The Rockies have honed in on a few targets in their search for a right-handed-hitting corner infielder, Thomas Harding of MLB.com writes. The club is reportedly considering a reunion with either Mark Reynolds or Carlos Gonzalez, while also weighing the possibility of signing Todd Frazier (Harding cites some interesting data points relating to each player). While bringing one of these players into the fold appears to be their preferred option, they’ve also got plenty of young players who could conceivably force their way into the picture (even though the ones mentioned in the piece are all left handed). The club feels as though it has a lot of flexibility due to the presence of Ian Desmond, who’s capable of playing either at first base or in the outfield.
Here are a few other items of note from around MLB…
- Though the pace of play debate has largely centered around replay review and the potential implementation of a pitch clock, Ken Rosenthal latest piece at The Athletic details a significant factor he believes is largely overlooked: sign-stealing. Rosenthal had an in-depth conversation with a major-league manager who believes that MLB must take action in order to prevent teams from using advanced technology to steal signs. The manager, like most around baseball, agrees that sign-stealing with one’s own eyes and relaying the signals without the help of technology is simply part of the game. Sign-stealing through the use of tech, however, is causing significant paranoia around the league and is at least one catalyst for an excess of mound visits that are slowing down the game. The manager suggests having an MLB official in every replay room around the league, while others around the league have advocated for pitchers and catchers to wear NFL-type receivers to eliminate the need for hand signals entirely. The piece provides some fascinating insight into an invasive issue that’s not talked about often enough.
- Today, Red Sox pitcher Tanner Houck became the latest player to leave agent Jason Wood and CSE, Robert Murray of FanRag Sports reports (separate links). The player exodus, of course, comes in the midst of allegations that Wood filmed players in his shower with a secret camera. Houck is now with CAA sports, and joins Mitch Keller, Jake Odorizzi, Riley Pint, Joey Wentz, Cody Asche, and Taylor Gushue as players who have left CSE to sign with other agencies. As Murray points out, many are expected to follow in their footsteps, perhaps including one of the agency’s most notable clients, Andrew Benintendi.
- After acquiring left-handed slugger Brandon Moss just earlier today, the Athletics will attempt to find a taker for him, says Rosenthal on Twitter. Moss will earn $7.25MM this season, and the Royals sent over $3.25MM along with his contract, meaning the A’s need only to pay the 34-year-old $4MM for the coming season. While that’s certainly not a handicapping salary, it’s fairly significant considering Moss doesn’t have a clear role on the team outside of perhaps being a bench bat. For his part, Moss has every intention of forcing his way into the picture. “I’m going to figure something out,” he told Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. “I’m going to rake all spring and they’ll have to keep me.”
Not a fan of that bit of speculation about us immediately looking to move Moss. None of our beat writers have reported a similar rumor.
Where’s Jane Lee when you need her
Yeah if anything we’re moving Joyce and Castilla before we deal Moss
Hey, amazing, Moss is one of the few players who actually wants to be an Oakland A, and will “rake in spring” to stay there. We A’s fans can only hope so. It’s reassuring to finally hear a player who has previously played for Oakland/Billy Beane, say that he wants to be there again…right? He was a fan favorite, for sure, but I don’t see how he will significantly help the team except as a veteran role model/mentor to relate to and help the younger guys. I’ll be curious to see who they will get, if anyone, in trade for him. I realize the A’s are a “small market team” but they/BB is so cheap, he probably just get a lower level prospect for Moss and call it good enough…doesn’t he care that the A’s still don’t have a decent catcher on the team? It’s been everything but catcher for years now. That’s the second most important person on the team. If you’re the SF Giants, it’s the most important player on the team, and, the face of the team. (not that we want to discuss the Giants, of course)
I’m predicting a Castilla, Nunez, and PTNL for Grandal honestly. I think they know Maxwell isn’t the answer, but they are willing to wait on the trial because they don’t want to spend money right now.
The A’s never want to spend money, so its business as usual.
Just give every pitcher and catcher a 2005 Nextel phone and they can chirp their pitch selections to each other.
This was a good comment
“Where you at?”
Not a fan of citing Ken Rosenthal latest piece at The Athletic, without telling us subscription required and/or recommended.
Don’t get me wrong, Rosenthal’s good, but First time ever, I’ve spotted you cite Rosenthal, without the disclaimer, “you have to pay to read the full article”
It really is worth it.
Ken is worth the subscription price but its hard to justify when every other site immediately summarizes his news
Has anybody suggesting that pitchers and catchers be wired together noticed that catchers aren’t the only ones using hand signals in a game?
They need to isolate the team once the game starts. No phones. No calling up to the replay room to get a go/no-go on challenges. Tricky to enforce. But there. Your tech-to-steal-signs problem just got fixed.
“…while others around the league have advocated for pitchers and catchers to wear NFL-type receivers to eliminate the need for hand signals entirely.”
The audio would be a gold mine for TV networks.
For the batter standing 2 feet away as well.
Acerulli1 you made my day. Thank you
The quarterback stands 5 feet from the defensive line. He manages.
The catchers would use code or the manager or pitching coach would just call the game.
Moss knows damn well he ain’t raking.
only raking those dollar bills
but you have to respect that he’s using that mindset going into it
That pervert Wood really screwed over his entire organization.
I wonder if teams increasing use of analytics is allowing them to more accurately predict what a pitcher is going to throw in any given count and that is causing teams to incorrectly believe that the signs are being stolen?
Players change teams all the time. You’d have to think that a player would tell their new team “hey my old team is stealing your signs”? If so why doesn’t this leak out?
moss is going to rake all spring and lose it on opening day
Im pretty sure we all get to know players in what they will do in certain situations. The best players adapt to the game. When a player no longer adapts they slowly start to dcrease their level of competition.
The advanced tech teams are using to steal signs is why restricting catchers visits to the mound is a stupid idea just to save a minute a game. It will lead to longer games because teams will have more hitters on base and that will lead to more pitching changes and pitching changes take far longer than 20 second catcher visits to the mound to adjust signs. Imagine games with 5 pitchers from each team every game. Evvery game would be like playoff games that run 3:30 or longer.
The game did not need a pitch clock. It was fine the way it was. As for the signs im all in for catchers having there meetings on the mound without having them have a limit. There making the game only exciting for those who think baseball is about the homeruns or more runs towards a game. Pitching duels exist as well in the game of baseball. I remember when i was new to the game thinking the game was not good when it was a low scoring game but i would later learn why games were low scores.
The elephant in the room are the Commercials between innings. It takes 4 to 41/2 minutes every Half inning for commercials. If you multiply 4 minutes times 18 halves you get 72 minutes of Commercials. Just taking 20 seconds off the commercials would save 6 minutes. I guess Money Talks. The owners should be part of the Solution, that is, if they want to do it.
Breaks in regular season MLB games are 2:25. They have a clock in stadium that pretty strictly enforces this. Even in the playoffs and national TV games the breaks are 2:55. The problem is not the breaks in between innings, its players in and out of the box, off the mound, on the mound. But in reality, that’s just the game, it’s just taking longer and longer to play it because everyone has become more and more lax about how the game play flows. If every pitcher was on the mound ready to pitch within 10 seconds of the last pitch, the game would cut a half hour easy.
MLB supposedly created a rule a couple of years ago requiring batters to keep at least one foot in the box between pitches, but I have yet to see that rule enforced.
I suggest you use a stopwatch as I did
No.
Since when is Carlos Gonzales a corner infielder?
Ever since the market completely dried up for a declining corner OF in a dead free agency period. and that’s coming from a rockies fan
Since when did Carlos Gonzalez end his name with an S? Sorry. had to.
I like Moss as a bench guy/player-coach/veteran clubhouse presence for a young A’s club. Moss is an Oakland A at heart and I’m happy that he can be back there.
I’m pretty sure Moss is being literal about raking. He knows there’s openings on the grounds crew and thinks doing field maintenance before and after games will deomonstrate his complete dedication to the A’s organization.
Haha, cold. But funny!
Reynolds sort of wants a good payout. He did great for the Rockies last year. He could be a good alternative for the Royals. Moustakas would be a better fit for the Royals instead of wasting money on Hosmer.
I love Moss’s positive outlook!
Frazier at first for the Rockies? Seems like a guy they shouldn’t be targeting. Guess he’s better than Reynolds though if they don’t want to go to McMahon
So if anyone else remembers, back in 2012, the A’s got swept in Arizona and then went to Colorado for three games. They were 26-35 at that point and hadn’t shown much.
Brandon Moss had played a few games for the A’s at the point. I think he hit a HR but that was it. Nobody knew much about him and he hadn’t even played much. Then he went to Denver. I was at each of the games. He shows up as a total unknown and walks out of that series a true slugger. His OPS went from .651 to 1.319 in that series. The rest of the season, as they say, is history.
I just wanted to point out that the A’s have a three game series in Denver this season and now Moss is back. You watch. He’s gonna rake.
It always cracks me up that the report immediately after these trades is that the team is looking to move player they just acquired. Very rarely does this ever happen. Just had another one in Matt Kemp.
Its not as easy to just flip these guys right off to a different team. Their previous teams were clearly trying to move them why would a new team emerge now?
because hes making half the money, and the A’s are probably willing to cover even more of it just to save a buck or two
They could save 15% or more by switching to Geico…
If an opposing team can pick up on your signs through multiple adjustments, then the signing team needs to re-think their signs and shake-up strategy. If they honestly think that teams are frequently using tech to steal signs, then MLB needs to make it a zero tolerance offense. If you’re caught, the offending team forfeits the game and the organization must issue refunds to all fans in attendance, even if it’s not in their home stadium. Is it an insane punishment? Absolutely. Would it ever need to be enforced? Nope. There would be a by-law stating that if a team is proven guilty of trying to force this punishment on another team, i.e. planting a thief, fraud, whatever, $500,000,000 fine. Down-side would be vindictive ex-staff or whatnot trying to screw over their former team, but that would happen maybe once and never again after the inevitable lawsuit for even more than all of the money lost.
Downvote this into oblivion, because it’s stupid and incredibly over-the-top, but it’s hard to argue that MLB putting its’ foot down for once and actually punishing offenders immediately rather than after a seven year investigation would almost definitely put an end to a lot of nonsense. As soon as you threaten a owners’ pocketbooks with something that they can’t skirt the lines of (cough luxury tax cough), the temptation to cheat suddenly disappears.
Also, electronic strike zones, plz. kthx.
Another problem is that to switch up signs, you usually need a meeting on the mound between the pitcher, catcher and at least the SS. This is exactly what they are trying to rid the game of. There’s really no great resolution, and as long as more technology gets introduced to the game, teams will find a way to use it.
As for punishing teams who steal signs, that’s generally been policed on the field by way of fastball to the ribs. Is that the right way? Maybe not, but all teams try to steal signs, its been a part of the game since the beginning, and if you notice, teams aren’t saying they don’t want other teams to do it, they are just saying they want it done without the use of technology. They say that because they all do it.
Electric strike zones would be a huge benefit to the game I think and I can’t wait for it to happen. Will make it fair across all batters and probably speed up the game.
Not really excited about any of the three names listed for the Rockies. Little to no upside, and their floors really don’t move the needle in terms of additional wins for the 2018 Rockies. Quite frankly I think they need to roll with the roster they have unless they really want to go for it with a Hosmer or JD Martinez signing (which I don’t think they would want to do for the long term). They have enough potential options with the players on their roster that they will get at least equal production they would get from Reynolds, Gonzalez, or Frazier. Plus there is upside potential for better production.
No need to sign anyone else for the Rockies at this point. Unless they want either of the remaining two top corner options in Hosmer and Martinez.
You know what Beane would REALLY like to do: find someone to take Moss & all $7.25M on a salary dump deal, & pocket KC’s $3.25M. Good luck to him!