Uncategorized News & Rumors

We’ve seen plenty of fans and readers comment early in the 2021 season that it feels as though injuries are up from previous years, and that is indeed the case, as Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic breaks down in an excellent look at the increased IL stints of the non-Covid variety. IL placements are up 15 percent overall compared to the first month of the 2019 season, Rosenthal reports, with a 22 percent uptick among pitchers. Specifically, soft-tissue injuries such as hamstring, quadriceps and oblique injuries have nearly doubled in frequency, while arm and elbow injuries are up by a much slighter margin of 19 percent.

Brewers president of baseball operations David Stearns, Pirates GM Ben Cherington and Marlins pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. all discuss the issue with Rosenthal, offering opinions on everything ranging from the root of some injuries to the level of club-to-club variance in treating injuries, managing player workload and other health-related matters. For anyone who’s been alarmed at the number of injuries that seem to be spanning throughout the league, it’s a must-read piece with insight straight from key team decision-makers who are faced with these challenges everyday.

It’s not surprising to see more concrete data backing up what many have suspected to be the case: injuries are spiking around the league. While some clubs are surely just being cautious with minor injuries for key players — Tim Anderson, Josh Donaldson, Max Fried and Trent Grisham all had very brief IL stints for hamstring issues — it’s hard to ignore both the volume of IL transactions and the extent of some of the early injuries.

We’ve already seen Kole Calhoun, Ketel Marte, Carlos Carrasco, David Price, Jazz Chisholm, Jorge Alfaro, Brendan Rodgers, Shogo Akiyama and Jake Fraley sustain hamstring injuries that will keep (or already have kept) them out three-plus weeks. Calhoun’s, which required surgery, could cost him two months. MLB.com’s transactions log shows 13 IL placements due to oblique strains in April alone — three of which have resulted in the player being moved to the 60-day injured list (Julian Merryweather, Rowan Wick, Bobby Wahl). George Springer has already hit the IL with an oblique injury to open the year and now a quadriceps strain, so he checks the box for a pair of those soft-tissue injuries.

Elbow troubles are nothing new for pitchers, of course, but we’ve seen a bevy of Tommy John surgeries already in 2021. Dustin May, Kirby Yates, James Paxton, Adrian Morejon, Luis Avilan, Jose Leclerc, Jonathan Hernandez, Jimmy Cordero, Blake Cederlind, Roenis Elias, Forrest Whitley, Jose Castillo, Michel Baez and Bryan Mata are just some of the big leaguers and notable prospects to undergo UCL replacement surgery since Spring Training opened a couple months back.

We’ve also already seen several of the game’s exciting young stars impacted. The White Sox may not get another plate appearance from Luis Robert (hip flexor strain) or Eloy Jimenez (ruptured pectoral tendon) in 2021. Ke’Bryan Hayes has missed much of the season with a wrist issue, and the Marlins are still building Sixto Sanchez back up after shoulder troubles stalled him. Adalberto Mondesi hasn’t played a game for the Royals yet thanks to an oblique injury. Fernando Tatis Jr. is playing through a shoulder subluxation. Obviously, not all of these are unique to 2021. The volume of injuries is nevertheless alarming.

Clubs will continue exercise caution and utilize a number of minimal, 10-day stints on the IL to manage workload and to creatively keep fresh arms available on their pitching staff. Such tactics are commonplace every year, and that’ll probably be all the more true in 2021 given concerns about the dramatic workload increase over 2020 (particularly among players who spent most of last year working at alternate sites). However, the early trend is concerning with regard to soft-tissue injuries and arm troubles for pitchers. Trepidation regarding those arm injuries, in particular, only figures to escalate as pitcher workloads increase over the next five months.

The NFL draft is just hours away, and Pro Football Rumors has you covered.  Check out the site for up-to-the-second news and rumors, and follow @pfrumors on Twitter!

For those looking to customize their commenting experience here at MLB Trade Rumors, the website now has a mute button available.  Once you’re logged in, you’ll see that each comment has the option to like, reply, flag, or mute.  If you decide you would prefer to hide all comments from a specific user, including all comments on a thread they’ve started, hit the mute link.  A box will pop up asking you to confirm.  You can edit your mute list on your profile page.  The Trade Rumors iOS app now has a flag button, but does not yet have the mute button.

Moving forward, the comment section will now be open on political and COVID-19 posts, while remaining closed on those related to domestic violence.  Please review our commenting policy, which still does not allow attacks, insults, trolling, or harassment.  Off-topic commentary is also not allowed, so please do not leave comments that are unrelated to the subject matter of the post.  If you see comments that violate our policy, please flag them, consider muting the person, and do not reply.  We can’t attempt to assess who started it.

We’ve created a “View Comments” button on each post, so that entering the comment section will be a conscious choice.  Consider that you may be better off sitting out certain discussions.  We’ve set up some guard rails, but the comment section reflects the attitudes and opinions of many different people.  We’ll try to review everything that violates our policy, but we can’t moderate out stupidity, insensitivity, and various other subjective things.  We’re hopeful that the mute button will allow MLBTR commenters more control over their experience.

I’m Tim Dierkes, the owner of MLB Trade Rumors. If you’ll indulge me for a minute, I want to talk about an app I’ve created for youth baseball and softball coaches that has nothing to do with MLB or rumors.

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My April 6th poll regarding the MLBTR comment section received over 5,800 responses, and the post had over 650 comments.  The MLBTR readership is passionate about how we handle commenting on sensitive topics like domestic violence, COVID-19, and politics.  The poll results:

• 67.1% would like comments to remain closed on posts related to domestic violence
• 63.8% would like comments to remain closed on posts related to COVID-19
• 56.6% would like comments to remain closed on posts related to politics, such as MLB’s decision to move the All-Star Game out of Georgia
• 74.4% would like MLBTR to continue attempting to remove comments that are unrelated to the topic of the post
• 73.0% would use a button that allows you to mute specific commenters

I gave this data a lot of thought, and I also gave consideration to the individual comments left on the post.  I’ve gotten emails from people saying that they’re done with MLBTR because we have been closing comments on sensitive topics.  I’ve also gotten emails from people saying they will stop visiting MLBTR if we open comments on sensitive topics.  I hope people don’t leave.  We’re doing the best we can.  It’s clear there’s not a solution that will make everyone happy.

After much deliberation, here is what I’ve decided to do.  These new policies are subject to change.

• We are going to create a mute button.  You will be able to easily mute all comments from a specific user, which will include the entirety of a thread started by that person.
• We are going to continue closing comments on domestic violence posts.  I’m glad two-thirds of respondents agree with that choice.  There isn’t really a baseball discussion I want to host on those posts.
• We are going to open comments on COVID-19 posts.  We started closing these over a year ago, when there was a lot unknown about COVID.  At this point, I hope it’s possible to discuss the implications of baseball COVID cases on rosters without debating the disease itself.  I don’t see why a baseball website should host political opinions or arguments on COVID.  This will be a test to see whether those comment sections can be apolitical.
• We are going to open comments in cases where baseball and politics intersect, such as MLB’s decision to move the All-Star Game out of Georgia.  This was a difficult decision.  My feeling is that each individual already has the ability to “close” comments on a given post, by not clicking to reveal its comments.  I lean toward putting the power in the hands of readers: if you feel that the comments on certain posts or topics are not worth reading, you should not read them.  And if you do decide to wade into a sensitive topic, that is at your own risk, and you’ll have the ability to mute people you feel are not adding value.  You’ll also have the “flag” button for comments that violate our policy, which will be added to the Trade Rumors iOS app soon.
• With the above point in mind, I am going to make a few changes to ensure that viewing the comments is an intentional experience.  On desktop web as well as the iOS app, rather than have the comments show automatically below the post, we are going to put in a View Comments button, similar to what we’ve long had on mobile web.  You will have to purposely click View Comments to see them.

As a reminder, our commenting policy still requires that you avoid the following:

• Attacks, insults, or trolling toward other commenters, the MLBTR staff, journalists, team personnel, players, or agents
• Otherwise harassing other commenters in any way
• Commentary that is unrelated to the subject matter of the post.  Take special note of this one.  74% of respondents don’t want off-topic comments, and once comments are open on COVID-19 and political posts, there will be little excuse for that.  A post about a Braves IL move is not an opening to discuss the All-Star Game decision; there will be a contained post for that.
• Inappropriate language
• Inappropriate avatars or images
• Spam links or self-promotion
• Personal contact information in the comments section

Specifically when it comes to attacks, insults, trolling, and harassment, doing this will still get you banned.  It is also important to note that we don’t try to assess who “started it,” and someone else getting away with a violation doesn’t justify yours.  We catch as much as we can.  If someone trolls or insults you, we ask that you flag their comment and resist the temptation to respond in kind.  Once the mute button is available, we will ask that you flag their comment and then mute them.

As I mentioned, this is subject to change.  If we find that commenting policy violations increase drastically and/or require a greatly increased amount of moderation time from our staff, we may choose to close comments to better focus on the core aspects of running MLB Trade Rumors.

These policy changes will go into effect when our mute button is rolled out on the website, likely by the end of April.  Until then, this policy remains in place.  The mute option will not initially be available in the Trade Rumors app, but we’ll get to work on that.  Once that’s done I intend to turn our focus to other ways we can improve MLBTR, and I’ll be surveying readers on that topic.

At a certain point last year, it seemed that the comment section of every post MLBTR wrote involving domestic violence, politics, or COVID-19 devolved into a trainwreck of insults and arguments.  Rather than use our employees’ time to moderate the comment section, I decided to close comments entirely on these topics.  I didn’t start MLBTR with the goal of hosting or moderating arguments on these topics, but they are inextricably linked with baseball.  Judging from the emails I received last week and the comments left on unrelated posts, many MLBTR readers would like a space in our commenting section to discuss MLB’s decision to move the All-Star Game out of Georgia.

I think one potential improvement we can make is to introduce a mute button, giving you the power to mute all the comments and threads by a particular person.  I’ve talked to our developers, and this is a feature we can create.  We will probably have it ready by the end of the month.

MLB Trade Rumors wouldn’t exist without you, and if the majority of our reader base wants open commenting on sensitive topics, it’s something I have to consider.  I’m not sure yet whether it is a majority, but it’s time to find out.  Before any decisions are made, I’d like to gather poll data to see specifically what MLBTR readers want.  Please take a few minutes and fill out this survey.  Click here to view the survey results.

MLBTR has been tracking information on multiyear contract extensions dating back to the early days of the website.  Our tracker allows you to filter by service time, position, team, and much more.  Click here to check out the MLBTR extension tracker.

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The Patriots have dominated the “legal tampering” period so far, shelling out major dollars for ex-Ravens edge rusher Matt Judon, former Chargers tight end Hunter Henry, and many more stars. Meanwhile, the Buccaneers kept the band together with fresh deals for tight end Rob Gronkowski and outside linebacker Shaquil Barrett. How? Some very clever accounting by the defending champs, plus a little help from core players like Tom Brady.

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In all likelihood, Ross Stripling will take Nate Pearson‘s spot in the rotation to open the season, per Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca (via Twitter). Pearson is working his way back from a groin strain, but it doesn’t look as if he’ll be ready by opening day. The 6’6″, 250 pound flame-throwing righty has dealt with a number of nagging injuries in his young career, which may force the Jays to be particularly judicious with his timetable. He missed most of September and the last week of August in 2020 dealing with elbow soreness. In a mostly veteran rotation, however, the 25-year-old Pearson represents the Jays’ best chance at exceeding expectations in the rotation.

For Stripling’s part, the 31-year-old maxed out at 21 starts and 122 innings during his 4 1/2 year tenure with the Dodgers. He struggled to a 5.84 ERA/6.15 FIP in 49 1/3 innings split between the Dodgers and Blue Jays in 2020. The culprit of the decline could be his hook. The whiff rate on Stripling’s curveball cratered to 7.4 percent last year, down from 33.3 percent in 2019. Stripling leaned more heavily on his heater, a pitch that got lit up for 11 home runs and a .737 expected slugging percentage against. Before last season, however, he was a reliable swing man in Los Angeles, pitching to a 3.51 ERA/3.60 FIP across 387 innings from 2016-19.

George Springer is also dealing with some soreness. Toronto’s new centerfielder is day-to-day with left abdominal tightness, tweets Nicholson-Smith. This doesn’t appear to be anything to be overly concerned about, however. He sat out today’s game and could be back as soon as tomorrow. The 31-year-old dealt with a number of injuries during his Houston tenure, though he rarely missed significant time. Since joining the Astros two weeks into 2014 and missing a chunk of his rookie campaign with a quad strain, Springer averaged 133 games per season from 2015-19. He played in 51 games during the shortened 2020 season.