The Yankees have made a notable addition to their player development staff, hiring Rachel Balkovec to serve as a minor league hitting coach, reports Lindsay Berra of The New York Times. Balkovec, 32, played college softball with both Creighton and New Mexico and went on to earn two master’s degrees in kinesiology and the science of human movement. She broke into the industry as the Cardinals’ minor league strength and conditioning coordinator and landed a job with the Astros in Latin America after teaching herself Spanish. With Houston, she would meet Dillon Lawson, who now works as the Yankees’ hitting coordinator and recommended Balkovec for the job. She has also worked with Driveline Baseball, conducting research on hitters’ eye tracking and pitchers’ hip movement, which she hopes to apply in her work with the Yankees. As Berra writes, Balkovec is believed to be the first woman employed as a full-time hitting coach at any level of professional baseball. She’ll begin her work in earnest when spring training rolls around in February.
- Free agent outfielder Marcell Ozuna could be in line for a five-year deal, according to J.P. Morosi of MLB Network (video via Twitter). Interestingly, Morosi also names a market of five teams that have expressed preliminary interest in the 29-year-old slugger—which includes a few teams that haven’t been mentioned as obvious suitors for Ozuna. It’ll come as no surprise that the Cardinals remain connected to Ozuna, but Morosi also lists the Rangers, Reds, Diamondbacks, and Braves as teams that could pursue him. Five years still feels a bit optimistic for a player who has yet to show that the career-best numbers he put up in 2017 are repeatable; MLBTR tabbed Ozuna for a three-year deal at the outset of the offseason. However, it’s hadly surprising that Ozuna is drawing his fair share of interest, given his age and raw skills.
- The Pirates are no longer considering Joey Cora for their unfilled manager post, Tweets Enrique Rojas of ESPN. That leaves Twins bench coach Derek Shelton and the Rays’ Matt Quatraro atop GM Ben Cherington’s wish list. Cora has worked as a coach within the Bucs organization for the last several years, first as the Double-A skipper and later as a base coach for the big league team. His ascent up the coaching ladder will be temporarily put on hold, with the Pirates apparently turning their focus to external candidates. The Pirates’ is the last remaining managerial vacancy, so it looks like they won’t have to compete with other clubs for Quatraro or Shelton—assuming they are willing to leave their current employers.
- Turning our attention to free agent pitchers, The Athletic’s Jayson Stark is hearing from Cole Hamels’s agent that the 35-year-old southpaw is a hot commodity, having drawn inquiries from as many as 14 teams. We’ll see just how much of this rumbling is a representative trying to drive up the price for his client, but it’s not hard to see why Hamels has a robust market. There’s no shortage of clubs vying for help in the starting rotation, and Hamels provides exactly that while coming at a considerably lower cost than consensus top options like Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, and Zack Wheeler: Hamels doesn’t come saddled with a qualifying offer, and, at age 35, won’t rival the market’s juggernauts in contract length or yearly value. For pitching-needy teams that have balked at the asking prices for Cole, Strasburg, and Wheeler, Hamels represents a short-term, reasonably-priced alternative who’s shown he can still hang.
What are the Phillies waiting for?
This exactly. I’m surprised he’s not wearing his Phillies jersey again by now. Should have been so easy. They’re just letting others get into it and driving the market up. They should have jumped all over this and brought Hamels home.
I don’t trust Klentak to try and sign Hamels even though he should. He passed on him when he had a chance to trade for him and the Cubs got him for very minor pieces.
I feel sorry for the team that’s going to give Ozuna anything more than a three year deal.
Agree
Agree agree
Are the Braves really after him, or is this a negotiating ploy aimed at Donaldson’s agent to let him know that Ozuna can be the RH bat behind Freddie Freeman, then Riley can come in from LF and play 3B.
Stay tuned…….
Someone suggested Merrifield (and his insane contract). No, I don’t think he would be traded, but what if you have a scenario of getting Merrifield at leadoff, pushing Acuna to clean-up and playing Merrifield at 3B (which his versatility, would also allow us to move him around sporadically, giving ABs to Riley with the possibility of Riley taking over, if he runs with the opp), moving Merrifield to another position of need. No, I don’t want to entertain breaking up a 1-3 that just each got Silver Sluggers (Acuna, Albies, Freeman), but you’d trade prospect capital for money in Merrifield’s contract, with the ability to possibly sign a top-flight SP from the savings, while filling the 3B (Merrifield) and power bat (Acuna), allowing us to devote more dollars to a better arm. **Again, it would take A LOT for Dayton Moore to part with him, but maybe start the convo with him and end up on Sal Perez…?
Donaldson is done in Atlanta
Feel sorry for the cards then . 5/100-125 should get it done
You get a big thumbs-up for that, JDGoat.
Not me, his skills, age and power. 5 is perfect
Five years for Ozuna? Unless the AAV is under 10M I can’t see any team foolish enough to do that.
Late in the season last year he was the 4th best outfielder in the game. Front load the deal and reap the benefits.
Fourth best hitting OF’er, sure – for a short stent
Guarantee if you were a cards fan and watched him every night you would immediately say he was about the 89th bets defensive outfielder … so maybe an AL team should sign him for a DH role
He can’t throw which seems to be lost of a vast majority of people.
get dhs in nl, will you?
Ozuna’s reputation for being a lousy fielder is undeserved imo. He’s obviously not the fielder that he was in Miami, and he made a couple of bone-head plays this season, but all-in-all he’s pretty reliable out there.
With the way things are going in the MLB he might be the type of outfielder teams want. Someone who can swing the bat, catch the flyout, and watch the ball fly over the wall.
Hitting coach? Don’t you mean “center field camera operator”?
Thank you! I know there’s hope for the world when I read dumb comments that aren’t actually racist or sexist.
The key phase in that Ozuna paragraph is: ” the Rangers, Reds, Diamondbacks, and Braves are teams that could pursue him” and the key word is COULD. Guesses are not even rumors but got to write of something, right? Morosi smh
“Cole Hamels’ agent “. No extra “s”.
That is incorrect per APA style. You always put an s after the apostrophe if it is a singular noun, even names that end in s.
The Yankees need someone to teach them how not to strike out!!
I hear that video cameras and trash cans work quite well
Should they also stop being league leaders in runs scored and homeruns?
I can only see an AL team giving Ozuna 5 years, bc hell end up DH-ing sooner than later.
I saw an article earlier about rangers moving mazara to 1b and signing Ozuna. That would be the only way i’d like the rangers to keep mazara, because it would give us better offense there.
Then if we signed ozuna, i’d want to get moose, and chirinos. Our outfield would be sick, and this is our new line up.
Choo dh
andrus ss
ozuna rf
gallo cf
calhoun lf
moustakas 3b
mazara 1b
chirinos c
odor / solak 2b
Then we trade for the starting rotation, being jon gray, and zack pleasac (really underatted).
Here is rotation
Minor
Lynn
Pleasac
Gray
Allard
Then bullpen, and the only guys i’d get would be cory gearrin (free agency), and oliver drake from the rays. Lots of righties, but we AN effective lefty being brett martin.
This could be an 85-90 win team, and we wouldn’t even have a huge contract handed out.
Did I miss something? Did Cleveland say they are interested in moving Plesac? Can’t see that making any sense and I would figure it would require a decent load going back to Cleveland for them to consider doing it
All things being considered, I can’t help but imagine that many of yesteryear greats would be even more amazing if they had today’s analytics at their disposal.
We’ll never bridge the gap to equality if we continue to highlight the gender/race/skin tone…why does it matter if the hire is a woman/man/Asian/Canadian/American/African? Every time that is highlighted it becomes the narrative…make the hire, make the announcement and leave out the PR nonsense, all that does is put pressure on the individual and rattles the trolls cages….the sooner we recognize each other as humans the further ahead we will be
Word.
Well put. Let the results speak for themselves. Also would love for the media to focus more on the positive off the field things that many athletes/teams do and how the average person can contribute too.
Agree
Well said