MLB Bullets wants to speed things up

I wrote this on Twitter late last night, but I’ll repeat it here. From the perspective of how much work I’m expected to do, the Cubs adding a second rookie ball team in Mesa is a huge mistake.

• The Major League Baseball Players Association is expected to reject the commissioner’s plan to institute a pitch clock and limit mound visits. So commissioner Rob Manfred intends to implement the changes on his own. Jeff Passan has the details of all the pace-of-play changes coming to baseball next season. Manfred thinks he can shave ten minutes off the length of the game.
• Bob Nightengale thinks a lot of the opposition to Manfred’s proposals are simply natural resistance to change, but that the big issue here is that MLB and MLBPA’s failure to reach an agreement is a sign that the era of labor peace in baseball is ending.
• Travis Sawchik writes that one of the reasons for the slow rate of free agent signings is that agents no longer have better information that teams do and it’s making them less relevant.
• Mark Feinsand explores why free agent outfielder J.D. Martinez hasn’t signed yet. In short, at the moment, he believes the Red Sox are the only team really bidding one him.
• Bradford Doolittle examines whether teams, historically, have done better if they wait until later in the offseason to sign players.
• Anthony Castrovince looks at all the players who would have been free agents this winter had they not signed early extensions.
• One of those players will be the highest-paid player in baseball this year, and for once it’s the actual best player in baseball. Mike Trout leads all players with a $34.083 million salary in 2018.
• There have been a lot of reports of offers that free agent first baseman Eric Hosmer has received from the Padres and the Royals, but Whitney McIntosh is skeptical that Hosmer has any firm offers, at least not at the reported years and dollars.
• One reason why the market has been so slow is that the Dodgers are determined to stay under the luxury tax threshold. But as Dylan Hernandez writes, the Dodgers desire to cut payroll may not be to avoid paying the luxury tax, but rather to get in compliance with MLB’s debt service rules. That probably takes LA out of the Yu Darvish sweepstakes unless they are able to move Matt Kemp’s contract somehow.
• There is a petition among Pirates fans demanding that owner Bob Nutter sell the team.
• Former Pirates ace Gerrit Cole says he’s happy to be joining the Astros and pitching with Dallas Keuchel and Justin Verlander. Well, yeah. You just left a sinking ship for the defending World Series champions.
• Jeff Sullivan defends the prospects the Pirates got for Cole and argues that all the team rankings of minor league prospects is creating a perception problem in deals like this. Kind of ironic I’m linking to this the same day my top 5 Cubs prospects come out.
• Tommy Stokke looks at whether the Pirates would have been better waiting until the trade deadline to deal Cole and Andrew McCutchen. (Short answer: No.)
• Phillies outfielder Nick Williams is trying to convince free agent pitcher Jake Arrieta to sign with Philadelphia. It would be an interesting move, somewhat similar to the Cubs signing Jon Lester after 2014. Williams does admit that he’s not the one signing the checks though.
• Craig Edwards thinks that the Braves have a chance to be a contender in 2018 if spend big now, but still well under the luxury tax threshold.
• One report from Peter Gammons has the Braves asking the Marlins about Christian Yelich and the Marlins demanding baseball’s best prospect Ronald Acuna in return. Jeff Sullivan explains why the Marlins are right to ask for Acuna for Yelich. He adds that the Braves may not want to trade Acuna, but it’s a reasonable return to ask for a player like Yelich.
• Richard Justice has 15 prospects who could make a big splash on the major league level in 2018.
• Catcher Dioner Navarro did not play in 2017 because he was taking care of his wife, who had suffered a near-fatal cerebral aneurysm. He tells their story to Barry Davis and says he wants to play again in 2018.
• Will Leitch looks at the current state of Albert Pujols’ baseball legacy. He compares Pujols’ current state to the sad end of Willie Mays’ career.
• Joe Posnanski has an appreciation of the baseball talents of Manny Ramirez as well as wondering what went on in his head.
• Brian Reinhart finds Prince Fielder’s food show and says the best thing about it is the engaging personality of Fielder. He thinks the show, which is on Amazon Prime, is better as a baseball talk show than as a food show.
• Cole Hamels talks about his experience of being in Hawaii with his family when the false alarm missile alert went off.
• Former major league third baseman Juan Francisco may not be in the majors anymore, but he unleashed a major league bat flip when he hit a home run in winter ball this week.
• And finally, how well do you know “Big Sexy” Bartolo Colon? Take this true/false quiz and find out.

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