I'm only going to marginally touch on the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. Al has already written separate articles on Greg Maddux officially becoming a Hall of Famer and the changes in voting rules. There have been a lot of articles written over the weekend about how great these three players and three managers were. I'm pretty sure if you want to read more stories about the inductees' careers, you know how to find them.
Be prepared for a lot of Red Sox news today. Seriously, it's been a while since one team dominated Bullets like this. Probably the Yankees during the offseason.
- They lost yesterday (more on that later), but the Rays nine-game winning streak has put the back into the postseason race. Maybe even the division title in the suddenly-weak AL East.
- Jay Jaffe thinks the Rays odds are still long, but they've convinced themselves that they can do it.
- Hal Bodley believes. Also, he says don't trade David Price now, Rays. You'll get just as much for him in the offseason if you wait until then.
- The Rays winning streak did come to an end on Sunday, mostly thanks to a David Ortiz home run off former Cubs prospect Chris Archer. Archer spoke out about Ortiz's bat flip and slow trot around the bases, saying Ortiz thought he was "bigger than the game."
- Ortiz didn't take too kindly to the criticism, saying that someone who "has got two days in the league" hasn't earned the right to criticize him.
- Mark Sandritter points out that Archer isn't above a bit of showboating himself.
- In any case, Munenori Kawasaki explains what it's like to be hugged by David Ortiz. Of course, Kawasaki is also known as "Little Papi," according to himself, at least.
- Carl Yastrzemski says that Ortiz, and not him, is the second-best hitter in Red Sox history behind Ted Williams. Hey, what does Tris Speaker have to do to get some love around here?
- The Rays and Red Sox both have big questions about whether or not to trade their pitching aces before the deadline.
- Ken Rosenthal thinks the Red Sox definitely need to move Jon Lester.
- Red Sox GM Ben Cherington says he won't rule it out.
- The Red Sox are "working on a lot of things."
- Mike Carp has asked the Red Sox to trade him. Suggestion: call up other teams. Don't tell them who you are. Tell them you've got a ballplayer whose first name is Mike and whose last name is a fish, and ask them what they'll give you for him. Probably no one will fall for it, but it's worth a shot. At least try it on Ruben Amaro.
- There was a lot of anonymous comments about A.J. Pierzynski's "negative influence" on the Red Sox clubhouse when he was designated for assignment. Pierzynski, for his part, said that his time in Boston left a "bad taste in his mouth."
- The Red Sox did make one deal on Saturday, trading Jake Peavy to San Francisco for two minor league prospects.
- Jonathan Bernhardt thinks it was a good trade for both sides.
- One trade the Red Sox are reportedly considering is a Matt Kemp for Jon Lester deal. The Dodgers would obviously have to eat a large chunk of Kemp's contract.
- But only if the Mariners don't trade for him first. The M's interest in Kemp is described as "very real."
- Cliff Lee wants to stay in Philadelphia, but he understands he may have made his last start for the Phillies.
- Marlon Byrd is a player some teams are calling Philadelphia about, but he wants his option for next season picked up to approve a trade, and that is cooling interest. Byrd's limited no-trade clause only allows him to block trades to four teams, but two of those teams, the Royals and the Mariners, are rumored to be teams interested in Byrd.
- GM Ruben Amaro denied reports that the Phillies considered releasing Ryan Howard.
- Jonathan Bernhardt thinks the Twins should trade Kurt Suzuki, and then re-sign him in the off-season.
- Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight asks if there is any truth to the idea that some players just can't produce in New York.
- David Schoenfield writes that the Angels have transformed their bullpen from a weakness to a strength.
- The other big news of the weekend was
Tony Tulowizki. Or maybe that's Troy Tulowitzki. In any case, the Rockies misspelled his name on the promotional T-Shirt they gave out on Saturday. - Tulo wasn't actually at the game, since he's on the disabled list. He was in Philadelphia seeing a surgeon about his injured thigh. Uh oh. (h/t Hardball Talk)
- Then on Sunday, Tulowitzki drove to New York to see the Yankees take on the Blue Jays. Tulowitzki said he just wanted to see Derek Jeter play one last time. Jeff Passan thinks it's all a conspiracy to force a trade to the Yankees. I don't see it. I have little doubt that Tulo would welcome a trade to the Yankees, but there are more effective ways of trying to force that. I think he just wanted to see Jeter play one last time. Also, while the Yankees farm system isn't bad, I don't think they have the pieces to pull off a Tulowitzki trade. Nor do they have young, cost-controlled quality major leaguers. The Red Sox, on the other hand. . .
- Edwin Encarnacion suffered a setback in his return from the quad injury that has him on the DL.
- Matt Cain is not making progress in his recovery from an elbow injury. Which partially explains the Jake Peavy deal.
- The first pick in the 2013 draft, Mark Appel, finally had a decent start in High-A Lancaster. So the Astros promoted him to Double-A despite his 9.74 ERA over 12 starts.
- They also had Appel throw a bullpen season at Minute Maid Park on his way to Double-A Corpus Christi. Several of the Astros players were reportedly quite upset at the preferential treatment that Appel was getting, which is just another black eye in a week that the Astros didn't need one.
- Matt Snyder thinks the Astros players ought to stop whining. The guy they gave $6.35 million to is going to get preferential treatment. Deal with it.
- In the wake of the Astros' botched Brady Aiken negotiations, there was a lot of talk that the Astros didn't see Aiken's MRI before the draft. Rick Giolito, father to Lucas Giolito, says that from their experience, all drafted players have to submit complete medical histories to MLB, who pass them on to all the teams. And here's where I get to mention that Rick Giolito was on one of the greatest TV shows of all time, Twin Peaks. Although Giolito would respond to that by saying "barely."
- Turning to the Hall of Fame briefly, you're probably familiar with the three players and three managers inducted. But Maureen Dowd has a look at the J.G. Taylor Spink Award winner, Roger Angell. Angell is unique among winners of the Spink Award in that he was never a full-time baseball writer, only writing occasional pieces for The New Yorker. Although he has been doing that since 1962.
- As far as the changes to voting goes, Jay Jaffe, who spends more time obsessing over Hall of Fame voting than pretty much anyone else, thinks the changes are a cruel trick on those currently on the ballot. He also lists those most likely to be affected by this.
- Joe Posnanski thinks the rules changes are the first step in taking control of the voting away from the BBWAA. Always looking for the silver lining, eh Joe?
- David Schoenfield asks with the Hall of Famers it had in their terrific run, why did the Braves only win one World Series?
- MLBAM is hardly a disinterested party in this case, but they have spoken out to the FCC in favor of "net neutrality." On the one hand, MLBAM transmits a ton of HD video and they'd likely have to pay if ISPs could throttle internet speeds to those who don't pay up. On the other hand, MLBAM could afford to make those payments whereas a lot of smaller companies, who might theoretically compete with MLBAM, couldn't.
- In other FCC news, the Dodgers have asked members of Congress to ask the FCC to intervene in the Time-Warner dispute. Hey, I've got a better idea. Why don't you just renegotiate your contract with Time-Warner so that they can offer the channel to other providers at a fair market rate and still not go bankrupt? Time-Warner expected that DirecTV would cave when subscribers switched services to watch the Dodgers games, but according to one report only about 2000 homes in Los Angeles have dropped DirecTV since the dispute started. And that's probably just normal churn. Probably only a small fraction of those switched to Time-Warner because of the Dodgers.
- This is a partly a Cubs story, but Bill Plaschke focuses mostly on the Dodgers angle as he profiles Iowa Cubs player/coach Manny Ramirez. Manny is still being Manny, writes Plaschke, but he's not the same Manny.
- Ten minor league players were ejected after a major brawl between the Dodgers Triple-A farm club, the Albuquerque Isotopes, and the Diamondbacks affiliate the Reno Aces.
- Must be the late-July heat. Six ejections resulted from not one but two brawls in one game between the Marlins Double-A affiliate the Jacksonville Suns and the White Sox farm club the Birmingham Barons.
- The Independent Atlantic League has come up with new rules for speeding up the game. MLB will never go for the automatic pinch-runner for the catcher rule, but the rest of them are worth exploring.
- Lee Jenkins believes that the Padres lost their identity when they stopped wearing brown uniforms. I can't say I liked the brown uniforms, but at least they were unique to the Padres. I have trouble even picturing what the Padres wear these days.
- Most of the time I think that goofy minor league uniforms are harmless, but this "Military Appreciation" uniform by the Bridgeport Bluefish is a step too far.
- And finally, Astros pitcher Dallas Keuchel was heckled by a fan in Oakland. So he tossed him a ball that said "Thanks for helping to pay my salary for today."
And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.