MLB Bullets Says Take Me Out To The Ballgame

MLB is coming back from the opening series in Australia in a trip I'm going to call a big success. You're free to disagree. I'm going to assume that all of you know that the Dodgers took two from the Diamondbacks in Australia or that if you don't, you know how to find a box score online.

• Mark Saxson agrees with me that the series in Australia was a "smashing success," although he covers the Dodgers, so of course he thinks that.
• If the Diamondbacks believed in omens, they never would have showed up for the games. Because their bus had a flat tire on the way to the Sydney Cricket Grounds on opening night.
• Nick Piecoro said that one of the Diamondbacks goals for this trip was to "establish their international identity." He notes they did that, except now they have an "international identity" of being "rubbish."
• Vin Scully had a blast.
• However, things weren't all that rosy for the Dodgers either. Yasiel Puig didn't take the field for the bottom of the ninth after striking out in the top of the inning. Puig also had two baserunning gaffes in the game. Officially he had a back injury, but manager Don Mattingly was rather dismissive of Puig's ailment.
• Mattingly is apparently growing tired of Puig's behavior, which is a general lack of professionalism on and off the diamond.
• Emma Span said that you can call the Dodgers a lot of things this season, but boring is not going to be one of them.
• Tyler Kepner talked to Grant Balfour about baseball in Australia and how he picked up the game. He also had a general preview of the series, but that's a little out-of-date now. But the Balfour stuff is good.
• Back in the states, the spring training casualty count continues to rise as Jurickson Profar tore a muscle in his shoulder and will miss 10 to 12 weeks.
• Skip Schumaker dislocated his shoulder and will miss a month.
• Josh Johnson is in midseason form already. For him, that means he's headed to the disabled list with a strained flexor muscle. He'll miss a month.
• Matt Moore was hit in the mouth with a line drive. Moore did deflect the ball with his glove, so it sounds like he may have little more than a bloody lip and a sore jaw. But we won't know for sure until they take x-rays today.
• Alex Cobb thinks it's too late to introduce the protective caps this season. Of course, a cap would have provided no protection to Moore or Aroldis Chapman.
• Phil Rogers thinks that Michael Pineda, who has missed the past two seasons with an injury, has been very impressive this spring and could be a big factor for the Yankees this year.
• The Reds have been very impressed with the dedication of Billy Hamilton and his willingness to learn.
• Ricky Romero knows he's been putrid the past two seasons. He's hoping that a knee procedure and getting back his old mechanics are the key to getting better.
• Carlos Pena has been putrid the past two seasons as well. Now the Angels have released him. He says he's not going to retire and will try to hook up with another team.
• Max Scherzer has rejected the Tigers contract offer. It would have reportedly paid him around $24 million a year. The two sides will not discuss a new contract again until after the season. Scherzer can become a free agent after this year.
• Pablo Sandoval rejected the Giants offer of three years and $40 million. He's reportedly looking for something like what teammate Hunter Pence got in five years and $90 million. Panda is also a free agent at the end of the season although unlike Scherzer, he is willing to negotiate during the season.
• Sometime earlier this off-season, Ian Desmond turned down a big contract extension from the Nationals for six or seven years and somewhere around $80-90 million.
• David Ortiz accepted the Red Sox offer of one year and $16 million for 2015.
• Dayn Perry thinks that fans who get upset when players decline massive contracts are being childish.
• Jon Paul Morosi says the Tigers aren't acting like a team that is interested in free agent Stephen Drew.
• After being sent down to the minors this week, the agent for Astros prospect George Springer is threatening to file a grievance. (h/t Hardball Talk)
• Ken Rosenthal says the current system forces teams like the Astros to keep players like Springer in the minors. He also points out the absurdity of the fiction that a player whom the Astros offered a $23 million extension to not being good enough to make the roster of the worst team in the majors.
• Jon Heyman says that the Astros are so far out of the box, they can't even see the box. He writes that it will be at least two more seasons to see if it will work. This is a long look at what the Astros are doing and the next wave of stars they have in the minors. It's also an open-minded look at sabermetrics and Astros GM Jeff Luhnow's data driven approach to the game. It's not just surprising that it's written by Heyman, it's downright shocking. Heyman's not on the sabermetric bandwagon, but he's clearly more open-minded than he used to be.
• And getting back to the screed I linked to last time that Heyman wrote about Alex Rodriguez "refusing" to pay his lawyers and how this is indicative of his (bad) character, Craig Calcaterra (who used to be a lawyer) notes that no one pays their legal bills "in full" a month after their representation ended. These bills are almost always negotiated down.
• Indeed, Ken Rosenthal actually bothered to call one of Rodriguez's lawyers, Joe Tacopina, who said "He [Rodriguez] has been entirely fair and responsible with respect to the payment of my fees." So it's one step forward and two steps back for Heyman.
• After making the (sort of) playoffs last season, the expectations for Terry Francona and the Indians are higher this season.
• Brendan Kennedy quizzes the Blue Jays and they have no idea how the new replay is supposed to work.
• Rob Neyer is thrilled that they are still publishing preseason baseball annuals. Yes, Rob is right. Bill Mazeroski's Baseball was the best of those magazines from the 1980s. And I remember the excitement when those annuals started hitting the shelves at the newsstands (yeah, they used to have those too) or grocery stores.
• So you think you'll never be Royal, Lorde? Maybe not, but she's got the uniform now, thanks to George Brett. Her hit song was inspired by seeing a 1976 picture of George Brett in his Royals uniform. Brett autographed the jersey (not the same one from the 1976 picture, of course) and inscribed it "Lorde, you are Royal to me." Not bad for a teenager from New Zealand who had never seen a baseball game before.
• Finally, and speaking of having never seen a baseball game before, this has been making its rounds around the internet for good reason. It's a pretty funny look at baseball from an Australian who had never seen the game before.

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