Here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball throughout the day:
1. Winn OK after car accident:
Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn hit the first walk-off of his career against the Mets in the 11th inning yesterday, but not long after doing so the shortstop was involved in a single-car accident on the interstate near Busch Stadium. As noted by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Cardinals thankfully announced that Winn is OK after he was examined at a local hospital.
The Cardinals are off today as they travel to Detroit for their first road series of the year. Whether the star shortstop will play remains to be seen, and Goold notes that the team plans to re-evaluate him prior to tomorrow’s game. Thomas Saggese, José Fermín, and Ramon Urías all have infield experience and could sub in for Winn on the infield if needed. Fermín and Saggese both have shortstop experience, while Urías could plug in at second base if JJ Wetherholt covers short for Winn.
2. Griffin, Pirates working towards extension:
The Pirates have been working to extend the sport’s top prospect, shortstop Konnor Griffin, ahead of his impending MLB debut later this year. ESPN’s Buster Olney characterized the sides as “deep” into extension talks yesterday. The Pirates are seemingly willing to offer Griffin the largest contract in franchise history (surpassing Bryan Reynolds‘ $100MM deal). That would also top Mariners prospect Colt Emerson‘s newly secured $95MM deal for the largest ever to a pre-debut player. Will Griffin join Emerson, Cooper Pratt, and Pete Crow-Armstrong in signing early-career extensions this spring?
3. White Sox home opener postponed:
The White Sox announced that today’s scheduled game against the Blue Jays has been postponed until tomorrow. Today was meant to be Chicago’s home opener, but those festivities will now be moved back a day due to an inclement weather forecast for this afternoon. Perla Paredes of MLB.com writes that the pitching matchup for the game remains unchanged, with righty Sean Burke set to take on former White Sox ace Dylan Cease as he returns to town with the Blue Jays. Gates for tomorrow’s home opener will open at 11:10am local time, with first pitch scheduled for 1:10pm. Paredes goes on to note that all tickets for today’s postponed game will be valid for tomorrow’s home opener without any exchanges being necessary.
Some of these early extensions will turn into incredible bargains, others will have fans complaining for the better part of a decade. But what’s really interesting is what this trend tells you about the upcoming CBA negotiations
Mike – Seems like more of the extensions turn out to be bad decisions for the teams than good ones.
Take for instance the Red Sox. They are regretting the Campbell and Rafaela extensions, and they are lucky Casas didn’t accept their extension offer. These bad contracts add up, they impact the payroll budget for more than half a decade.
To be fair, the Red Sox front office is a mess. I’m sure many teams are appreciating the extensions they’ve signed their players to. Theres a reason Boras hates them
That’s a fair point, but it seems a lot of these owners think like investment bankers. Get three top-prospect-talents to sign extensions, two of which turn into ok-at best, the the third a genuine star. The star instantaneously becomes a big $ asset–and particularly if he doesn’t have a no-trade clause. That excess value could exceed the price of the more boring players. And the boring players will still go through the system, and if they can be league average, they will still have value to the team, and to themselves as they get through arbitration. I think we need a bigger sample set to judge.
Mike – I view the owners giving extensions more like gamblers rather than investors.
The earlier you sign a young player to a long extension, the greater the risk.
Better to pay a little more on a proven player than get absolutely nothing in return for signing an unproven player.
I agree with the younger/riskier point. But I also wonder how much exposure the team wants to take on to pay for a proven player. If they are just looking for cost control through years 1-4 or 5, and then swapping out for younger talent, then skip the extension to mitigate risk. But it’s also reasonable to ask how much risk is being taken by signing, say, a Grisham for $22M,
I don’t think the Sox are necessarily regretting the Rafaela extension, he’s a streaky hitter that plays GG defense. The Campbell contract on the other hand was definitely jumping the gun. Is there still time to extract value out of the deal? Sure, is it going to happen? That really is a question mark…
Rsox – My understanding is the team is losing patience with Rafaela’s poor swing decisions, lack of focus and mental errors. I think they envision a longterm OF of Abreu, Roman and KC in CF. I mean Rafaela is not much different than JBJ and we know what they decided with him.
If, if they can find a way to refine Rafaela’s approach at the plate and create more offensive consistency Ceddane is drastically different than JBJ. Rafaela has power and speed, JBJ really didn’t have either. I can see frustrations, especially after wasting an ABS challenge on a first pitch in the 3rd inning the other night. With the OF logjam this year i could see a scenario where if he doesn’t hit he could be sent down to AAA to work on his plate discipline
Rsox – JBJ actually had decent power. For a 6-year period from 2015-2020 he averaged 22 HR per 162 games.
This is Rafaela’s 4th season and he’s 25 now, I think he’s running out of time to improve. In yesterday’s game when he swung at a pitch that was not only in the dirt but more than 2 feet away from his bat, that was probably the worst swing I’ve ever seen.
This is a false narrative. There are maybe 3-4 extensions im baseball that turned out to be extremely unfavorable for the teams. Meanwhile players get take for a ride and massively underpaid every year.
tess – The 6 years of team control is a totally separate subject I’d rather not get into again.
I know some players we will probably have a different view of whether the contract was favorable or unfavorable. But for every Acuna, there’s a Myles Straw. At least the Braves wait for their players to have a strong full season in the majors before locking them up.
Signing these young guys to extensions is a great strategy that works out well for the teams more often than not. I remember a couple of years ago when a bunch of people were on here crying about Corbin Carroll signing his. Well, we see how that turned out, great for Arizona. Giving Konor Griffin a lucrative extension is one of the biggest no-brainers in the history of sports. As the article says, he’s the best prospect of the last few years. Guys like him and Soto who come up before they’re 20 almost always turn out great.
Jon Singleton, Evan White, Scott Kingery, Randy Dobnak, Eloy Jimenez, Luis Robert, Paul DeJong, Wander Franco (for vastly different reasons) just to name a few.
The cost certainty is the most important part for the team as arbitration salaries have skyrocketed in recent years. The flip side to that is in some cases you are guaranteeing financial security to a player you may have non-tendered after a few seasons because they couldn’t cut it at the MLB level
Bad weather all over. Stay safe out there.
Yeah been traveling from NY to Boston to Wisconsin to Chicago this week. Temps were 55, 30, 80, 25 on successive days
What brings you to Wisconsin, pal?
Most likely the cheese.
Or the beer 🙂
Sheboygan! I’m not your buddy, friend.
Ah shucks, not my neck of the woods. Nice town though. Work trip?
Yup. And time to stop off at Tractor Supply for some bags of kibble. With better timing would have made the Brew crew but they were on getaway day. What part of Wisky do you till?
Weather sucks today anyway, but with the weather I spose’ it doesn’t matter too much….
I hail from the south central area, a hop skip and a jump north of Madison. Great little slice of heaven
Went to the Cubs game on Tuesday night. It was 70 degrees in mid-afternoon, and 39 degrees by the time first pitch came around.
80s in Atlanta
It’s going to be cool to see Cease return to Chicago, although as soon as he starts punching out the White Sox, my nostalgia will end.
Was at that 8.2 IP no no v the Twins. So close so close
Dude, Cease was so much fun to watch. Watching Cease, Sale and Crochet have such great season-opening starts crushes me lol
Congrats to Winn on the walk off and congrats for being the first Cardinal involved in a wreck while sober
The times they are a changin’
Not yet a hall of fame baseball person unlike Sleepy Tony. Must be Missouri. That does that to a lad. Problem drinker by 19
La Russia 2 DUIs
Dan McLaughlin 3 DUIs
Josh Hancock deceased
Oscar Taveras deceased
And all the trouble Marcell Ozuna got in as a Brave, he learned in St. Louis
Mackey just reported Griffin getting called up.
Beyond psyched.
Spring weather in the Midwest can definitely be a mess especially here in Minnesota. As bad as it is summer games at the ballpark have quite nice weather so it’s hard to complain.
Until its mosquiter season at ye olde camp minnehaha. Need a bug zapper on your noggin. Bzzzz. Zap!
Can the White Sox postpone their entire season?
We (the fans) cannot take this anymore-
Did you mean season or decade? That optimism of a week ago has disappeared quickly.
Also to be fair last week they played the Brewers tbh.
Even further to be fair, last week the Brewers played the White Sox, tbh.
It’s not even Memorial Day yet lmao.
A’s, Red Sox, Tigger, Twinkie, Padre, Giant too. It’s early. Tuffie Rhodes is that you?
The White Sox:
A) Jerry Reinsdorf needs to sell majority controlling shares to the Ishbia family..NOW
B.) Getz, Barfield, Bannister,schriffen and Fletcher need to be shown the door.
C.) promote the assistant GM who they signed from Tampa Bay, to be the new General Manager.
D)Bring in Mike Breck to be the new marketing
Director.
E.) Give Venable one month to turn things around,if he cannot…hire David Ross, and bring in Tony Rizzo as hitting coach, and Jake. Arrieta as pitching coach.
You’re a day late with this comment.
Ross, Rizzo (wrong 1st name) & Arrieta…?
Go away Cub fan!
Omg Ross the drunk, Rizzo and Jake that would be like the most unqualified coaching staff ever. Poster: are you like an 11 yr old from Iowa?
He wants to can Brooke Fletcher, one of the in game correspondents? What did she ever do to you? Likable and enthusiastic daughter of long time major league vet Scott. Hope youre not one of her spurned admirers, she’s partners w Jake Cronenworth so time to move on. Schiffrin you’ve got a point. Getz did get promoted up but hes done ok with rule 5s and such. Bannister is actually quite the guru and someone you’d trust with pitching development. He’s no Don Cooper if that’s what youre getting at. Actually, Cooper is that you?
A will happen in a couple of years and B is still TBD and I don’t mind Fletcher, Bannister, or Barfield, also Getz hasn’t been great so far. C is a GM candidate at minimum. I can’t answer D but E is highly unlikely to happen. In summary most of your scenarios aren’t happening any time soon.
I am not a Cubs fan! I am a lifelong Sox fanI.do not like the Cubs, but David Ross, Anthony(Tony)
Rizzo, and Jake Arrieta were very successful with the Cubs.
Plus, they would probably come cheap, something Jerry Reinsdorf loves to hear?
!
Ross was a fun guy but maybe too fun. Someone you’d want to have a drink with fo sho but as cruel as it was, Cubs were right to bring in Craig. Rizzo? Fan favorite but not known for being much of a teacher. And Jake while a fitness freak seemed to harbor some nutty conspiracy theories and faced allegations of juicing. Cubs released hom shortly after he led an anti vax movement in the clubhouse. Hardly a ringing endorsement for a staff.
I think the back to back weather systems currently heading through the Dakotas and Minnesota will postpone a lot of home openers.