MLB Bullets Is Stepping Away From The Game

I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president. (By the way, the title is not a reference to me actually quitting. Just Adam LaRoche. I know someone was going to ask.)

• I've said in the past the only real news in Spring Training is injuries, cuts and trades. But I wasn't figuring on White Sox DH Adam LaRoche announcing his retirement because of a "personal issue."
• Christina Kahrl suggests that the White Sox sign free agent Justin Morneau to replace LaRoche.
• Angels pitcher Rob Rasmussen also announced his retirement at age 26. It sounds like he just decided that he'd rather do something else with his life than play baseball.
• The Mets waived Ruben Tejada yesterday. Tejada, of course, was the player whose leg was broken by Chase Utley's slide in the NLDS last year.
• Mark Saxon thinks that the Cardinals might be interested in Tejada as they expect starting shortstop Jhonny Peralta to miss the first half of the season.
• In advance of the president's trip to Cuba to watch the Rays play next week, the Obama administration loosened rules on travel to Cuba and the ability of Cubans to work in the United States. The upside of this is that MLB teams should be able to sign Cuban ballplayers directly without them having to defect to a third nation first.
• The Marlins grievance against the Nationals over former Fish manager Dan Jennings' salary has been rejected.
• New Padres manager Andy Green is a stathead. He talks with Mark Simon about how he can use the numbers to make the Padres better.
• Ken Rosenthal explains why he thinks that Green could be an outstanding manager for the Padres. Of course, they say that about every new manager. It doesn't mean it might not be true in this case though.
• David Schoenfield went to the SABR Analytics Conference and writes about how Statcast is changing the way we look at the game. And some other cool stuff.
• Royals manager Ned Yost is getting ready for Festivus already. Now he just needs to work on the airing of the grievances. I'm sure he can tell me all the ways I've disappointed him.
• Angels pitcher Jered Weaver is frustrated and says that he almost wishes that they'd tell him he has to have surgery so that it might get fixed.
• he Dodgers are not (yet) concerned with Scott Kazmir's drop in velocity.
• Matt Snyder thinks the Dodgers should be concerned with Kazmir's velocity, although he does add that it's not time to panic yet.
• Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager is expected to miss a week or two with a knee strain. While this is not any sort of long-term concern, Mike Axisa thinks this scare exposes how thin the Dodgers bench is.
• Johnny Cueto was hit in the head by a line drive but fortunately appears to be OK.
• Goose Gossage is keeping up his "angry old man yelling at the kids to get off his lawn" impression. He apparently hates someone named Cam Newton, whomever that is.
• Nationals manager Dusty Baker says he's pretty impressed with Bryce Harper so far, both on and off the field.
• Jayson Stark thinks prospect Lucas Giolito could be the Nationals secret weapon for winning the NL East.
• Ivan Nova reportedly has the edge over CC Sabathia in winning the fifth spot in the Yankees rotation.
• R.J. Anderson talks about the battle of philosophies represented by the Royals, who emphasized bullpen pitching and the Mets, who went heavy with starting pitching.
• Apparently Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz are speaking to each other again. Whew. I was worried about that.
• Jon Paul Morosi presents his list of the ten most underrated players in baseball. Dan Vogelbach is not on the list. Must be an oversight. He's that underrated.
• Jay Jaffe lists five American League players who are big "bust" candidates for 2016.
• Craig Edwards has a list of the teams with the most "dead money" on the books for 2016. Like Edwin Jackson.
• After three years, the Braves have finally come to an agreement with Dish Network to carry 50 weekend games. Now if the Dodgers can just come to an agreement for all of their games.
• After Freddie Freeman hit an exploding baseball with his bat to find out the sex of expected baby, Danny Espinosa tried something similar. It didn't go as well.
• The Minnesota Twins had a really big party to watch the finale of "The Bachelor" this week.
• And finally, the Blue Jays green St. Patrick's Day hats are out and maybe the green maple leaf looks like a different kind of leaf. Is that a mistake? Who knows with Canadians.

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