MLB Bullets has nothing to say

Wake me up when the Winter Meetings start.

• A physical has shown that the newest Angel, Shohei Ohtani, has a damaged ulnar collateral ligament. It’s not damaged enough to require Tommy John surgery. At least not yet.
• The big trade news is that the Yankees sent third baseman Chase Headley and pitcher Bryan Mitchell to the Padres for outfielder Jabari Blash. This is mainly a salary dump by the Yankees. Are you excited yet?
• Andrew Marchand traces how the Giancarlo Stanton trade happened.
• Craig Calcaterra thinks the Marlins were foolish to threaten Stanton and Stanton was foolish to say he wouldn’t opt out of his contract.
• Jeff Passan also thinks that Marlins president Derek Jeter comes off looking terrible after the Stanton deal that didn’t need to happen.
• Dave Cameron thinks the Marlins didn’t do too badly in the Stanton deal, assuming they were to re-invest the savings in player development. Of course, Cameron admits the money is just going to go to pay down the debt on the purchase price.
• Cliff Corcoran says the 2018 Yankees could set a record for home runs with Stanton.
• Reliever Bryan Shaw signed a three-year deal with the Rockies.
• The Rangers signed reliever Chris Martin, most recently of the Nippon Ham Fighters, to a two-year deal.
• The Phillies have a two-year deal with reliever Tommy Hunter.
• If those deal don’t excite you, then at least Tigers general manager Al Avila said that he’s been making progress in a deal to trade away second baseman Ian Kinsler.
• The Orioles are reportedly trying to deal third baseman Manny Machado, who has one year of control left before he reaches free agency.
• Mike Oz thinks that makes Machado the most interesting man in Orlando. Or at least the rest of the offseason.
• Wherever Machado ends up next season, he wants to move back to shortstop.
• The Orioles were one of the teams that didn’t make a bid for Shohei Ohtani and GM Dan Duquette said it was out of principle that they opposed the posting process. You’d look a lot better if you’d admitted the truth: that Ohtani was never going to Baltimore and we didn’t want to waste our time.
• The Reds really did put a lot of work into signing Ohtani and Zach Buchanan got a look at Cincinnati’s pitch to Ohtani. (If you remember, there was some confusion about whether the Reds were one of the finalists. Basically, the Reds were so in on Ohtani that they asked him to reconsider.)
• Tom Verducci makes the case that the Red Sox have to deal for White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu.
• Rob Bradford believes the Red Sox should sign free agent J.D. Martinez.
• Buster Olney writes that with the Yankees and the Red Sox loading up, the rest of the AL East should sell and start their rebuilding process.
• Jerry Crasnick reports that agent Scott Boras is bypassing team front offices and pitching pitcher Jake Arrieta straight to the owners. This isn’t stupid, since no GM could sign a contract like Arrieta wants without ownership backing. On the other hand, it is stupid because most owners talk to their GM.
• Tommy Stokke says the problem for Arrieta is that there is no team that is an obvious fit.
• Grant Brisbee thinks that the Twins and the Brewers could end up dominating the Winter Meetings and that would be awesome.
• The Padres are reportedly “very interested” in signing free agent first baseman Eric Hosmer.
• The Giants are having “serious discussions” with the Reds about a Billy Hamilton trade.
• Mets GM Sandy Alderson is “inclined” to keep right-handed pitcher Matt Harvey but that no one is “untouchable.” And now I’m just putting random words in quotes.
• There was a rumor that the Diamondbacks were talking about trading Zack Greinke to the Rangers, but Dave Cameron writes that the rumor made no sense.
• Dan Gartland got confirmation: Yu Darvish was tipping his pitches in the World Series.
• Grant Brisbee writes that the 2017 postseason shows that MLB managers still haven’t figured out how to use their bullpens in the playoffs.
• Dylan Hernandez has a look at the next Japanese sensation who is planning to come to America: Yusei Kikuchi.
• Sheldon Ocker, formerly of the Akron Beacon Journal, is the 2018 winner of the J.G. Spink Award. (That’s the Hall of Fame for sportswriters.)
• Umpire Dale Scott has retired after repeated concussions.
• Chris Foran has the history of the first scoreboard at Milwaukee County Stadium in the early 1950s.
• Josh Jackson has a history of the Hollywood Stars. The baseball ones of the old Pacific Coast League, of course.
• And finally, the folks at Cespedes Family BBQ got as tired as I am about the little amount of news coming out of the Winter Meetings so they went looking for some.

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