An even 100 years after the most influential trade in baseball history, let’s check out some items from around the majors…
- After being fired by the Red Sox as their president of baseball operations last September, Dave Dombrowski chose to take some time away from the sport rather than enter what he felt could be “sort of an awkward scenario” of another front office role, the longtime executive tells Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. Since Dombrowski hopes to land another GM position in the future, “to sit there and be a consultant, some people may view it as you’re sitting over their heads — which would not be the case, but I understand [why it might seem that way]. I think I would look more into that if something doesn’t work out as far as being a general manager. I think I would look more into that in the future, but not this year.” As a result, this has been a unique winter for Dombrowski, marking the first time since 1978 that he hasn’t been involved in normal offseason business working for a team in some capacity.
- The Twins have “kicked the tires on the top remaining starters,” as per SKOR North’s Darren Wolfson (Twitter links), and also looked at several other pitchers who have since signed with other clubs, though “never really pursued any aggressively.” Minnesota entered the offseason with a severe need for starting pitching, and while the club has brought back Jake Odorizzi and Michael Pineda, at least one rotation spot must still be addressed. With so many top arms already off the board, Wolfson feels the Twins might need to swing a trade in order to add any further pitching upgrades. In another tweet, Wolfson notes that the Twins didn’t have any interest in left-hander Matt Moore, who is off to Japan after signing with the SoftBank Hawks earlier today.
- The 2020 season is expected to feature some new rules, perhaps most notably the addition of a 26th player to every active roster. Baseball America’s Kyle Glaser talked to some managers and GMs about how clubs are preparing to deploy this extra roster spot, particularly given the additional regulations expected to limit teams to 13 pitchers per roster. If a team wanted an extra hurler at its disposal, they could have a roster of 12 position players and a two-way player, with that two-way player being subject to criteria from the league before being officially designated as such. “We have some players like Jake Cronenworth (and) Javy Guerra who can go both ways, pitch and get on the field,” Padres general manager A.J. Preller said. “We talked about specialists — pinch-hit, something like that. It just depends how your roster ends up being finalized when you get to the end of spring training.”