MLB Bullets is prepared to be booed

Good morning. I think we’re all ready for baseball at this point. I believe that Al has already ably covered the pace-of-play changes and Commissioner Rob Manfred’s press conference.

• The worst “Will-they-or-won’t-they” matchup since Ross and Rachel came to its obvious end as the Red Sox have signed outfielder J.D. Martinez to a five-year. $110 million deal. The deal is front-loaded and has two opt-outs.
• Scott Lauber explains where Martinez fits into the Red Sox lineup and how he’s no consolation prize for Boston.
• Grant Brisbee writes that Martinez’s contract is a sign that the new CBA is forcing salaries down.
• Jon Tayler believes that Martinez allows the Red Sox to keep pace with the Yankees in the competitive AL East.
• Zach Kram argues that the Red Sox got a bat equal to new Yankee Giancarlo Stanton without having to take on Stanton’s contract. Defense is a different issue, but Martinez will DH for the Red Sox.
• Red Sox pitcher David Price was a teammate of Martinez’s before in Detroit, and he encouraged Martinez to sign with Boston but warned him to expect to be booed.
• Tommy Stokke thinks that the Diamondbacks will be fine without Martinez.
• On that front, the D-Backs signed outfielder Jarrod Dyson to a two-year deal. Chris Brown reports that Diamondbacks wanted to add Dyson’s speed to their lineup, as well as his postseason experience and leadership.
• On top of that, Arizona completed a three-way trade that sent Steven Souza to the D-Backs, Brandon Drury to the Yankees and a prospect and two players-to-be-named-later to the Rays.
• Travis Sawchik looks at how the Rays have revamped their outfield over the past few days and evaluates the three-way deal.
• Jeff Sullivan wrote this before the Souza trade, but he felt that in trading Jake Odorizzi and designating Corey Dickerson for assignment, the Rays shed a lot of payroll obligations without getting any worse.
• However, outfielder Kevin Kiermaier is still on the Rays and he said that he is “frustrated and very upset” by the recent moves by Tampa Bay.
• Dayn Perry believes these moves make the Rays the most boring team in baseball.
• The Rays also announced a new team-run blog and in light of their recent moves, Craig Calcaterra thinks that maybe they should have come up with a different name than “Ray Tank.” On the other hand, points for honesty.
• Jim Finch have five possible teams that could sign Dickerson.
• New Padres first baseman Eric Hosmer will wear number 30 in San Diego in honor of his late teammate Yordano Ventura. Also, Padres owner Ron Fowler said that they expect Hosmer to take a leadership role in San Diego because being a leader is “not in [the] DNA” of current Padre Wil Myers.
• Bill Baer thinks that Fowler just threw Myers under the bus with those comments. Even worse, they’re throwing Myers into the outfield.
• Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper is not going to talk about his upcoming free agency. Clown question, bro. But Harper did say he was surprised at the way that the Marlins tore down their team this winter, saying they were a tough team to play last year.
• Marlins manager Don Mattingly told Harper to mind his own beeswax.
• Former Marlin Christian Yelich says that the death of Jose Fernandez was the turning point that sent the franchise on a downward turn.
• All major league teams will wear Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School caps on Friday, in solidarity with those affected by the atrocity. Of course, it won’t be the first time Anthony Rizzo wears that cap.
• Extension talks between Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson and the team are going nowhere and Donaldson now says he expects to be a free agent next winter.
• Jon Heyman reports that the Phillies are in a “dialogue” with free agent pitcher Jake Arrieta.
• Staying with former Cy Young Award winners, Grant Brisbee (who has never won a Cy Young) reports that Tim Lincecum has at least one guaranteed contract offer from a major league team that is not the Giants.
• Rian Watt wonders if the Reds actually have a plan to return to contention.
• Tim Brown asks if the latest pace-of-play changes will actually work and whether players will actually change their habits.
• On that front, two catchers, the Cubs’ Willson Contreras and the Angels’ Martin Maldonado, both said that they’ll go out to the mound as many times as they need to, rules or no rules. Liz Roscher notes that MLB is vague about what will happen in that case.
• David Schoenfield has one player to watch for each team in Spring Training.
• The Angels announced that they are lowering the wall in right field at Angels Stadium, dropping it from 18 feet to eight. Did they add any left-handed power this winter?
• David Schoenfield lists ten pitchers who had breakout seasons in 2017 and guesses which ones will keep their gains in 2018.
• Tom Verducci released his annual list of young pitchers who had a big increases in innings pitched in 2017 and are therefore at risk of regression in 2018. Verducci calls this the “Year-after effect” but everyone else just calls it the “Verducci effect,” a term that he finally acknowledges this year. To be clear, researchers have been unable to find any evidence that the Verducci effect actually exists, although just because we can’t find it doesn’t mean we should stop looking for it. Maybe researchers just haven’t found it yet.
• If you are interested in the history of sabermetrics, you definitely need to read this article. Or even if you aren’t, you should read it. Ben Lindbergh has a profile of Sherri Nichols, whom he calls the “forgotten foremother” of sabermetrics. The usenet group of the late 80’s, early 90s rec.sports.baseball is pretty legendary at this point. These are the people who went on to create Baseball Prospectus and most of the primary participants from that era went on to careers in MLB front offices or in mainstream baseball writing. Nichols didn’t, preferring to leave baseball as a hobby, and Lindbergh convincingly argues that her important contributions to the development of sabermetrics have been largely forgotten because of that. Also, because of the sexism she faced. Lindbergh aims to correct these wrongs. (Also, the pictures of Nichols in college in the late ‘80s gave me flashbacks.)
• Carson-Newman University won a game when a runner was tagged out at the plate on a perfect throw by a right fielder named “Charlie Brown.” Good grief. Charlie Brown finally won a game.
• And finally, Nationals closer Sean Doolittle got put in his place by a bunch of teenagers. The kids thought they recognized him and as Sean Doolittle started feeling important, they told him “Do you know you look just like Seth Rogen?” Doolittle’s blushing bride Eireann Dolan “horse-laughed” in Sean’s face.

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