Nobody cares about this today. The Cubs are NL Central Champions!
- Major League Baseball suspended Padres general manager A.J. Preller for 30 days after it was revealed that he kept two sets of medical records, one for sharing with trade partners and one for in-house. This suspension is specifically tied to the Drew Pomeranz trade. MLB has not said whether further punishment may be coming as a result of other deals.
- For now, however, it appears that a 30-day suspension (at a time when a GM whose team is out of the race has very little to do, comparatively) will be Preller’s only punishment as the Padres are not expected to fire him.
- Ken Rosenthal writes that the Padres knew that they were hiring a GM who likes to play loose with the rules. Preller was suspended once before when he was in the Rangers organization. However, Rosenthal noted that while the executives he talked to are pretty upset about this, they’ll still make deals with the Padres because “Teams need good players.”
- The Red Sox are not expected to receive any compensation in connection with the Pomeranz deal. Of course, the deal that sent Colin Rea from the Padres to the Marlins was reversed when it was revealed that Preller had withheld injury information. But Pomeranz has been healthy with the Red Sox.
- The other big story in MLB is a chain reaction that started with some comments that Orioles outfielder Adam Jones made to to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. Jones said that baseball is a “white man’s sport.”
- This, and some other stories in sports, upset Diamondbacks president Tony La Russa, who made his feelings known.
- This led to Yahoo! Sports columnist Jeff Passan to rip La Russa for being insensitive, ignorant and a hypocrite.
- (By the way, I just finished Passan’s book: The Arm and it’s quite good. You’ll especially like the chapter on how Jon Lester became a Cub, although most of the book focuses on Daniel Hudson and Todd Coffey and their attempts to come back from Tommy John surgery.)
- Craig Calcaterra took note of Passan’s column and noted that the knives are out for the once-untouchable La Russa.
- Also of note on that point is Dayn Perry’s piece on how the Diamondbacks’ 2016 season was an utter disaster, right down to their awful uniforms.
- Doug Glanville talks to some players about the tricky task of managing activism and sports.
- The Giants may have given the Cubs the division title but David Schoenfield notes that the Giants are in a historic freefall in the second half. And yet, they still would host the wild card game if the season ended today.
- The Blue Jays are also struggling, and Mike Axisa has some reasons that go beyond Josh Donaldson.
- Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera is not happy with the negativity of Tigers fans.
- If these 11 miss the playoffs, Mark Simon lists the one game this season that they’re really going to regret losing.
- The Pirates didn’t even make that list, because they have too many losses to regret any one of them. Ben Lindbergh explains that the Pirates trusted the “magic” of pitching coach Ray Searage too much.
- Tracy Ringolsby credits Robinson Cano for leading the Mariners back to relevance.
- Jay Jaffe breaks down all the “nightmare” tie-breaking scenarios in the tight playoff races.
- Anthony Castrovince has his picks for the top managers in baseball.
- Grant Brisbee thinks we still aren’t giving Mike Trout enough credit.
- Bryan Grosnick thinks we should be paying more attention to Jose Quintana.
- Jon Heyman takes some guesses as to what contracts (not teams) that the top 30 free agents will sign this winter. If Dex is only going to cost 2 years and $24 million, sign him.
- Jayson Stark compares the season David Ortiz is having and asks if he is having the greatest final season in baseball history? I say it’s still Shoeless Joe Jackson, but of course, there were extenuating circumstances surrounding his final season.
- Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge will miss the rest of the season with an oblique injury.
- So the Yanks signed DH Billy Butler.
- The Rockies have benched outfielder David Dahl because they say he’s fatigued. Could the shenanigans surrounding a publicly-financed stadium in Hartford, CT be to blame?
- Grant Brisbee tries to figure out why the Brewers would be interested in the proposed Ryan Braun-for-Yasiel Puig trade.
- Puig met with the woman whose tooth he knocked out. She was thrilled. #puigyourfriend
- This isn’t aimed at me, so the fact that I think it looks awful shouldn’t deter you. MLB is co-producing a TV show for “AwesomenessTV” called “Out Of My League” aimed directly at “generation z,” whatever that is. Or whatever “AwesomenessTV” is. But it’s got Joc Pederson in it in a cameo role.
- And here is the latest in America’s attempt to reclaim first-pitch supremacy as an acrobat and his dog threw out the first pitch at a Diamondbacks game.
And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. The Cubs are NL Central Champions.