With just one week remaining until Opening Day, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. WBC players return to camp
With the World Baseball Classic now in the rearview mirror, many of its late-round participants are set to return to camp today to participate in the final week of Spring Training with their MLB clubs. Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, and J.T. Realmuto of the Phillies and Paul Goldschmidt and Lars Nootbaar of the Cardinals are among a few of the players who participated in the WBC final Tuesday night who have returned to camp and are expected to participate in spring games today.
2. Will any last minute extensions happen before Opening Day?
Opening Day is fast approaching, and players often look at the start of the regular season as a deadline for extension discussions. Cristian Javier, Manny Machado, and Corbin Carroll are among the players who signed extensions throughout the spring to this point, but plenty of other players have been rumored to participate in extension talks throughout the spring as well, including Josh Hader, Nico Hoerner, and Aaron Nola. The Cardinals are also known to have interest in extending some players in their starting rotation, while Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti has implied the club is looking into extending some of its young players. Of course, there’s always the possibility that an extension that hasn’t been rumored publicly is in the works as well; neither Carroll nor Keibert Ruiz were in the rumor mill much ahead of their extensions this spring, after all.
3. MLBTR Chats Today
A pair of morning live chats are on the docket today for MLBTR readers. At 9am CT, Tim Dierkes will be hosting a Cubs-centric live chat in conjunction with the Cubs edition of our Offseason in Review series. You can click here to submit a question in advance, participate live when the chat begins, or read the transcript once the chat has concluded.
Then, at 10am CT, MLBTR is excited to welcome recently retired catcher Ryan Lavarnway for a live chat with readers. Lavarnway had a journeyman’s career in the big leagues, suiting up for eight major league teams across parts of ten seasons, though 97 of his 165 career games in the big leagues came as a member of the Red Sox, who drafted him in the sixth round of the 2008 draft. Lavarnway ended his career with a slash line of .217/.272/.345 in the big leagues while posting a .792 OPS in 690 career games at the Triple-A Level. You can click here to submit a question for Lavarnway, participate live, or read the transcript of the chat once it has concluded.
1. Well, the Cards will be happy to have a true World Champion on their team this year. However, for the teams with players from the U.S. squad, I’d be questioning if I still want guys who are not World Champions on my team. Maybe some DFAs coming for Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, J.T. Realmuto, and Paul Goldschmidt.
2. No more extensions until we get closer to the trade deadline when teams will extend a few players and then trade them off to other teams.
3. Is this guy following MLBTR? Quick turn around from an article about him retiring to being a guest on the chat. Should be enjoyable.
Teams aren’t going to sign a player to an extension at the deadline and then trade them right after. That’s very rare in baseball. I don’t remember they ever happening.
@clrrogers
Well, it’s happened in the past, maybe not in the exact situation as a trade before the deadline, however, guys have signed with teams and then were traded off to another team a few months later.
mlbtraderumors.com/2011/12/blue-jays-acquire-sergi…
But, you’re right, I don’t think specifically at the deadline.
York – The Poster Child for sign and trade is Bronson Arroyo.
Against his agent’s advice, he took a huge hometown discount in signing an extension with the Red Sox on January 20, 2006.
Two months later, Theo screwed him over by trading him to the Reds for the infamous Wily Mo Pena.
But you know what they say about karma. With the Reds Bronson was an All-Star, won a Gold Glove, and received both Cy Young and MVP votes.
Pena, of course, flamed out rather quickly. Served Theo right for doing Bronson dirty.
@Fever Pitch Guy
Thanks for adding to my point. Well done!
lol. So much WBC butt hurt.
@foppert’
For what? I was cheering for Japan to win and they did. What would I be upset about?
My mistake then. Apologies. Yesterdays sarcasm regarding why players wouldn’t prefer the Japan league, followed up by this effort, gave me that impression.
What looked like a mismatch on paper turned out to be just that. A bunch of big, burly, bearded, bat-flipping, boom or bust, behemoths vs. a group of young, fundamentally sound, well-schooled, highly disciplined, stone cold killers. I’d love to see more of the Japanese stars come to MLB.
The US team had average starting pitching. Smart players aren’t going to risk their arms on a fad tournament. I like the WBC but the real World Baseball Classic is MLB.
So, Lavarnway would be on the HOF ballot in 2029, yes? Very cool.
Given that the HOF has many mediocre players, I’d say probably.
Gotta play 10 seasons to get on the ballot, so sadly no.
Can we get some kind of analysis of the players that participated in the WBC? Guys that could potentially go to the majors.
Kazuma Okamoto is a right handed hitting 3B who has been MVP and home run and RBI champion in the Japan league. He’s 26 years old and could be available for posting soon. He has 8 years in with the league. He’s averaged over 30 homers the last 5 years. An 18% K rate and 10% walk rate. A .273 average and almost 100 rbi per season. He might have some value in the MLB.
There should be no rush to get to the cardinal camp. Their clubhouse has moved on and won’t accept them back anyway.
What is this supposed to mean?
I think that he/she thinks it’s supposed to be funny.
Don’t pronoun me.
It*
Cheese – You’re kinda like an Eck wannabe …. not necessarily a bad thing, as he is one of my all-time favorite pitchers and TV guys.
Without the homeless daughter
It’s self explanatory. The team went through the grind of spring training, lower middle class living, meal stipend for franchise joints, and sweating it out in the FLA sun while the others ditched them and had a vacation. The resentment will only continue to build when the wbc contributors try and tell them how to play. St. Louis already had zero chance at success but the abandonment cements it
Wow, what an awful and completely wrong perspective. It’s so bad I’m not going to waste time countering every error because that would take a novella.
@Astros2017 – I agree with everything you said. We didn’t have our best pitchers and MLB IS the best example of World Baseball, because MLB has the best players from around the world, including Japan, but I still think we got taken to school by Team Japan. They play old school baseball. Post-game analysts were saying they don’t fiddle too much with analytics. They just play smart, disciplined, fundamental baseball. I enjoyed that game immensely.
Japan treats baseball like a job and puts the players to work working on skills. They are also about the we more than the me, not just in baseball but society as well, as we saw during the height of the COVID outbreak.
There is still something to be said for taking pride in your job and working at it. It pays off.
There are several in MLB with that kind of work ethic and several that do not. Just like every other company in the US.
I love chats with AAAA catchers. Keep ‘em coming
Did Bobby Lee just post the most offensive question ever to Lavarnway? Hooray for free speech I guess?