Cardinals pitcher Alex Reyes could miss the season. Otherwise, hope spring eternal as Spring Training opens.
Good morning. The camps are open. Spring is in the air.
The butcher gets to work early this season. Bad news out of Cardinals camp as their top prospect Alex Reyes has a torn ulnar collateral ligament and will likely need Tommy John surgery. As much as I’m a fan of Cardinals suffering, I’m more a fan of good baseball and it breaks my heart to see a young player get derailed by an injury on the verge of stardom. I hope he comes back and is as good as we all think he will be—just not for the Cardinals.
Nicolas Stellini outlines what the implications of Reyes’ injury is, both for him and the Cardinals.
We also got our first “weird” injury out of the way early as Royals reliever Brian Flynn is out for eight weeks after falling through the roof of his barn.
As the camps open on Spring Training, Tom Verducci has nine storylines for the upcoming season.
For the Royals, there’s just one story: coming together to overcome their grief over the death of Yordano Ventura.
Bob Nightengale gets more thoughts from the Royals about their grief.
For the Red Sox, it’s picking up the void caused by the retirement of David Ortiz, both on- and off-the-field.
The Reds think they’ll miss Brandon Phillips in the clubhouse more than anything.
For the Yankees, Andrew Marchand wonders if this will be manager Joe Girardi’s final season in the Bronx.
Rian Watt explains why the National League West is baseball’s “most compelling division.” Other than the Padres, they do have four interesting teams. Even the Padres are somewhat interesting in the way that the 2013 Cubs were interesting.
And then there is this, which makes the Padres even more interesting. Backup catcher Christian Bethancourt is working on becoming a relief pitcher, but he’s not going to give up catching. The Padres want him to be a two-way player. So when pitchers and catchers reported to camp, did Bethancourt have to report twice?
Jonathan Bernhardt explains what you should and should not pay attention to in Spring Training. As I’ve been saying for years, Spring Training statistics are worthless. Ignore them.
Will Leitch has the ten oldest players currently in the game. There’s one Cub on the list, Grandpa Koji. Are we going to call him that?
Michael Baumann tries to figure out how a World Series title can come to Chicago next season—to the South Side. While he admits it’s unlikely, he’s making a larger point about the fallacies of the Las Vegas odds of these things. In essence, while he doesn’t think the White Sox will win the World Series, Baumann does think they’ve got a better than 300 to 1 shot at winning it all.
Some sad news as Red Sox broadcaster Jerry Remy’s lung cancer has returned. He was first treated for lung cancer in 2008 and had half of one lung removed.
Also, Diamondbacks bench coach (and former Twins manager) Ron Gardenhire has prostate cancer. His prognosis is good, at least.
MLB wants to force managers to call for a replay challenge within 30 seconds.
Tom Verducci says that baseball doesn’t have a length problem, it has a pace problem and that raising the strike zone is being considered to get more balls into play. Personally, I think it would lead to more walks and more home runs, which wouldn’t exactly speed up the game.
Mets pitcher Matt Harvey talks about his difficult 2016 season and his hopes for a better 2017.
The Giants would like to sign pitcher Madison Bumgarner to a long-term extension. Bumgarner wants to stay with the Giants. So why hasn’t an extension been signed? Because the new “Competitive Balance Tax” in the collective bargaining agreement is acting as a defacto salary cap and the Giants are having trouble staying under the limit.
Marlins manager Don Mattingly has lifted the team ban on facial hair. Yeah, Mattingly lifted it. Certainly no such policy could have started and ended in the owner’s box.
Jonah Keri finishes his talk with Indians outfielder Rajai Davis. In this part, Davis talks about that home run, along with other things.
Will Leitch laments the shell of the former player that Albert Pujols has become.
Pirates third baseman Jung Ho Kang will miss the start of Spring Training to deal with his legal problems stemming from his DUI in Korea.
Phillies manager Pete Mackanin says that Jeanmar Gomez “deserves” to be the Phillies closer to start the season.
Free agent catcher Matt Wieters is still unsigned as camps open but at least the Rays are showing some interest in signing him.
Catcher Steve Clevenger talks about the “insensitive” Tweets that got him into hot water last fall and says he’s not a racist. It does sound like Clevenger is trying to learn.
John Larue demonstrates how baseball park dimensions became more homogenous over the years. This may be true, but I don’t think anyone really wants to play baseball in a stadium that had the dimensions of the Polo Grounds anymore.
There is no end in sight for the Dodgers four-year-old carriage dispute as millions of Southern Californians can still not watch the games.
The MLB Network announced the broadcast teams for the World Baseball Classic. It’s too bad Harold Reynolds isn’t getting a chance to call Team Venezuela’s games. He’s a big fan of that island nation.
Ian Hunter (presumably not the same guy from Mott the Hoople) gets the story behind the Toronto Blue Jays original logo.
Craig Calcaterra rewatches “Field of Dreams” and declares it terrible. I’m not a fan of this particular movie either.
The Arizona Wildcats baseball team, however, recreated the Spring Training scene from “Major League,” a movie which is not terrible.
And finally, in a Valentine’s Day Twitter exchange, Mr. Met got the best of Noah Syndergaard. Only fitting after Syndergaard threatened to bash Mr. Met with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire last week. But seriously, Mr. Met was on 30 Rock. You don’t want to mess with a trained comedian like that.
And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.