This week in baseball blogs:
- BP Toronto imagines what a Blue Jays fire sale would look like.
- The Runner Sports (links: 1, 2) sees Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge as the potential face of Major League Baseball and shares a couple trade proposals centering on Athletics right-hander Sonny Gray.
- Pirates Breakdown offers a rest-of-season outlook for outfielder Starling Marte, who’s about to return from an 80-game performance-enhancing drug suspension.
- DiNardo’s Dugout has both an article and a podcast previewing the trade deadline from a National League perspective.
- LegendsOnDeck (links: 1, 2) names the most surprising and disappointing first-half performances from both hitters and pitchers.
- Underthought polls readers on the season’s second half.
- Walk-Off Walk compares the curveball spin rates of Dodgers left-hander Rich Hill and Braves rookie southpaw Sean Newcomb.
- Notes From The Sally scouts White Sox third base prospect Jake Burger, the 11th pick in this year’s draft.
- Jays From the Couch regards Marlins second baseman Dee Gordon as a great fit for Toronto.
- Pinstripe Alley wants the Yankees to buy at the trade deadline.
- District On Deck ranked potential pre-trade deadline closer targets for the Nationals before they acquired a pair Sunday.
- Reviewing the Brew views Brewers shortstop Orlando Arcia as a superstar in the making.
- Bronx Bomber Ball lists five second-half keys to success for the Yankees.
- The Point of Pittsburgh wonders what acquiring former White Sox and now-Cubs lefty Jose Quintana would have meant for the Pirates this year.
- The Sports Tank recaps the All-Star Game.
- MetsMind tackles righty Jacob deGrom’s summer resurgence.
- Clubhouse Corner checks in on the state of the Yankees’ roster.
- Sports Talk Philly interviews legendary reliever Billy Wagner.
- Jays Journal fasts forward to Toronto’s 2020 lineup.
- Big Three Sports looks ahead to the 2018 home run derby.
- The 3rd Man In explains why the Brewers should move lefty Josh Hader to the rotation.
- Mets Daddy believes the club will have an interesting second half.
- Camden Depot analyzes the Orioles’ Adam Jones positioning in center field.
- Everything Bluebirds argues that the Blue Jays don’t need to tank.
- The K Zone chats with Phillies utilityman Ty Kelly.
- Extra Innings interviews Charlie Hill, the head of Major League Baseball’s London office, about the buildup to MLB games in London.
- Prospects1500 highlights top performances from each minor league level for the week of July 3.
- The Runner Sports profiles Astros outfield prospect Carmen Benedetti.
- PhoulBallz talks with Phillies third base prospect Mitch Walding.
- Rotisserie Duck looks at dual-sport athletes who have played baseball.
- Call to the Pen expects a better second half from the Phillies.
- Fueled By Sports ranks the top five Braves teams of all-time.
- Two Strike Approach: A Baseball Podcast (Stitcher link) features a guest appearance from Sahadev Sharma, who covers the Cubs for The Athletic.
Submissions: ZachBBWI @gmail.com.
This is what we’ve come to? Articles discussing the “New Face of Baseball” based on a half season’s performance?
NY hype machine at work.
Derek Jeter was a great player, but if he played his entire career in Milwaukee like Robin Yount did, would he be so well remembered?
Nope
Craig Biggio is on hold on line one.
If they were to win 5 rings and go to seven WS,maybe. Kris Bryant is building quite the brand with the Cubs being on top. Why is everyone so jealous of the Captain?
It’s not jealousy, it’s fact. Jeter was a great player who had the luck of playing for a great franchise in the premier media market surrounded by great players. Similar players to Jeter in terms of production like Yount, Biggio, and Tim Raines did not enjoy such notoriety.
Chicago is also a YUGE market and the Cubs one of the storied franchises, that’s not like Yount playing in Milwaukee for 20 years or Dawson and Raines in Montreal during their primes.
Jealousy comes with winning
Jeter also stepped up on the big stage. Those players you mentioned were excellent but Jeter had that it factor,be it commercially or socially. The only player you mentioned of those three close to Jeter would be Yount,but Derek totaled just about more of everything. When his year comes watch him get a higher percentage of votes then even JR.
Come on man!!!!!
The it factor? Yeah, that sounds like a bunch of bs.
Take away Paul O’Neill, Tino Martinez, Scott Brosius, Petite, Clemens, Rivera, et al and Jeter is just a great hall of Fame SS. Look at it objectively, he’s not some freak of nature All time GOAT like Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, or Rickey Henderson.
Not an argument. Do you really think Jeter would have been lauded like he was if he had been drafted by the Twins?
Look at Dave Winfield, say the Yankees draft him instead of the Padres and he plays his whole career on World Series winning Yankee teams. He gets remembered more simply for that than the Dave Winfield who played in San Diego, was on one World Series losing team with the Yankees, and won one World Series with Toronto at the end of his career.
any time you say something even remotely negative about someone’s team/players you are just jealous/trolling according to posters on this site. It’s a really terrible trend.
I agree Mr President, Now time to pass Civil Service Reform!
Yeah always this BS about Jeter. People always try to doctor things thus explaining it the same ways. Like it or not that’s the way it is! Now go and throw your terminology on NFL trade rumors about Tom Brady!
No one used trolling. It’s about as tired as using “East Coast Bias or Hype Machine”,besides who’s your dog in this race anyway?
Brady cheated his whole career, different story.
East Coast Bias is real. Many of these reporters take Friday night and Saturdays off for some reason and sleep while West Coast games are going on.
Quite a different media landscape when Yount played, though, Baseball was still more of a regional affair rather than a national one, and Yount wasn’t on national TV every October for a decade.
Not Yount’s fault that the Brewers were generally terrible. Just like it wouldn’t have been Jeter’s fault had he been on a bad team. Thank you for making my point that Jeter was a product of his environment.
The environment of winning. Go catch some waves and when there’s a Padre to ascend to the thrown we’ll let you know. Brady cheating,that just makes you sound off kilter.
Hello..baseball is a regional sport,that’s one of the points to the article. Did you even read it? If this was NBA or NFL trade rumors there’d be 500 posts about something like this by now.
Tuck Rule, Deflategate, Spygate, Shady Brady’s career is a total joke compared to someone like Pete Rose who got banned from the game for betting on his team to win. The NFL won’t do anything about it because Brady = $.
Must of been a Chargers fan. Pete Rose isn’t in the hall because of his massive Ego,oh and he broke the Cardinal rule. Betting on his team to win yea right and Bill Clinton didn’t inhale.
Trout is out for 50 games and all the sudden he’s old news
this. its like yankees fans have forgotten what trouts done since he’s come into the league.
Yankee fans don’t write these articles!
A few thoughts, Would the pirates of faired out well if they traded Glasnow , Meadows or Bell for Quintana? I don’t think the brewers will trade for Sonny Gray , no way they trade some future pieces for a young ace, I still think the cubs or astros will make a move for sonny gray.
Judge is not the face of baseball. He very well could be, but he has a lot to prove to earn that title. Trout earned that with years of elite performance. Before him it was Miguel Cabrera, and so on. Until Judge does this for a few more years, he won’t be the face of the game.
Just let the kid play!!!
I’m sorry but of the list of the hundred most recognized athletes in the world,only Derek Jeter appears in the top 50.
*only MLB player
That seems a bit irrelevant honestly, I’m talking about the face of baseball, not sports. And Jeter would never be on that list if he played his whole career in a different city than New York
There’s that whole NY angle again..so tired. You don’t know that.
The Brewers deal is lopsided in the A’s favor, the Cubs deal is lopsided in the Cubs favor. Somewhere in the middle of both is what a deal will look like.
If the cubs could land both Gray and Quintana , then they can say good bye to Arrieta in the offseason.
The Cubs don’t have the farm system to land Gray. Beane just said he wants high risk, high reward prospects. Like Luzardo who they just got. The A’s will trade with another team who has better prospects to offer Gray.
I think the cubs would have to trade Baez , Happ plus Almora for him. I think the astros could put a package together to get him, or the braves.
The Astros have the pitching and OF talent to get a deal done with the A’s.
Here’s the problem though. A deal involving Sonny Gray and prospects is not the same as Jed Lowrie trades Beane and Luhnow have made in the past. Gray could own the A’s for years or the prospects the A’s get could really come back to haunt the Astros.
I was in a little shock when the cubs made the trade for Quintana , I thought they would of saved those prospects for Sonny Gray . Gray would fit the astros well, but trading your top prospects to your division rival. the braves could put together a package.
Quintana is more durable and thus more valuable than Gray.
I think Quintana is better imo , very under rated and durable. I still think the cubs need a true leadoff hitter. Cole could be a target for the astros.
A’s need an OF prospect, but the Brewers aren’t going to give up Brinson. He’ll be their starting CF for a long time to come and they won’t give him up to chase a playoff spot this season. Ray/Phillips/Clark/Harrison/etc could all be in play. Woodruff also would be strange to see them give back as they want him in the rotation now over Davies. Ortiz/Diplan/Ponce/Bickford would be available as the young upside pitching Oakland is looking for. Add in a Diplan or Isan Diaz and I think that’s about as far as they will be willing to go.
Correct. If Stearns was parting with Brinson he would have landed Quintana. No way Brinson is part of the deal for Gray nor Woodruff (or Hader or Burnes). Thats a lot of control and talent for 2yrs of Gray. I could see anybody else going. Ray, Ortiz + 2 probably makes the most sense.
How do people think Jeter wasn’t overrated?
Boston/New York fans. Also, Jeter can’t be overrated. He was an amazing player who performed when it counted. Just like Reggie Jackson. But if Reggie had played for the Giants and Mets instead of those great A’s and Yankee teams, he’d probably be a Hall of Famer like Willie McCovey. Fondly remembered, but not a legend.
What’s overrated is how much people talk about how overrated he was.
So basically he’ll soon become underrated lol
Wow, remember when the Baseball Prospectus moniker carried a modicum of weight in the baseball writing cottage industry?
Those proposed trade packages in the Toronto article at the top are borderline laughable.