Today is the trade deadline in the NHL! If you’re a hockey fan who enjoys MLBTR’s content, be sure to check out the folks on our sister site, Pro Hockey Rumors, as well as their Twitter account to get up-to-the-minute coverage of today’s deadline deals. While a flurry of moves is surely happening in the NHL, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. Are the Cubs on the verge of acquiring a reliever?
In yesterday’s Opener, we discussed how the left-handed relief market had seemingly gone dormant following the signings of Andrew Chafin and Matt Moore in the run-up to Spring Training. It’s possible that state of affairs is about to change, however, as president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer acknowledged yesterday that the Cubs could add a lefty to pair with Brandon Hughes in their bullpen. The top three relief options on the market at this point are Zack Britton, Brad Hand, and Will Smith, though the Cubs also appear to have some interest in lefty Mike Minor, who’s worked as a starter for the past several seasons.
2. WBC teams begin reporting and working out:
Teams in Pool A and Pool B for the upcoming World Baseball Classic are set to report and begin team workouts over the weekend. The teams in Pool A are Chinese Taipei, Cuba, Panama, Italy, and the Netherlands while the teams in Pool B are China, Korea, Australia, Japan, and the Czech Republic. Kenley Jansen (Netherlands), Xander Bogaerts (Netherlands), Luis Robert (Cuba), Yoan Moncada (Cuba), Vinnie Pasquantino (Italy), Shohei Ohtani (Japan), Yu Darvish (Japan), Lars Nootbaar (Japan), Tommy Edman (Korea), Ha-Seong Kim (Korea) and free agents Jurickson Profar, Andrelton Simmons and Didi Gregorius (all Netherlands) are among the many notable big leaguers who will be participating for the aforementioned clubs. You can check out full rosters at the WBC’s web site.
3. Offseason in Review series continues:
MLBTR’s “Offseason In Review” series is set to continue today as Steve Adams takes a look back at how the offseason went for the Texas Rangers. That entry will run this morning, and Steve will be hosting a Rangers-focused live chat with readers this at 11am CT. You can submit a question in advance if you’re so inclined, and that same link will take you to the chat to participate live or read the transcript after it ends. Our OiR series has already covered the Pirates, Athletics, Tigers, Diamondbacks, and Angels this spring.
I know he is a righty, but isn’t Dr. Knebel still a free agent? Bad peripherals and good numbers last season
baseball-reference.com/players/k/knebeco01.shtml
Yeah, he is. The article did mention “top options”, but if you include Britton in that list, then why not Knebel.
Britton reportedly wanted 9 MM per year. He hasn’t been good since 2020.
Because the mention is about the left-handed relief market.
Lars Nootbaar, Japan?
Tommy Edman, Korea?
His mother is from Korea
Noothbar’s mother is Japanese.
Edman’s mother is of Korean heritage.
Mother is japanese he lived there for awhile as a kid speaks fluent Japanese and is a citizen
I can’t wait for the WBC.
Pool A: Netherlands & Cuba will probably move through, but Cuba hasn’t been playing that well this spring so Taipei could be the second team.
Pool B: Japan & Korea. will move through, but I’ll be hoping that Czech Republic get at least 1 win.
Pool C: US & Mexico.
Pool D: Dominican Republic and then a tossup between Puerto Rico and Venezuela. I’ll go with Venezuela.
Why does Puerto Rico have its own team if it’s a US territory?
Because it enjoys the rights without the responsibilities of citizenship.
Love the WBC. Glad that top players are participating in it.
Wasn’t discussed in this Opener, but what does everyone think about the pitch clock now that we’ve seen it in action for nearly a week? I personally don’t mind it, but I think there should be a way for the pitcher or batter to reset the clock at least once. Maybe give the batter and pitcher one reset per plate appearance or something like that.
After Tucupita Marcano struck out in 20 seconds total, they were saying that he should have called timeout to slow the pitcher down, so I guess a batter must be able to call one timeout per AB.
I like it but think they need to alter it to reduce the chances that a PA is ended by rule.
Once it gets to 3 ball or 2 strike count, allow 5 or 10 extra seconds per pitch
Maybe it has less on an overall effect on shortening games but I never want to see a BB or K due to a rule and not execution.
@Astro I also agree on that. I hate seeing a PA end because of a clock violation. I also think this might have the unintended long term affect of more pitcher injuries. There’s no way that MLB is looking at this and saying “Yeah, this is perfect”. I’m not against the pitch clock, but it defintiley needs some tweaking.
It was tweaked—that’s what the entire minor league season was for last year. They had 14/19…..and I know a second is only a minor tweak, but they feel they have enough data with a full minor league season to go with it.
Not sure how I feel about it yet—but I do know that I go to a lot of night games and am going to appreciate games ending at 9:30 pm local as opposed to 10:00 pm local with an hour plus ride home.
what’s worse is when the cards play on the west coast, unfortunately i miss a lot of those games because of the 8/9 pm start times and 9pm is time i go to bed for work, but i get what your saying and game ending @ 9:30 i can stay up little longer for those
But would you agree it’s not perfect yet? I get that MLB likely has a ton of data and feedback regarding the pitch clock from the minor leagues, but would you call the pitch clock a fully finished product? In my opinion, I don’t think it is. I like the idea of giving the pitcher and batter one pause per batter.
Brodie… That’s what they made the DVR for.
DVR the game and watch it when? After work and before the game the next night? Even with fast forwarding the commercials we’re looking at a five hour investment to get both games knocked out.
@mlb1225
So far, it seems like the pitchers are rushing a lot to get it to the plate at the moment, but once they get used to the pace, it will probably become more natural. Fortunately, this is Spring Training, because it looks a bit sloppy right now.
Overall I completely understand wanting pitchers to pick up the pace. Nothing was more irritating than watching Pedro Baez pitch or seeing other pitchers walk completely around the mound between every pitch but I don’t like it as it relates to particular moments. Those moments when the pitcher needs to gather himself for a big pitch.
I don’t know the entire ends and outs of the rule but hitters are allowed to call time whenever they want to gather themselves. Does a pitcher have to waste a mound visit every time he needs to compose himself?
Also, let’s just say it’s judge up to bat with a 3/0 count with a guy on second and the pitcher takes “too long”, can teams decline the infraction or do hitters lose a hitters count in those instances? I don’t want to see star hitters forced to take a base simply because a pitcher and hitter are battling.
This rule to me seems too black and white, nba, nfl, they have rules in place that allow grey area. I don’t want to see key moments wasted because baseball wants games over faster.
Still dislike the idea of players born in the US playing for their partial ethnic representative countries. Just doesn’t feel right and an excuse to pad the competition for those teams.
Spare a thought for rugby league fans like myself. In the most recent World Cup, 1/3rd of the players in the entire Cup were born in New South Wales, Australia, LOL
I agree but then remembered that most players aren’t from the cities of their MLB teams. So in a way it’s all contrived.
Go Australia:)! (Actually, we don’t have much of a chance but still…) 😛
The nation we support is called Taiwan. You call it ‘Chinese Tapei’ because China wants you to. They, the democratic sovereign people, wish you to refer to them as TAIWAN. As Americans, why do you do as China wants and not what the U.S. government wants? I would really like to know. It makes a difference to me as to whether I read this blog.
I totally hear you and I support your statement in principle, but I must note that the World Baseball Softball Confederation also seems to refer to it as Chinese Taipei, so it is an accepted thing around the baseball world.
I don’t like it but I can understand that a bit of realpolitik is necessary sometimes:)
I appreciate your response. The World Baseball people are sucking up to China as well.
Too true.. definitely don’t disagree. It is quite sad!