MLB Bullets has the leftovers

There aren’t many links today since not much news happened and most writers took the holiday weekend off. I’m sorry about that, but I’ll make it up to you during the Winter Meetings.

• Anthony Castrovince has a summary of what we’ve learned about free agency so far this winter.
• Richard Justice has five teams that need to make some noise this winter.
• R.J. Anderson lists five current free agents that could be “Black Friday” bargains.
• Bradford Doolittle has some free agent solutions that are tailored to some very specific needs. (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• In case you’re a general manager thinking of signing free agent pitcher Stephen Strasburg, Andrew Simon has projected stats for Strasburg for the next seven seasons.
• Buster Olney translates “agent speak” during free agency. (ESPN+ sub. req.) Olney also rips the Orioles for cutting Jonathan Villar, saying that they owe it to their fans to at least try this year.
• Speaking of that, Orioles outfielder Trey Mancini is “pretty confident” he’ll still be with Baltimore next year.
• Mark Feinsand has ten upcoming free agents who could be dealt before the 2020 trade deadline.
• Mike Axisa has five players who could be dealt before today’s non-tender deadline.
• The staff at MLB Pipeline has one prospect from every team that could be dealt this winter. Do not trade Brennen Davis. (I guess if Mike Trout or Max Scherzer is coming back it would be OK to deal Davis.)
• Molly Knight spoke to about a dozen current or former major league pitchers about the Astros sign-stealing scandal and they “want blood.” (The Athletic sub. req.) Most say that past punishments for this kind of cheating have not been severe enough to discourage it in the future.
• Maury Brown writes that MLB’s plan to contract the minor leagues would cause the sale value of the surviving franchises to drop. This, in turn, would allow MLB to purchase these teams at discount rates, should they so choose.
• For the first time ever, Japan’s governing board for high school baseball has instituted a pitch limit. Starting next year, Japanese high school pitchers will be limited to 500 pitches a week. They also can’t pitch three days in a row. But hey, back-to-back 160-pitch starts with a third one after one day’s rest is still OK!
• Ichiro Suzuki joined an amateur game in Japan and Ichiro threw a 131-pitch complete game shutout. They won 14-0. On the one hand, that’s not really fair to the other team. On the other hand, the other team will be able to tell their grandchildren one day about how they played against Ichiro, less than a year after he retired from MLB.
• Alec Lewis reports about the first-ever baseball scout school weekend for women. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale has been cleared to start throwing again after his 2019 season ended early with elbow inflammation.
• Seymour Siwoff, the longtime owner and operator of the Elias Sports Bureau, died at the age of 99. Siwoff first started working for Elias in 1939 and owned the company from 1952 to 2018.
• Andrew Simon has 11 candidates on the All-MLB Team that would have been surprising if you’d have been told that at the start of last year.
• And finally, Jeffrey Flanagan remembers the career and the legend that was Royals first baseman and 1994 Rookie of the Year Bob Hamelin.

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