Retraction On New Balance Fresh Foam 3000
Today, we posted a story about how New Balance Fresh Foam 3000 cleats violated regulations set by the Japanese High School Baseball Federation, and are therefore not allowed in Japan’s high school Koshien tournament. While that is true, we wrote that the cleats were “marketed as a Shohei Ohtani product,” which is not correct. We regret the error.
MLB Agency Update
As you know, we maintain an MLB agency database here at MLB Trade Rumors, consisting of all players who played in the Majors in the last three completed seasons (currently 2020-22).
We currently have 559 players for whom we do not have an agency, and they’re listed if you hit the “Read More” button. If your company represents any of these players, or you know of their agencies through media reports or social media, please reach out through our contact form.
In the database, you will find the 1,742 players for whom we do have an agency, but errors are possible. If you see any errors please contact us about that as well!
Here’s the list of players for whom we do not have an agency:
Salt Lake City Group Interested In MLB Expansion Franchise
Big League Utah, a group led by former Utah Jazz owner Gail Miller, is interested in bringing an expansion Major League Baseball franchise to Salt Lake City, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN.
Major League Baseball has not expanded in 25 years now, when the 1998 season saw the league grow to 30 teams with the additions of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays, with the latter club later dropping the demonic portion of their name. Many have wondered when the league might consider expanding again, with commissioner Rob Manfred frequently stating that the Rays and Athletics need to resolve their respective stadium situations before expansion will be legitimately on the table. Passan’s report indicates that is indeed still the priority, though all signs point to expansion being just over the horizon.
Both of those stadium situations seem to be moving towards resolutions, one way or another. The Rays have put forth a plan to redevelop the St. Petersburg Gas Plant District, with mayor Ken Welch backing the proposal. The negotiations are still ongoing but it seems like progress is being made before the club’s lease on Tropicana Field expires after the 2027 season. The A’s, meanwhile, have been in talks with the city of Oakland for a while about developing their own stadium, threatening to move to Las Vegas if nothing gets done. Manfred recently suggested that January of 2024 is an unofficial deadline for them to get something done with Oakland.
As those situations near their conclusions, the talk of expansion should only increase. A couple of groups have already positioned themselves to be in the mix for new franchises. A group in Nashville has attached familiar names like Dave Dombrowski, Tony La Russa and Dave Stewart. They recently added Don Mattingly while branding themselves as the Nashville Stars. Dombrowski and Mattingly are currently employed by the Phillies and Blue Jays, respectively, but are still connected to the Stars/Music City Baseball. There’s also the Portland Diamond Project, which has been trying to position itself for a club for many years, submitting bids for parcels of land five years ago. Passan also lists Charlotte, Montreal and Las Vegas as potential expansion locations, the latter presumably only if they don’t end up hosting the Athletics.
Those two ventures will now seemingly have some competition from this Salt Lake City group. The 79-year-old Miller owned the Utah Jazz until recently. Her husband Larry H. Miller had purchased the team in the 1980s but she took over the club, and his other business ventures, upon his death in 2009. The Miller family sold the Jazz in October of 2020. Passan reports that Big League Utah involves the Larry H. Miller Company but also former big leaguers Dale Murphy and Jeremy Guthrie, both of whom live in Utah now. The group has its sights set on building a stadium in the Rocky Mountain Power District, an area outside the downtown core of Salt Lake City.
“Salt Lake City is a major league city,” said Steve Starks, CEO of the Miller Company. “We believe that as a top-30 media market in the fastest-growing state in the country with the youngest population, that’s where our attention should be — and that we could accomplish bringing a team to the Wasatch Front.”
Utah Governor Spencer Cox also seems on board. “It would be, I think, a validation of everything that we’ve worked so hard to do,” Cox said. “We’ve proven ourselves in a sports capacity with Olympics in 2002 and coming back in 2030 or, more likely, 2034. We’ve hosted two NBA All-Star Games. We know we can do this. It would just be meaningful for people who love this sport, who care deeply about it. We’re a baseball state.”
Per Passan’s report, members of the group have already been in contact with Major League Baseball and have also toured the facilities of the Atlanta Braves. They are touting the viability of Salt Lake City as a destination based on its population, which makes it a larger media market than that of the Padres, Royals, Reds and Brewers. They also highlight a strong economy which includes an unemployment rate of just 2.4%. Starks also said local residents were surveyed about their preferences for expansion sports teams and MLB was the top choice in that polling, ahead of the NFL.
However the expansion competition ultimately plays out, it figures to be a boon to the league. For one thing, expansion tends to create millions of new dedicated fans, which is good for growing the sport. There also should be plenty of interest among current baseball fans, as expansion will need to be accompanied by a draft, with the new clubs filling their rosters by plucking players from the others. Beyond that, expansion franchises pay fees for the right to join the league, with that money divided amongst the existing clubs. The new franchises in Arizona and Tampa each paid $130MM in fees back in 1998 but Passan estimates the fee will be closer to $2 billion this time around.
Shohei Ohtani Breaks 50-Year-Old Nolan Ryan Record, Shuts Down Nationals In 2-0 Win
On Tuesday night, Shohei Ohtani took the mound for the third time this season and tossed seven shutout innings to lead the Los Angeles Angels to a 2-0 win against the Washington Nationals.
The Japanese two-way superstar struck out six and held the Nats to just one hit in another dominant outing. The right-hander has improved to 0.47 ERA and 24 Ks in 19 innings, only giving up a single allowed run in his three starts. He’s struck out 32% of batters faced, while he’s been a bit wild in the early going with a 16 BB%. The advanced stats are also impressive, holding hitters to just .150 xBA and .196 xSLG.
This was Ohtani’s tenth consecutive start with two or fewer runs given up, setting a new franchise record and surpassing Nolan Ryan’s nine-game streak set back in 1972-1973.
Sho-Time has another impressive streak going. According to ESPN Stats and Info, this is Ohtani’s 7th straight start dating back to last season with 3 or fewer hits allowed in at least 5 innings pitched. The 7-game streak is tied for the second-highest all-time behind Jacob DeGrom’s 8-game record set in 2021. Ohtani will get the chance to tie DeGrom’s record in his next outing.
Ohtani still sees room for improvement despite his impressive start to the season. “If you just look at the results on paper it looks great, but I haven’t really had too many 1-2-3 innings,” said Ohtani, through his interpreter Ippei Mizuhara.
It was a surprisingly efficient outing for the 2021 AL MVP, who is still overcoming his early season control struggles. He finished the game at 92 pitches despite giving up a combined six walks and HBP. He seemed to struggle with the umpire’s strike zone, and the usually calm-demeanored right-hander was more expressive and would turn his head in confusion when he did not get calls on borderline pitches.
Although he struggled with his control, Ohtani was able to keep hitters off-balance by changing speeds and shapes on his pitches. According to Baseball Savant’s pitcher report, Nats hitters made contact with 28 of Ohtani’s pitches, but only three were hit hard into fair territory.
Angels manager Phil Nevin said that Ohtani’s in-game adjustments have been impressive. “He’s added some shapes to his pitches. The adjustments he’s making in-game and between starts are what great pitchers do,” said the Halos skipper. “He got some pitches tonight that we haven’t seen and [Ohtani was] very effective.”
Fans usually think of overpowering 100mph fastballs when Ohtani’s on the mound, but it was another game where Ohtani leaned heavily on his sweeper. He threw his sweeper 51 times in this game, 55% of his total pitches, and got five whiffs. It’s a small sample size, but Ohtani’s sweeper usage has dramatically from 37.4% last season to up to 49% and the pitch has the run value of -6.
The game plan and approach isn’t the only part of Ohtani’s game that is evolving. The average horizontal movement of Ohtani’s sweeper has increased from 14 inches in 2022 to 17.6 inches this year. The movement of his sweeper caught the attention of fans on Twitter after The Pitching Ninja posted a clip of an Ohtani sweeper with 20 inches of break.
Ohtani will get his first day off tonight, as the Angels try to effectively manage his heavy workload. His next projected start is against the Boston Red Sox next Monday, April 17th, at 11:10 EST.
Submit Your Questions For The MLB Trade Rumors Podcast
The MLB Trade Rumors podcast is back, and we’re looking for MLBTR readers to submit questions to be answered in the next episode due out Wednesday morning.
This week, I’ll be joined by MLBTR’s Steve Adams. If there’s anything you’d like to get myself and Steve’s thoughts on then please submit your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
You can also listen to Episode 1 on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever you get your podcasts! On that episode, Anthony Franco and I discussed Shohei Ohtani‘s future in LA, took a look at the Cardinals’ and Marlins’ rotation pictures and wondered what Jake Cronenworth‘s extension in San Diego means for other Padres players.
MLBTR Seeking A Shohei Ohtani-Focused Writer
I feel that Shohei Ohtani’s upcoming free agency deserves special treatment here at MLBTR. Ohtani does unprecedented things all the time, and he’s on track for free agency in about seven months. We’ll certainly be covering the topic from many angles here at MLBTR, but I’m also planning to have extra Ohtani articles concerning topics not normally covered at MLBTR, and we’re seeking a new paid part-time writer for the job. These additional articles will be housed at Ohtani’s player page, so that those looking for enhanced coverage of the man outside of hot stove news can get it.
For example, the Ohtani player page may include articles about his endorsements, regular updates from his game performances, and coverage of his MVP and/or Cy Young chances.
Just to repeat, for extra clarity: the additional Ohtani articles will be on a separate page and not on MLB Trade Rumors itself. It should be a great place for those who want more and easily avoided for those who do not.
As a late addition to this post – I would love for this role to serve as a springboard into supplementing MLBTR’s NPB coverage across the board, beyond just Ohtani.
MLBTR’s writing team will continue to cover all aspects of Ohtani’s free agency on MLBTR, but we’re looking to add a paid writer to cover additional topics. These are the qualifications:
- You must be fluent in both English and Japanese. The articles will be written in English, but in addition to monitoring U.S.-based Ohtani non-hot stove news, you will be tasked with monitoring coverage of Ohtani in the Japanese media and translating it into English-language posts.
- Availability to live blog all of Ohtani’s remaining starts as a pitcher this season.
- Though you may be a fan of Ohtani, you will need to write objectively about him.
- A high school degree is required, and further education is preferred. Please include your highest completed level of education in your application.
- Writing experience is necessary, and online writing experience is preferred.
- Attention to detail and ability to follow the MLBTR style and tone.
- Strong knowledge of Ohtani’s history, including prior to his coming to the United States.
- Ability to craft intelligent, well-written posts analyzing and contextualizing Ohtani news quickly and concisely.
- Ability to use Twitter, Tweetdeck, Facebook, and WordPress. Experience with these is strongly preferred.
- Ability to incorporate feedback to improve performance.
- If you’re interested, email shoheiohtanirumors@gmail.com and explain how you stand out and qualify in a couple of short paragraphs. Please attach your resume to the email.
- Please also include a writing sample that you feel would fit on the site, keeping in mind that this role involves covering all aspects of Ohtani other than his free agency or a potential trade. Feel free to write an article about this Forbes report from last October concerning Ohtani’s endorsements, and/or about his performance in the Angels’ April 5th game. Bonus points if you want to try writing a sample post in English where the source material is in Japanese.
MLB To Test Another Pre-Tacked Ball In Southern League
Major League Baseball will test another version of a pre-tacked ball in the Double-A Southern League this season, reports Hannah Keyser of Yahoo! Sports. The league has floated the idea of “enhanced grip” baseballs for a few seasons.
Various iterations of pre-tacked balls have been tested in Spring Training, the Arizona Fall League, and at different levels of the minors in recent years. Those experiments took on increased urgency during the 2021 campaign, when MLB enforced a midseason crackdown on the ban on grip-altering foreign substances.
The foreign substance ban came in response to increasing spin rates, as MLB determined too many pitchers were using grip enhancers to improve the raw quality of their stuff as opposed to “merely” aiding control. The crackdown wasn’t without criticism, however, with one prevalent concern being hitter safety if pitchers had less feel for the ball. In an effort to address those fears, MLB has sought prototypes that allow pitchers an improved grip without artificially creating dramatically more pitch movement.
Last June, Evan Drellich of the Athletic reported that MLB had kicked around a pair of pre-tracked prototypes in the Double-A Southern and Texas Leagues. However, Keyser writes those experiments were scrapped relatively early on after it became clear those solutions were unsatisfactory. MLB has made unspecified changes in response to player feedback to create a new iteration that’ll be tested this year. According to Keyser, the Southern League will use the pre-tacked ball for the first half of the season before going back to the standard ball — which is manually mudded prior to games — for the second half of the year. MLB will compare the two halves’ data and decide whether the prototype warrants further experimentation.
It’s unclear whether MLB will be able to create a pre-tacked ball it deems sufficient for major league use. For now, they’ll continue tinkering in the minors with an eye towards potential implementation at the highest level far down the line.
MLBTR Free Agent Prediction Contest Winners Announced
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
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
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.)
More on the South Siders…
- Manager Pedro Grifol has not yet announced who’ll get the first start of the year in right field, though it’s expected to be one of Oscar Colas, Eloy Jimenez or Romy Gonzalez. Colas, one of the White Sox’ top prospects, will play in right field frequently this season even if he doesn’t get the Opening Day nod, Grifol tells the White Sox beat (Twitter link via Scott Merkin of MLB.com). The 24-year-old Colas hit .314/.371/.524 across three minor league levels in 2022, improving his production at each stop (albeit with just seven games in Triple-A). Jim Callis of MLB.com takes a look at what the Sox can expect from Colas in 2023, writing that despite a two-year layoff from competitive games, he arrived in Chicago’s farm system as a more advanced hitter than anticipated in 2022. Colas hit .262/.273/.431 with three homers, two doubles, a walk and nine strikeouts in 66 spring plate appearances.
- Reports emerged over the weekend that Chicago was moving on from utilityman Leury Garcia. That came as a bit of a surprise considering the Sox still owe Garcia $11MM over the next two seasons under the terms of an ill-fated three year free agent contract. Hahn addressed the situation this afternoon, saying that owner Jerry Reinsdorf “was clear that we need to go with the best 26 to put us in the best position to win this year” (link via James of the Athletic). “Even if in the end, as was the case with Leury, it wound up with us having to eat some sunk cost on the contract there.” There’s no question Garcia will go unclaimed on waivers, as no team will assume the remainder of his contract. He’ll hit free agency — either via release by the Sox or rejection of an outright assignment — and seek out other opportunities in the coming days. Gonzalez and Hanser Alberto are likely to assume the utility role Garcia has played in recent seasons, with the Sox widely expected to select Alberto’s contract tomorrow morning.