are done. Hence the interest in Tomas – also probably looking at a buddy for Puig
No Panik on the all-rookie team?
He’d have to bump Betts at 2B, right? No way that happens. Don’t get me wrong, Panik had a nice debut, but with no power or speed, you gotta give the nod to Mookie.
Any chance the Phillies go all in on this guy their TV contract kicks in after next season, Raj could back load a contract to Tomas and start a rebuilding process for a team in desperate need for something positive in this years free agency?
The Dodgers are not going after Tomas ok the rangers or giants will get him
I sure hope the Giants sign him, although I’m not sure he’d fit into their payroll unless they let Pablo walk to free agency. And maybe Headley could be had on a short-term (2-3 year) deal to rebuild his value for another shot at free agency.
If the Giants did sign Tomas/Headley, then this would be the Opening Day starters most likely:
C Posey
1B Belt
2B Panik
3B Headley
SS Crawford
LF Tomas
CF Pagan
RF Pence
Which, if everyone plays like they’re supposed to and Tomas puts up a .260 batting average with 10-20 dingers, would be a big improvement offensively.
If Headley’s looking to rebuild value, my guess is he’d sign a one-year deal — probably w/ the Yankees — and hit the market again next year. Guys rarely go multi-years when trying for another big payday.
Tomas is such an interesting case, most of the Cuban imports have been touted as athletic, but it’s pretty set that he’s a corner outfielder and no one is talking about him with the same power potential as Abreu. Makes you wonder what the final product looks like when he gets to the states.
Giants could try for Rasmus on a one-year, get right deal. He’s coming off an odd year and could use a value bump. He’s only 28 and has power and a good glove, especially for a corner OF slot. Let him earn a big multi-year payday elsewhere after popping 20+ dingers.