This week in baseball blogs…
- Expos Reloaded urges MLB to add multiple expansion teams.
- Nyrdcast searches for the causes of the slow free-agent market and the increase in arbitration hearings this offseason.
- Pop Fly Baseball names the most underrated team in each league.
- Pirates Breakdown reacts to David Freese’s critical assessment of the club.
- BP Toronto notices a trend with respect to pitchers the Blue Jays have signed to MLB contracts in recent offseasons.
- Know Hitter agrees with the Giants’ win-now approach.
- Stats Swipe analyzes Lance Lynn.
- Camden Depot weighs in on the Orioles’ signing of Andrew Cashner.
- Good Fundies compares new Met Todd Frazier to Jason Kipnis, whom they nearly acquired.
- Chin Music Baseball lists six dark-horse MVP candidates for 2018.
- The K Zone looks for the secret to Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage’s success.
- World Series Dreaming explains how the Cubs could divvy up innings with various rotation setups.
- Baseball Takes argues against the notion that the Indians’ window is closing.
- Call to the Pen names three Phillies entering make-or-break seasons.
- Clubhouse Corner touches on labor unrest and teams that could be in for rough years.
- Underthought looks beyond the traditional saves stat to determine how closers performed in 2017.
- STL Hat Trick has five reasons for optimism regarding the Cardinals’ offseason.
- Motor City Bengals, using Baseball Reference’s player comparison tools, predicts how each Tiger will fare this year.
- Hardball Via Hardcore shares its Mariners spring training preview.
- Dodgers Way offers a position-by-position breakdown of the team’s farm system.
- The Point of Pittsburgh explains why the Pirates may not be able to extend Josh Bell or Jameson Taillon.
- Puckett’s Pond is OK with the Twins coming up short in the Yu Darvish sweepstakes.
- District On Deck lists five spring training storylines for the Nationals.
- Jays Journal looks at PECOTA and FanGraphs projections for Toronto.
- DiNardo’s Dugout (podcast) discusses the Cubs’ new-look rotation and other subjects.
- The Sports Tank expects Rick Porcello to bounce back this year.
- Rox Pile highlights two things already learned about the Rockies this spring.
- The Runner Sports (links: 1, 2, 3, 4) responds to the Twins’ Jake Odorizzi pickup, ranks the A’s top 25 prospects, delves into some recent Justin Verlander comments, and reacts to Goose Gossage’s bashing of Yankees GM Brian Cashman.
- NY Yankees Digest predicts the AL award winners for 2018.
- The Junkball Daily ranks the top 10 third basemen from 2017.
- The 3rd Man In profiles and interviews draft prospect Griffin Conine, son of former major leaguer Jeff Conine.
- Big Three Sports talks with Vancouver Canadians pitching coach Jim Czajkowski about Blue Jays prospect Nate Pearson.
- East Village Times interviews Padres pitching prospect Nick Margevicius.
- Pinstriped Prospects names seven non-40-man Yankees who could debut in the majors this year.
- Notes from the Sally previews the West Virginia Power, the Pirates’ South Atlantic League affiliate.
- Rotisserie Duck uses SABR Defensive Index to see if the right players won Gold Gloves last season.
- Jays From the Couch has high expectations for young catcher Danny Jansen.
- The Giants Cove calls the team’s front office an “embarrassing circus.”
- Keith’s Mustache projects the Mets’ season-opening roster, while Bronx Bomber Ball does the same with the Yankees.
- Everything Bluebirds sees Curtis Granderson as the Blue Jays’ best leadoff option.
- Mets Daddy believes the club needs to add another reliever capable of handling left-handed hitters.
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Extra Innings UK wraps up the week’s headlines and articles in international baseball.
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I 100% agree that MLB is ready for expansion. it’s a conversation I have had regularly with a few buddies lately. Montreal, Indianapolis, Carolina and salt lake should be considered
I agree. I take Vegas over Salt Lake however. Their Hocjey team is doing great and seems to generate a lot of fans.
There are cities that deserve MLB, agreed, but disagree with expansion..MLB should rip both Florida franchises and relocate them to cities that might better support them.
Marlins are going nowhere due to the new stadium and the last lame duck owner Loria. Tampa is on the verge of figuring out their mess. Expansion is the way to go. Even if MLB expands and the teams with stadium issues cannot figure it out, their would be plenty of cities that can support relocated teams. Plenty of options.
Vegas is a city of ex-pats and tourists out in the middle of the desert. It’s a completely different proposition to play 81 home games outdoors in the summertime than it is to play 41 home games indoors during the winter.
How many of the people buying hockey tickets are vacationers who are going to watch their favorite team play on the road? How many people take a vacation to the desert in July and want to spend it outside?
Your entire argument is full of generalizations with limited (if any) facts to back it up. It’s still a popular tourist attraction, but the notion that nobody is in Vegas other than people visiting seems lazy and overstated.
Vegas is an underrated baseball hotbed (Bryant and Harper are from there, plus I think Joey Gallo is too), the Knights are succeeding big time in their first season, and it’s clearly a good enough market that the Raiders will be there soon too.
Have you been to Vegas? Most summer nights are pleasant, which very well could be appealing for those that don’t want to get stuck in a casino all evening, or simply want to do something different. It could be appealing for tourists all over the world.
Not sure what your point was about vacationers watching their team team on the road was.
Hockey his a lower tier sport when compared to baseball and yet it is thriving there. I would expect a team located relatively close to the strip would greatly succeed.
There isn’t enough pitching for the teams that exist, Now you’re proposing that at least 10 people who aren’t good enough to be starting pitchers right now should be handed the ball every 5th day?
Question. If they add Montreal and another team, let’s say Portland, how do they align divisions? Do they go with eight 4 team divisions, or have uneven divisions?
8, 4 team divisions. That just makes sense
Yeah, I’d like to see that happen, I just wonder if they will do 2 WC’s still and give bye’s to the top two teams in the playoffs
honestly I hope not. I’m not a fan of a week off. I say 8/4 with no wild card
2 WCs, with first round best of 3 between the WC teams and the 2 worst division winners
I do it like they do football
Expansion-alrighty then. They have a couple of teams in Florida that can’t make it work and then there’s the A’s stadium debacle. Yea they should most definitely try more expansion.
Couldn’t help but laugh at that!! Well stated!!
Marlins just built a stadium. Cannot expect the high attendance until they put a winning team in the field. Tampa is close on figuring it out. A’s would be a prime candidate to move but expansion can happen with relocating teams.
Diasgree with an expansion. I think there’s too many teams as is, considering you have plenty of players in the league that really do not play at the quality of the best the world has to offer. Way too many fringe players out there that start on a daily basis. Why add two more teams, and give everyday jobs to more players that shouldn’t be out there everyday.
Bell and Taillon are my two favorite Pirates but I probably wouldn’t extend them either.
Taillon debuted so late in his career that the Pirates will control his entire prime. Investing long term in pitching is usually a bad bet and in this case there is no need to make it.
I’d be willing to extend Bell until his age 32 season, not sure how many years of free agency that would buy out, but 32 is the cutoff. For the reasons I laid out with Hosmer, an NL team can’t invest long term in an over 30 first baseman because there is nowhere to put him if things go south. And I’d only be willing to go to 32 with Bell because he’s a switch hitter. 30 if he wasn’t.
Wow, Richard Dyer’s assessment of what is going on in SF is about as bleak as it gets. I actually see the logic behind what they have done this winter with the roster. Future looks ugly though and Dyer’s analysis suggests the roster might not be their biggest problem.
It’s all conjecture. He’s a hack. When you see the name Dyer know that you’re going to read an article that’s intended to get responses like the one you gave. He suckered you in.
Obviously, I haven’t learned my lesson cuz I still find myself to be curious to read his crap.
What a terrible analysis of the expansion issue, it’s all about “how do we get these veterans paid?” That is the last question that should come up. It is laughable to just assume that hypothetical Mexico City and Montreal teams could sustain a $200million payroll when the league average is like $125mil. You would be hard-pressed to argue that they could get a stadium and stay in the black with even a $60 million payroll every year.
If the question is “how do we get these veterans paid” then the answers should come from the next round of collective bargaining negotiations.
A lot of that was a stretch, but I think the bigger point was that there’s enough bodies to cover two expansion teams without watering down MLB.
I might be alone in this opinion, but I think MLB would benefit from a couple of teams added in the west to help balance things out more geographically. Perhaps Portland and Las Vegas would make the most sense.
Montreal at one time would host large crowds. It’s expected to do so again should a team be reinstalled. An argument against Mexico City is strong, though, in my opinion as fans from the opposing team would be significantly more hesitant to travel to see their team play.
The BP Toronto article is quite good.