As Spring Training continues, here are three things to watch for today:
1. Tokyo Series roster decisions:
The Cubs and Dodgers are hitting pause on Spring Training and boarding planes to Japan as they prepare for next week’s Tokyo Series. The exhibition games and other festivities associated with the coming event won’t get underway for a few more days, but the clubs will need to make decisions regarding their 31-man travel roster today. A few notable decisions remain, with Patrick Mooney of The Athletic writing that either outfield prospect Kevin Alcantara or infield prospect Matt Shaw will be heading to Japan with the Cubs, but not both players. Meanwhile, Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic notes that the Dodgers have a decision to make on infielder Hyeseong Kim.
Shaw, 23, figures to be the club’s starting third baseman in 2025 but may not begin his time with the club immediately after being slowed in camp by an oblique injury. Alcantara, meanwhile, is the club’s primary backup to Pete Crow-Armstrong in center field after the Cubs parted ways with Cody Bellinger, Mike Tauchman, and Alexander Canario throughout the offseason. As for Kim, Ardaya notes that the 26-year-old could start the 2025 regular season in the minors as he works to implement changes to his swing the Dodgers have worked with him on throughout the spring.
2. Garver, Mariners await x-ray results:
Mariners catcher and DH Mitch Garver exited yesterday’s game against the Brewers after being hit by a pitch. The Mariners sent Garver for x-rays on his “hand and wrist area,” and Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times notes that the club is still awaiting those results. Garver, 34, is entering the second year of a two-year, $24MM contract with Seattle and is likely to serve as the club’s primary backup to Cal Raleigh behind the plate. If Garver were to miss significant time with injury, Blake Hunt is on the Mariners’ 40-man roster and would likely be tapped to fill in as Raleigh’s backup.
3. MLBTR Chat Today:
The first regular season games of the year are just a week away, though a handful of of MLBTR’s Top 50 Free Agents remain unsigned and some clubs are scrambling to patch holes created by spring injuries. Whether you have a late spring trade proposal in the back of your mind or questions about your favorite club’s final roster decisions, MLBTR’s Steve Adams will be here to answer your questions during a live chat scheduled for 1pm CT. You can click here to ask a question in advance, join in live once the chat begins, or read the transcript once the chat is complete.
Garver was an absolute disaster for the M’s last year. You hoped for a turnaround this season, but this injury doesn’t bode well.
How does it take them so long to get results from a xray? I’ve had a couple and they knew what the issue was immediately
@ohyeah: Swelling in the afflicted area might be masking the results. Sometimes takes a couple of days to get a clear picture. Might also be planning on a CT scan.
Bryan Bello was the opener
Let them all travel to Japan to take in the experience. They can set their rosters when they get there. It’s not like either team or mlb in general can’t afford a few extra plane tickets or hotel rooms.
I agree. Even if only one makes the roster. Let them travel with the team. Let them play in the exhibition games vs. The Japanese teams. Prior to the Dodgers series.
Works for thr Dodgers but break even Tommy Nickels can barely afford air fare and accommodations for the players that are playing and u guys want him to front the bills for guys who won’t play ?
MLB needs some teams in Asia. That’s where the economic growth will come from, not Nashville or Montreal.
Great idea. Then MLB can implement its new teleporting travel system.
No, just start moving teams over there like Tampa, Sacramento, Miami, Toronto, Detroit, White Sox, Nationals, Yankees & Red Sox.
International TV will be a source of growth.
York – You have a yen for unique ideas!
Hopefully, no time space anomaly occurs as a result of the new teleporting travel system disrupting the continuum.
You’d have to implement 34-game homestands and road trips.
@letitbelowenstein
It used to take almost days to travel by train for baseball teams to go to other cities so it’s not unusual. Eventually, technology advanced and we had quick flights that take a few hours. Time for MLB to expand into Asia and dump some of the dead wood teams that don’t actually want to compete at the highest level of baseball.
York – It’s already in the works.
Elon Musk owns The Boring Company which will be used to build a transatlantic tunnel connecting New York and London. With a hyperloop system it would take less than an hour to go from one of the cities to the other.
LA to Tokyo would take approximately 94 minutes, making MLB travel a breeze between the US and Japan.
Both tunnels should be completed before Ohtani collects his last deferral payment.
@El Kabong
Weird, did you mute me? I can’t reply to you so I have to reply to myself.
Yes, it’s possible but again, you need to get that growth into the populations that want to consume it and that means actually being on the ground, playing 162 game seasons to attract fans. Sure, people will flock to watch the Dodgers because of the Japanese players but that isn’t a ‘home team’ to cheer for, domestically. Plus, MLB is currently relying upon the eyeballs of fans who want to see Japanese players play instead of watch their team play.
York – I have him muted. But that’s yet another handle of his, therefore you wouldn’t recognize that name.
It’s cute you think the NPB would ALLOW the MLB to establish a competing league.
@fansincethe80s
Agreed, it is cute and naïve. Thanks for exposing me…!
@Old York: The most likely reason Nashville won’t get a ML franchise is probably due to the opposition from St Louis, Atlanta, and Cincy. Dave Dombrowski gave up on his efforts to bring MLB here to take the Philly GM job. He intimated that he didn’t expect Nashville to be a MLB destination in the near future.
Nashville: The city I’ve heard is most likely to get an expansion team is Salt Lake City. I’ve heard that Nashville has a good chance but if not, where do you think the expansion teams will be? We know they’re not giving Florida a third team.
Salt Lake City or Portland in the West, Nashville or Charlotte in the East.
kje76: As far as TV rights, would Portland infringe on Seattle’s territory?
@avenger: Thinking Salt Lake City and Portland are the two most likely. Charlotte a weak third. Montreal and Mexico City as dark horses.
Nashville: I would love to see a team in Montreal again Then you’d have the Canadian Derby between them and the Jays. Mexico City, not so much. They have an established league while Canada doesn’t
Salt Lake City would be a mistake. It’s small and isolated. The media/TV market would be miniscule. The closest urban areas all have teams as well: Arizona, Las Vegas (assuming A’s), Colorado. I think it’s way too limited of a market. Great for AAA though.
@Ignorant: Clarity that I don’t have on that option. Thanks Iggy.
Good lort, are you serious?
Seems like the Mariners could figure out which characteristics in a batter’s skill set correspond to disappointing offensive results in Seattle. Surely there’s an underlying pattern, of which Garver is a particularly extreme example.
Yes, the Mariners seem to have a bad habit of signing guys that can’t hit/guys that can kind of hit if they’re playing a premium position that just had a career year that the M’s are going to move to DH
They need to move the fences in 20-30feet all the way around!!!
When does the FA prediction contest end? Opening Day? I think I’ve been stuck on 4 since December. 🙁
The Dodgers will play one more Cactus League game this afternoon before packing off to Tokyo. At that point, spring training will be over for them. They will return from Japan to Dodger Stadium for the Freeway Series.
What are your guesses on the five-man taxi squad? I think Kim is among them.
Have they announced the 26-man yet?
No. That’s the hard part.
David Bote has had an excellent spring, but I doubt he will make the team over Taylor.
And he probably won’t take the assignment to the minors. I don’t see any of the invites making the team.
I agree regarding the invites. Bote’s agent should be working the phones; there’s a spot for him somewhere.
What do you think ultimately happens with Pages and Outman? I’m not sold on either.
Pages has the better chance of making the 26-man it seems. Outman is living up to his name, unfortunately.
They won’t need 13 pitchers for just 2 games. No need to make final position player cuts until the domestic opener.
How many players are on the “active roster” for these games? Isn’t it still 26, plus the taxi squad?
I hate the whole Tokyo/Korea series idea. Taking two teams and forcing them to operate under different roster rules than all the rest of the teams is absolute nonsense. They stopped the 40 man September call ups just because of the idea that having drastically different roster rules during the season didn’t make a lot of sense. And that was when all 30 clubs had the same opportunity.
I hate that they will be broadcast live at 3AM PT.
6 AM for me. It’s nothing compared to my terrible sleeping habits during the season. All those 10:10 starts.
And 5AM for Cubs fans.
higlew: They should allow teams that have been eliminated from PO contention bring up as many players as they want in September. It could make a difference when non-contenders play teams that are playing for a PO contenders. Think how happy bubble teams would be to play the White Sox.
Think of all the service time manipulation
I just thank the stars for the ability to record the games and watch them when I wake! Just gotta remember to buck my normal routine and NOT check the sports news first thing after waking…
SIMPLE:
A pitcher that throws a pitch that hits a batter that results in lost time injury to the batter should be suspended and remain so until the batter is able to resume their normal MLB level activities.
This antiquated, outdated, one-sided injustice of the way HBP must stop.
The stakes are just too high, both to team and to player in today’s game.
“OOPS, S-O-R-R-Y., Well, That’s just part of the game.” DOESN’T CUT IT.
Never happen, nor should it. Standing in a batter’s box while an opposing player is throwing 100mph baseballs past you is an inherently dangerous business.
Jackson: I agree. Pitchers used to throw at hitters for a reason, like showing them up on the bases or for hitting a teammate (I’m thinking Bob Gibson, among others), but pitchers throw a lot harder now and the injuries, for the most part, are far worse.
I’d suggest to stick to your player name pun comments, Jacksson13. They weren’t really funny, but those are light-years better than your current schtick to be honest with you.
Yeah, Manfred should just institute a rule that pitchers have to throw down the middle of the plate or get ejected. C’mon, man….
Welp, that’s dumb
Not that Mariners’ Spring Training games are of the highest priority for TV networks, but did Mitch Garver make any attempt to get out of the f***ing way? Or did he step right into it like Andrew Benintendi, Mookie Betts, and others have done in their most recent IL stints from getting hit?
Starting the season a week early then pausing to play more spring trading is possibly the dumbest thing MLB has ever done!
Surely not the dumbest. I mean, compared to the DH.
Fill in complaints below this line.
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I dislike this dumb arzs series significantly more than universal DH!!
Noted.
“Meanwhile” has to start the sentence, not come in the middle between commas. How do you screw this up a few sentences after getting it right?
You give grammar pedantry a bad name. Meanwhile can be used properly anywhere in a sentence, as a comparative conjunction.
Nice try. Meanwhile is a conjunctive adverb, not a comparative conjunction. And you wouldn’t use all of those in the middle of sentences either, now would you?
For a nicer try, consult Merriam-Webster. They provide several examples of using meanwhile within a sentence. So your supposed rule isn’t actually a rule at all. The gallant move at this point would be for you to concede your error and move on.
The irony here is that I see plenty of editorial issues on this site myself. This just doesn’t happen to be one of them.
Why would I do that when it isn’t an error? Putting a conjunctive adverb in the middle of a sentence destroys its flow for no reason, and often separates subject and verb. This is why conjunctive adverbs need to start the sentence unless they can come between clauses, which “meanwhile” cannot. Merriam-Webster makes mistakes. Look up their example sentence for “lump” in their 2018 edition.