MLB Bullets Salutes The Captain

So not much happened since Wednesday, huh?

• There is no way I can link to all the reactions to Derek Jeter's announcement that he would retire after the 2014 season. I'll give you several, but if you want more, click here.
• ESPN New York has the instant reactions of a couple dozen people connected to the Yankees or to the New York sports scene.
• Jeter took the Yankees by surprise with his announcement.
• Doug Glanville writes that Jeter's announcement starts the next chapter of his life on his own terms.
• Jayson Stark says that MLB will have a harder time replacing Jeter than the Yankees will.
• Jon Paul Morosi writes pretty much the same thing: Jeter's importance went far beyond the Yankees and his departure will be felt though all of baseball.
• Peter Gammons says that Jeter never changed anything throughout his whole career.
• Richard Justice says that Jeter was "the perfect baseball player."
• Albert Pujols disagrees, saying that "only Jesus is perfect" although he admits that Jeter was "pretty close to that guy."
• Rob Neyer says that all these accolades are, in part, a result of a human tendency to see the latest thing as the greatest thing. He points out that not only is Jeter not the greatest shortstop who ever lived, he's not even the second-greatest. He may have been one of the 40 or 50 greatest players in the history of the game, and that should be enough.
• Mike Lupica adds to the hyperbole party by saying that Jeter was the most important Yankee to have ever lived, even if he wasn't the best player. Really? He mattered more than Babe Ruth? The Yankees were an afterthought in the city of New York to the Giants before Ruth arrived.
• A lot of these comments relate to what Joe Posnanski thinks was Jeter's greatest accomplishment: remaining likeable after all these years.
• Bob Klapisch thinks Jeter's retirement and the reaction to it is proof that Jeter doing it honestly triumphed in the end over the PED cheats.
• Craig Calcaterra tells Klapisch to wait a minute. While he says he doesn't believe Jeter ever used PEDs, he points out that Jeter was mostly silent on the issue throughout his career and he even supported teammates who were caught using.
• This is only tangentially related to Jeter, but ESPN has a 30 for 30 short film about how Alex Rodriguez became a Yankee and not a Red Sox. It's a fascinating story and there is a lot of footage of interviews with Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer, who had a deal all worked out to bring A-Rod to Boston.
• Without any formal announcement, MLB secretly voted last month to allow teams to eliminate pensions for all of its non-uniformed personnel. This despite their official denial that they were thinking of doing this when word leaked out last spring. Despite record profits, baseball decided to take money and security away from the people in the game that make the least amount of money. Classy.
• Craig Calcaterra is outraged.
• Michael McCann, who writes about sports law for Sports Illustrated, goes into the issues behind three former minor leaguers' class action lawsuit against MLB.
• Ken Rosenthal discusses the problems MLB is encountering as it tries to ban home plate collisions.
• Former Angels star and major league manager Jim Fregosi has been taken off of life-support after suffering a major stroke last weekend.
• The Rays acquired pitcher Nathan Karns from the Nationals for three players, including catcher Jose Lobaton.
• The Orioles signed Korean pitcher Suk-min Yoon to a three-year deal worth $5.75 million. This is still dependent on Yoon passing a physical, so the deal will likely be negated on Monday, considering the Orioles recent behavior.
• Jon Heyman lists seven teams that still need to make a move this off-season. Lucky for them, there are still a lot of free agents on the market.
• Mariners OF Franklin Gutierrez has announced that he will not play in 2014 because of a gastro-intestinal illness.
• Craig Calcaterra, still outraged, is upset that the Mariners put Gutierrez on the "restricted" list rather than the disabled list. This means Gutierrez won't get paid.
• Perhaps because of that, the Mariners negotiations with Nelson Cruz have been placed "on hold." With Gutierrez gone, the Mariners may think they need someone who can play CF.
• David Schoenfield thinks the Mariners are having the worst spring ever.
• A.J. Burnett signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for one year and $16 million. The Pirates offered him $12 million and now probably feel pretty stupid that they didn't make him a qualifying offer.
• Former Cub Chad Gaudin failed his physical and the Phillies promptly cut the non-roster invitee.
• Antonio Bastardo showed up at Phillies camp after his 50 game suspension in connection to the Biogenesis scandal and simply said "I made a mistake."
• Steven Goldman thinks that Stephen Drew might be unemployed for a while longer.
• The Angels and Mike Trout have started talks about a long-term contract extension. Just give him all the money, Arte.
• Matthew Murphy says that the smart, poor teams (Athletics, Rays) are spending money on "proven closers" because it saves them money in the long run. It has to do with arbitration.
• The Astros are still under scrutiny by the MLBPA for their lack of payroll, but the Astros don't care.
• Jonathan Bernhardt tells us what we should be looking for in spring training.
• Blake Murphy says as the number of "three true outcomes" (strikeouts, walks, home runs) rises in the game, infield defense becomes less important.
• Add the Cardinals to the teams that will start employing the infield shift on defense. However, only their minor league teams will do it this season as the Cards want to get players to "buy in" to the strategy first.
• Prince Fielder could have a big season in 2014. I think every season with Prince is big, actually.
• Someone painted over a Roberto Clemente mural at a baseball field in Orlando. Craig Calcaterra is still outraged.
• Here's some video of Tracy McGrady throwing off a mound.
• A fan asked David Price on Twitter if he should keep him or Yu Darvish for his fantasy team. Price said he has to keep Darvish.
• Paul Lukas has all the uniform changes in Major League Baseball this season.
• Finally, tomorrow is a sad day in Cubs history. Fifty years ago on Saturday, Cubs second baseman Ken Hubbs died in a plane crash. David Whitley has a profile of this promising Cubs star and the impact of his loss on his family and the game.

And tomorrow will be a better day that today, Buster.