Uncategorized

MLBTR Free Agent Prediction Contest Winners Announced

By Tim Dierkes | April 4, 2023 at 8:35am CDT

Back in November, nearly 6,000 MLBTR readers attempted to predict the landing spots of 44 top free agents. Upon Jurickson Profar’s contract with the Rockies in late March, the winners were determined.

Coming in first place with 13 of 44 correct picks, a .295 batting average, was Steve Sacks. Congratulations, Steve! He’ll be receiving a check for $500 for his prognostication abilities. Steve correctly predicted the signing teams for Aaron Judge, Trea Turner, Dansby Swanson, Jacob deGrom, Brandon Nimmo, Willson Contreras, Kodai Senga, Chris Bassitt, Jose Abreu, Taylor Rogers, Andrew Chafin, David Robertson, and Adam Ottavino.

Second and third place went to Jeffery Fruge and Andrew Farroll, who also received cash prizes.

Additionally, 28 people got at least ten predictions correct and will receive a free one-year subscription to Trade Rumors Front Office. I topped the field of MLBTR writers, mustering a mediocre eight correct predictions.

The full leaderboard can be found here. All winners have been notified, so if you got at least ten correct, check your email.

Check back here in about seven months, and we’ll do it all over again for Shohei Ohtani and all the rest!

Submit Your Questions For The MLBTR Podcast

By Simon Hampton | April 3, 2023 at 7:04pm CDT

We’re re-launching the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, with the first episode due out on Wednesday morning. The weekly show will be hosted by myself, Simon Hampton, and feature analysis and insight from our writers at MLBTR, as well as guests from around the baseball industry. On the first episode I’ll be joined by MLBTR’s Anthony Franco.

We want to have our readers involved as much as possible, and so each week we’ll look to answer three reader-submitted questions. It’s a good chance to talk about the issues and topics in baseball that you want to hear about. We’ll aim to keep the podcast pretty hot stove centric, but feel free to ask away and Anthony and I will pick three questions to answer on this week’s podcast.

You can submit your questions by sending an email to mlbtrpod@gmail.com, we look forward to hearing from you!

White Sox Notes: Hendriks, Right Field, Colas, Garcia

By Steve Adams and Anthony Franco | March 29, 2023 at 10:41pm CDT

The White Sox will open the season without closer Liam Hendriks, who announced in January that he’d begun undergoing treatment following a non-Hodgkins lymphoma diagnosis. The team hasn’t provided much in the way of updates since that time, but general manager Rick Hahn tells reporters on the eve of Opening Day that Hendriks is making good progress in his battle (Twitter link via Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times). While the Sox aren’t placing a formal timeline on his return, Hahn noted that the Sox have deliberately avoided placing Hendriks on the 60-day injured list thus far.

That’s certainly not a guarantee that Hendriks will return within the season’s first two months, but the fact that the Sox are leaving themselves open to the possibility is encouraging. Hendriks will still open the season on the 15-day injured list, and if the White Sox need a 40-man roster spot at any time prior to his activation, he can be transferred to the 60-day IL without penalty. (The 60-day term is retroactive to the original IL placement and does not reset when a player is moved from the 15-day to the 60-day.)

Padres Injury Notes: Engel, Soto, Nola, Bogaerts, Musgrove

By Mark Polishuk | March 25, 2023 at 2:50pm CDT

Adam Engel suffered a hamstring injury during Thursday’s Cactus League game, putting his availability for the Padres’ Opening Day roster in severe jeopardy. “Hamstrings can be a little bit [tricky] so we’ll see how he progresses, but…I think it’d be tough for him to make another game here in Spring Training,” Padres manager Bob Melvin told reporters, including Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Engel’s progress was already slowed by a calf strain earlier in camp, and the outfielder has played in only six Spring Training games. Between this lack of ramp-up period and the time it’ll take for Engel to recover from his current hamstring issue, a stint on the 10-day injured list certainly looks probable for Engel at the beginning of the season.

The Padres signed Engel to a one-year deal this winter with an eye towards using the veteran as a fourth outfielder, given Engel’s strong track record as a defender. With Fernando Tatis Jr. still having to serve 20 games left on his PED suspension, Engel was tapped for a good amount of playing time in April, but it is now possible Tatis might get back onto the field before Engel does, depending on the severity of the hamstring issue.

In better news for San Diego’s outfield, Juan Soto might be able to avoid the IL in the wake of the mild oblique strain that sidelined him last weekend. The Padres have naturally been very careful with Soto, but he was making some light throws in the outfield and taking dry swings yesterday, in a positive step this early in his recovery process from any kind of oblique problem.

With some cautious optimism about Soto and now some doubt over Engel, it still seems as though the Padres will have at least one outfield job available on the Opening Day roster. Jose Azocar and Brandon Dixon are the internal choices, and perhaps more than one of David Dahl, Tim Lopes, and Rougned Odor could have their minor league contracts selected to the roster. To help his chances of making the team, Odor recently saw some action in left field, despite never playing in the outfield before during his pro career.

Like Soto, Austin Nola might also be in the Opening Day lineup despite an ominous late-spring setback, as Nola was hit in the face by a Michael Fulmer pitch on Sunday and suffered a fractured nose and three stitches. While that diagnosis isn’t exactly good, Nola was “so glad it’s what it is and not the eyes, a concussion or any of that stuff,” he told MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell. The catcher might now even get back into game action before Spring Training is over, as Nola caught Seth Lugo’s bullpen session yesterday.

Xander Bogaerts received a cortisone shot in his left wrist, and isn’t expected to play again until Sunday. As Melvin told Sanders and company, “there’s no concern, [Bogaerts] has one of these a spring,” due to periodic soreness in his wrist. The prized signing of San Diego’s offseason, Bogaerts is in no danger of missing his first Opening Day in a Padres uniform.

One player guaranteed to miss some time is Joe Musgrove, who suffered an unfortunate fluke injury in late February when a weight-room accident resulted in a broken left big toe. The Padres ace’s recovery timeline has become more clear as he has been rehabbing the injury, and Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes (via Twitter) that Musgrove will hit another important checkpoint when he pitches in a minor league spring game on Monday.

The right-hander will miss relatively little time, as Acee notes that Musgrove is being tentatively scheduled to make his season debut on either April 11 or April 16. However, the Padres still face a rotation crunch with Musgrove sidelined and Yu Darvish still properly ramping up after his usual spring routine was interrupted by the World Baseball Classic. As a result, San Diego might deploy a six-man rotation to help manage arms during an unusually busy early schedule — the Padres play games on 24 of the first 25 days of the new season. Blake Snell, Nick Martinez, Michael Wacha, Jay Groome, Lugo, and Darvish would comprise the rotation until Musgrove’s return could shuffle things up.

Matt Harvey Hoping To Sign With MLB Club

By Darragh McDonald | March 16, 2023 at 7:36pm CDT

Right-hander Matt Harvey didn’t make it to the big leagues last year but is hoping for another shot, per Jon Heyman of The New York Post.

Harvey, turning 34 this month, didn’t make it into a major league game last year for the first time since 2014. He signed a minor league deal with the Orioles but was handed a 60-game suspension from Major League Baseball. Harvey testified in the trial of former Angels communications director Eric Kay. Harvey testified that he provided Tyler Skaggs with Percocet pills. Kay was convicted by a Fort Worth jury of distributing fentanyl that resulted in the death of Skaggs. Harvey was granted immunity from criminal prosecution for his testimony but was handed that suspension from MLB. After serving his suspension, he threw 70 1/3 innings in the minors last year, posting a 3.71 ERA.

Harvey underwent knee surgery towards the end of last year and hoped to make it back for 2023. It seems his rehab from that procedure went fine, as he recently suited up for Team Italy in the World Baseball Classic. While returning to health was surely encouraging, he also posted good results, allowing just a single earned run in seven innings. He only record three strikeouts in that time but also issued just a single walk and allowed only four hits.

Harvey’s strikeout stuff has been on the decline for pretty much his whole career. He punched out 28.6% of hitters in his debut season and that swooned to the mid-teens in recent years. Though his fastball now sits in the 89-91 mph range, he believes he’s figured out how to work with that kind of stuff. “Obviously I’m not pumping mid-to-upper-90s anymore — at least not yet. Hopefully, the velo comes back. But if it doesn’t, I feel like I still know how to pitch and to get guys out,” Harvey said. “I’ve worked really hard on a different style of pitching. I feel good. Hopefully the stuff comes back. But I can still pitch. The game is still about getting people out.” He was especially proud of his control, saying that he “could have thrown it into a tea cup.”

Harvey had a really strong run earlier in his career but has been set back by various injuries. In 2015, he made 29 starts for the Mets with a 2.71 ERA in 189 1/3 innings. However, his ERA jumped to 4.86 the year after and he hasn’t been able to get it lower than that since. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2014, thoracic outlet syndrome surgery in 2016 and knee surgery last year.

It’s certainly been a rollercoaster, but Harvey is hoping to get another shot. “Hopefully someone gives me a chance,” he tells Heyman. Despite his nice showing in the WBC in recent weeks, he’ll be limited to minor league deals based on his lack of recent success in the majors. With Opening Day now two weeks away, various clubs have been dealing with blows to their rotation depth. Andrew Painter of the Phillies, Cade Cavalli of the Nationals and José Quintana of the Mets are just some of the pitchers looking at significant absences around the league and perhaps leading those clubs to seek out some extra depth.

Follow NHL Trade Deadline Coverage At Pro Hockey Rumors

By Josh Erickson | March 3, 2023 at 8:00am CDT

The 2023 NHL Trade Deadline is approaching today at 2 p.m. CT, and Pro Hockey Rumors is your go-to source for all the latest news and rumors.

Pro Hockey Rumors will provide extensive coverage of all the trades and rumors leading up to the deadline, as always. While a lot of big names have been moved in recent days — including big fish like Jakob Chychrun, Patrick Kane, Vladimir Tarasenko, and Ryan O’Reilly — there is a multitude of intriguing options available left on the market. James van Riemsdyk and Brock Boeser are there for teams looking to add on the wing, and former 65-point scorer John Klingberg is on the block for teams looking to add an offensive boost to their defense.

Some teams are still embroiled in tight playoff races, with Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Florida, Ottawa, Washington, Detroit, and the New York Islanders all stuck battling for the final two spots in the Eastern Conference playoff picture. In the West, the Calgary Flames are still looking to crack the top eight after a busy offseason.

Stay up to date with our comprehensive coverage, including expert analysis and insights into all the deals. Don’t miss a single trade or rumor – follow Pro Hockey Rumors for all your trade deadline news. You can visit prohockeyrumors.com, or follow @prohockeyrumors on Twitter!

MLB Planning To Reemphasize Enforcement On Foreign Substances

By Anthony Franco | February 23, 2023 at 8:41pm CDT

League officials are informing teams this spring that umpires are being encouraged to more diligently monitor pitchers for foreign substances, reports Jayson Stark of the Athletic. It’ll involve more thorough checks on pitchers as part of MLB’s quest to enforce the ban on sticky stuff.

That crackdown came in response to concern among league officials (and some players) that pitchers were using increasingly complex substances to enhance their grip on the baseball. The league’s rationale was that many pitchers had gone beyond the long accepted practice of using substances like rosin to maintain control of the ball and were instead using sticky stuff as a means of artificially enhancing the quality of their arsenals by increasing spin and movement. The crackdown came in response to league concerns about the ever-increasing rise of strikeouts in the sport.

The substance checks led to some controversy early on, with pitchers like Tyler Glasnow and Garrett Richards blasting MLB’s decision to implement it midway through the 2021 season. Within a few weeks, however, the focus on those checks generally faded into the background. Umpires continued to inspect every pitcher (some hurlers multiple times within a game) but there were only two ejections for pitchers whom umpires determined violated the foreign substance rule during the 2021 season. There wasn’t a single ejection related to a failed foreign substance check last year, although D-Backs southpaw Madison Bumgarner was thrown out for insulting umpire Dan Bellino during an inspection (an ejection for which Bellino later apologized).

The process came back to the forefront on the national stage last fall when Mets manager Buck Showalter requested umpires examine Padres starter Joe Musgrove during the deciding game of the clubs’ Wild Card Series. Musgrove passed the inspection, remained in the game, and finished with seven scoreless innings to lead San Diego to a clinching win.

While the Musgrove incident ultimately turned out to be inconsequential, the league apparently has concerns that pitchers have found ways around the substance checks in general. Eno Sarris of the Athletic noted last September that league spin rates on four-seam fastballs had risen throughout the 2022 campaign after an initial precipitous decline upon the start of inspections in mid-summer 2021. According to Stark, the league has token note of that trend. MLB had expressed similar concerns about a rise in spin rate last Spring Training, but league officials’ plans to enhance enforcement last season evidently didn’t have the desired effect.

Stark writes that umpires are expected to again examine pitcher equipment like hats and belts, a process they used in 2021 but shied away from last season as they focused more attention on players’ hands. Stark adds that checks of pitchers’ hands — which obviously will also continue — are expected to be more thorough than they had been and that umpires could potentially conduct mid-inning checks if they identify a reason to believe the pitcher could be using a foreign substance.

Whether the tighter enforcement will have any tangible effects on gameplay in 2023 remains to be seen. It comes as part of the league’s ongoing efforts to increase the number of balls in play. MLB is implementing various rule changes (i.e. infield shift limitations, larger bases, a pitch clock) with an eye towards decreasing whiffs and/or accelerating pace of play.

Sign Up For The Free MLBTR Newsletter

By Tim Dierkes | February 23, 2023 at 11:04am CDT

Spring Training has begun, and it’s time to check out the free MLB Trade Rumors Newsletter! The newsletter is written by Cliff Corcoran, who has an extensive resume contributing to Sports Illustrated, The Athletic, Baseball Prospectus, and other outlets. Cliff will take you through the hot stove highlights of the previous day, boiling down MLBTR’s posts into the essential stories. It’s a great morning read that will help you stay on top of the biggest MLB stories.

This free newsletter arrives via email Monday through Friday in the morning. Be sure to check your inbox and click the link in the confirmation email. If you’re not seeing the box to input your email, you can simply click this link to sign up.

MLB Creates Economic Reform Committee

By Nick Deeds | February 19, 2023 at 12:41pm CDT

One year after a tense period of CBA negotiations between MLB and it players that resulted in a lockout and a delay to the start of the 2022 season, it appears the league is already preparing for the next round of negotiations. According to Evan Drellich of The Athletic, the commissioner’s office has formed what they’re calling an economic reform committee chaired by Dodgers chairman Mark Walter. Drellich reports that Tigers chairman Chris Ilitch, Red Sox principle owner John Henry, and Rockies chairman Dick Monfort are among other members of the committee of franchise owners. The current CBA is set to expire following the 2026 season.

As Drellich notes, the impending bankruptcy of Diamond Sports Group, owner of the Bally Sports networks that hold the TV distribution rights of 14 MLB teams, appears to be a catalyst for the creation of this committee. Should that bankruptcy indeed come to pass, it would open the door for MLB to begin work on a league-wide streaming service free from blackouts. But according to Manfred, discussions of such a path have brought about concerns about disparity between the revenues of clubs:

“We have businesses that are literally not similar in terms of the overall revenue that they’re generating.” Manfred tells Drellich, “And to the extent that you could find a new distribution model that actually helped on that disparity side, that would be the daily double. So people are having conversations that haven’t been had in baseball, and it’s really been owners talking to owners, which is a good thing.”

As Drellich points out, the financials of most MLB clubs are not public and the new committee has no plans to produce a league-wide financial report, making it impossible to verify most claims related to revenue. But Drellich reports that concerns about revenue disparity have been exacerbated by the willingness of Mets owner Steve Cohen to put up record payrolls that dwarf those of other clubs. Per RosterResource, the Mets 2023 payroll for luxury tax purposes currently sits at almost $374 million, and that’s even after the club’s bid to land Carlos Correa on a 12-year, $315 million contract fell through due to concerns about Correa’s physical.

Drellich quotes an industry source as saying that “[Small market clubs] demand everything’s got to change… The whole idea is to basically come up with a system that gets to a salary cap.”

For his part, Manfred claims that the league has not “even begun to think about where we’re going to be the next go-around” of collective bargaining negotiations, but Drellich notes that other quotes from the commissioner indicate the proposal of a hard-cap could be on the horizon:

“When I talk about a more national product, sort of the thought there is that a more national product produces more centrally shared revenue… which, in turn, we hope, would reduce payroll disparities. At various times, we have talked and proposed, including in the last round, about direct payroll regulation, in addition to that, having a minimum payroll… We remain open to those sorts of solutions. Obviously, we’re a long way from the next round of bargaining, but there are ways to get at it.”

Even if the league has interest in pursuing a salary cap in future CBA negotiations, plenty of obstacles remain. The MLBPA, which Drellich reports declined to comment on the league’s new committee, has of course staunchly stood against a salary cap for decades. Drellich also notes that teams likely disagree as to where a hypothetical cap and floor would be set. Still, this committee serves as a reminder that, even with the lockout in the past and a new agreement in place that should keep labor peace for at least the next four seasons, more difficult negotiations remain on the horizon, both between owners themselves and between the league and its players.

MLBTR Is Seeking A Podcast Producer

By Tim Dierkes | February 15, 2023 at 3:00pm CDT

As you may recall, MLBTR had a podcast that launched in October 2014 and ran for about a year and a half. It was hosted by the esteemed Jeff Todd, and we had a lot of fun.

We have decided to relaunch the MLB Trade Rumors podcast! This time, it will be hosted by Simon Hampton. In this 30-minute weekly show, Simon will bring on members of the MLBTR writing staff to analyze MLB transactions and to dig in on the sorts of topics we cover regularly on this site. We’ll be featuring some outside guests as well.

The show is not ready yet, because we need a producer. We’re seeking someone with experience as a podcast producer. This person will help us record the show, edit it, and put it on the various platforms. If you’re interested, please email us at mlbtrhelp@gmail.com and include your qualifications.

If you’re a podcast listener, we’d love your thoughts in the comments about what you’d like to hear (or not hear) in this show.

« Previous Page

Load More Posts

Show all

Headlines

Uncategorized

Navigation

MLBTR INFO

Connect