MLB Bullets Is Tired Of Other Sports

Baseball is coming, tra la la la. Baseball is coming tra la.

• I missed this one over the weekend, but Jayson Stark points out that MLB has far more parity than the supposed "Any Given Sunday" parity of the NFL.
• More football news. Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston was named to the Baseball America third-team all-American baseball team.
• In an ESPN Insider article, Christopher Crawford explains why it is highly unlikely that Winston will ever play major league baseball. ($) Essentially, he projects out to be a middle reliever, and there's no way it would ever be worth his while to endanger an NFL career to be just another guy out of the bullpen.
• One player from another sport who is considering a baseball career is Tracy McGrady, who will at least get a tryout with the independent league Sugar Land Skeeters. The team's official statement is here.
• Jerry Crasnick talks to McGrady and McGrady says doing this for only one reason: He loves baseball. That kind of brings a tear to my eye.
• Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson may not be going to Disney World after winning the Super Bowl, but he is going to Rangers spring training after being a Rule 5 pick this off-season.
• However, he's not going to actually play baseball. Wilson did play parts of two seasons in the Rockies minor league system before his NFL career.
• Domonic Brown isn't going to play another sport, but that doesn't mean his dog can't branch out. Brown's dog Tyga competed in Sunday's "Puppy Bowl" on the Animal Planet channel. Chris Perez's dog was going to compete, but he failed the drug test and was suspended.
• The major league season is going to start early in Australia this March, so the two teams making the trip, the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks, have their pitchers and catchers report to spring training this week.
• The Braves have agreed to a contract extension with Freddie Freeman, locking him up for the next eight years.
• David Schoenfield thinks the Braves made a good bet on Freeman.
• It wasn't a long-term deal, but the Braves also agreed to a two-year deal with Jason Heyward, avoiding arbitration.
• Getting back to the unsigned free agents who received a qualifying offer, Jack Moore says none of them are going to get the money they hoped for and that time is running short.
• Agent Scott Boras, unsurprisingly, thinks this compensation system "destroys the integrity of the game."
• Contrary to reports, the Mets deny they made a contract offer to Stephen Drew.
• The Dodgers are negotiating with Bronson Arroyo.
• MLB and MLBPA are discussing changes to the Joint Drug Agreement that might mean harsher penalties.
• There is only one reason I'm linking to this ESPN Insider article. Dan Szymborski ran the career ZiPS projections for every player on Keith Law's Top 100 prospects list. The player that had the highest projected career WAR? ($) Javier Baez. Kris Bryant was ninth and Arismendy Alcantara was 13th.
• Carlos Marmol is reportedly talking to three major league teams.
• He may have a bad reputation in this country, but his native Venezuela still loves Carlos Zambrano.
• Cuban and World Baseball Classic star third baseman Yulieski Gourriel wants to play in the major leagues. There's almost no chance that he'll defect, however, as both of his parents have ties to the Communist Party. He's just hoping that he'll be given permission to play abroad. Unfortunately, even if he gets permission from the Cuban government, he would probably have play in Japan because the US State Department would never give him permission to play in the US because of the trade embargo. I wonder if the Blue Jays would sign him to just play in home games. Nah, MLB would never permit it.
• Cuba is back competing in the Caribbean World Series after a 54 year absence.
• The Canadian Baseball Hall Of Fame inducted three former Expos: Third baseman Tim Wallach, broadcaster Dave Van Horne and former GM Murray Cook.
• If you're in Canada and you're wondering what channel ESPN's Sunday, Monday and Wednesday night baseball games are going to be on, they are all going to be on TSN.
• The Mets are going to let Ike Davis and Lucas Duda fight it out for the first baseman's job this spring training. Second place is you're fired. You don't even get a set of steak knives.
• After suffering a career-threatening health scare in 2012, things are going well for Dillon Gee.
• Jonathan Bernhardt thinks things are looking up for the Mets, but not this season.
• Cory Luebke is going to miss his second straight season because he's going to have to have Tommy John surgery again. The first one didn't take.
• The Dodgers are considering going with Yasiel Puig as their leadoff hitter next season.
• Sam Fuld signed a minor league deal with the Athletics.
• And another ex-Cub, Jeff Baker, signed a two-year, $3.7 million deal with the Marlins.
• The Rangers are going to announce a new corporate sponsor name for their ballpark later this morning. I'm pulling for GNC Park.
• The Kansas City Royals have some really cool billboards.
• Patrick Dubuque remembers the forgotten Randy Milligan.
• Cee Angi bought a bunch of the new 2014 Topps baseball cards and despite the fact that they now list WAR among the stats on the back of the card, she found the cards themselves disappointing.
• Howard Megdal, however, found the new set as a wonderful way to bond with his four-year old daughter.
• There is a petition on-line to get the MLB Network to rebroadcast Dock Ellis' famous no-hitter thrown under the influence of LSD. Ellis walked eight and hit one batter in that no-no.
• Finally, a look at the mystery surrounding William Edward White, born a slave and who in 1879 became the first African-American to play major league baseball. Or not. It's complicated, like most things in American life.

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