MLB Bullets: It's Opening Day!

It's Opening Freaking Day! That means that the Dodgers have already played three games, of course.

• Just a day after the Tigers signed Miguel Cabrera to a ten year extension (more on that later), the Angels struck by signing Mike Trout to a six year, $144.5 million extension that buys out the best player on the planet's arbitration years and the first three years of free agency.
• Cliff Corcoran calls the Trout extension "the deal of the century" for the Angels.
• Mike Snyder says the deal is mutually beneficial, even though the Angels are getting Trout for about half of what he's projected to be worth on the open market. Trout may not get as much money as he could have gotten, but he does have the security of being set for life now.
• Both sides compromised. For Mike Trout, the answer was simply "I love it here" and "that kind of money is hard to turn down." What was the Angels compromise? Well, they wanted the deal for more than six years. But this way Trout can still negotiate a big new contract while he's still under 30.
• Trout and his agent came in for some criticism for taking such a small deal, as if $144.5 million could ever be termed "small." His agent, Craig Landis, said that "what other people think doesn't matter to the Trouts. . .We're happy. Mike's happy. Mike's parents are happy. The Angels are happy."
• Mike Trout was so happy he took teammate Garrett Richards out for dinner and they both had a 36 oz. steak. No word on whether either one actually finished their side of beef. But there are pictures.
• Scott Boras, not one to let the spotlight fall too long on another agent, made a weird tea metaphor to indicate that Bryce Harper will not be signing a deal similar to Trout's with the Nationals.
• Back to that Miguel Cabrera ten-year, $292 million extension. LeBron James wishes he played baseball. Or at least he wishes an NBA team could give him Cabrera's contract.
• Whereas everyone thinks the Trout deal is a great on for the Angels, no one seems to think the Cabrera deal is good for the Tigers. Matthew Kory thinks the Tigers assumed all the risk and paid top dollar anyway. He says history tells us these megadeals rarely work out.
• Jeff Passan thinks Cabrera's deal is likely to be the biggest contract mistake in baseball history. He points out that Cabrera will have to be one of the half-dozen greatest players in the history of the game for the deal to turn out well for Detroit.
• Jonah Keri compares the Cabrera deal to the Phillies deal with Ryan Howard, in that both were signed two years before it was necessary. He also thinks the deal is all but guaranteed to be an albatross.
• Dave Cameron tries to come up with points for and against the deal, and the only one in favor of the deal that really sticks in that the Tigers' 84 year-old owner, Mike Illitch, isn't likely to care what the contract looks like in ten years. Even then, he says that an owner has a responsibility to future generations.
• It's not nearly as big as those other two deals, but Yan Gomes agreed to a six-year, $23 million dealwith the Indians. It is the largest contract ever signed by a baseball player born in Brazil.
• After reports came out that some in the Dodgers organization were "frustrated" with Yasiel Puig, Puig asked to and did call a team meeting where he asked his teammates to tell him how he could get better.
• Tomas Rios examines how Puig's race and nationality color the way sportswriters talk about him and other minority athletes. I really hate to list this link, because anytime you mention race in this country someone is going to blow up like a bomb sitting on a pile of dynamite in the middle of a fireworks factory. But it's a thoughtful article, so I'm hoping any responses to it will be just as thoughtful. Probably dumb on my part, I know.
• Baseball returned to Montreal this weekend for two exhibition games between the Blue Jays and the Mets. Jon Paul Morosi says the large crowds this demonstrates that a passion for baseball still exists in Montreal. He also upgrades Montreal's chance of getting another franchise from "zero" to "long shot." He also notes that the exhibition games in Montreal drew over 10,000 more fans per game than the Rays playoff games last season.
• More than 96,000 showed up for the two games and to honor the 1994 Expos team. Those behind the exhibitions say that it is "the first step" in bringing baseball back.
• Cliff Corcoran remembers the five best teams in Expos history, led by those '94 Expos.
• The drains and toilets in Oakland's O.co Coliseum are already overflowing. They didn't even make it to Opening Day.
• Josh Reddick and Sean Doolittle couldn't help but just laugh at it.
• We should get baseball's first instant replay review today under the new rules. Richard Justice says this evolution of the game will connect fans closer to the game. The decisions will be posted on the stadium video boards along with the replay for everyone to see for themselves.
• Jayson Stark has an oral history of the obstruction call that ended Game 3 of the 2013 World Series. He calls it the last pre-replay umpiring controversy.
• Ted Berg thinks MLB has too many Opening Days.
• Matt Crossman has a look back at Opening Day, 1986, when both Bobby Grich of the Angels and Dwight Evans of the Red Sox hit first-pitch home runs to lead off the game.Those two players would later meet in one of the greatest ALCS series ever later that season. Crossman says those home runs foreshadowed the great 1986 season but in truth, 1986 was a terrible season followed by the greatest post-season of all time. All four division titles were essentially decided by August. But oh that postseason. . . Dave Henderson, Donnie Moore, Mike Scott, Billy Hatcher, Doc Gooden and, of course, Bill Buckner.
• As if things couldn't get worse for the Braves, reliever Cory Gearrin may need Tommy John surgery.On the bright side, the Braves signed up for Dr. James Andrews "Buy six, get one free" program so they only need one more and then the next one is on the house.
• New Nationals manager Matt Williams is learning how to lead. He sees two-way communication between player and manager as the most important part.
• Ken Rosenthal lists the managers likely to be on the hot seat in 2014. He lists Ozzie Guillen at the end just because he misses him. Awwww.
• Fired Marlins hitting coach Tino Martinez is still criticizing the hitters he once coached, calling them "very soft.
• An in-depth New York Times profile of Masahiro Tanaka shows how differently the Japanese approach baseball.
• The Cardinals think that Peter Bourjos could break out this season at the plate.
• Astros GM Jeff Luhnow doesn't think the team will be selling off any players this season.
• Tyler Kepner writes that baseball teams are starting to realize that relief pitchers in general and closer in particular are unpredictable.
• Here's actually a useful article. Let's say the Cubs aren't playing, or they're in a rain delay or something. Which channel do you flip your mlb.tv subscription to? Michael Bauman has an all-star team of players you're going to want to watch this year. Of course, I just flip to my fantasy team's players.
• Who is the worst pitcher in the Hall of Fame? It's Rube Marquard. No point in even arguing about it. Joe Posnanski explains how he got in.
• A group of four buddies make it a point to see every major league baseball stadium that is going to be torn down.
• Here's Ben Zobrist wearing a stupid hat. Definitely worth clicking on.
• A lot of people don't like the Arkansas Travelers new mascot, Otey the Swamp Possum. Yeah. The people of Arkansas generally tend to get a little touchy when you connect them with a toothless hillbilly stereotype.
• Finally, a look at the lost art of autographs, or rather, the lost art of handwriting and being able to tell whose autograph is whose.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Because the Cubs will be 1-0.