MLB Bullets has a setback

Good morning from rainy California.

• MLB and the Players Association have reportedly reached a deal to expand the regular season roster to 26 and to limit the roster to 28 in September, starting in 2020. Teams would not be allowed to have more than half of those players be pitchers.
• In other commissioner’s office-level stuff, MLB has come to an agreement on a new posting deal with the Mexican Baseball League (LMB). LMB will now be subject to a posting system similar to that the three Asian professional leagues and the Cuban league has.
• Our friends at DRays Bay also have a look at some new balls that MLB has been experimenting with in various non-regular season games that do not require Delaware River mud. It sounds like the new balls aren’t ready for prime time yet, but they may be in the upcoming years.
• Here’s a fascinating piece that I still haven’t had time to fully digest. Ben Lindbergh and Rob Arthur got ahold of around 73,000 scouting reports from the Reds organization from 1991 to 2003. Now looking at how those players’ careers are mostly over, what can we learn from how accurate those reports were? What skills (or even descriptions) best predicted major league success? (Joey Votto is still around, but we mostly know what his career will look like when it is said and done. Also, at least one Reds scout hated that the team drafted Votto. That’s not to denigrate scouts, but it is pretty funny. He probably works in Cincinnati sports radio now and complains that Votto walks too much.)
• I’ve already linked to a couple of stories in previous editions about the process that led Bryce Harper to the Phillies. But if you want the full, chapter-length description of the twists and turns that led to the Phillies signing Harper, be sure to check out Matt Gelb’s piece on the Phillies recruitment of Bryce Harper. (The Athletic sub. req.) Most notably, we get the background on how owner John Middleton’s “stupid money” comment came out, why Middleton thinks the quote was taken out of context and how it was used against the team.
• Mike Petriello argues that the Phillies and the Yankees won the winter. So I suppose they’ll now meet in the March World Series to see which team gets to save Westeros.
• Harper says that he plans to recruit Angels outfielder Mike Trout to Philadelphia if Trout becomes a free agent in 2021.
• The Angels are not happy about Harper’s comments on Trout and have referred the matter to MLB.
• Dayn Perry notes that neither Harper nor Machado came close to a $400 million contract but looks at which player is likeliest to break that contract barrier. Yes, Trout is the prohibitive favorite.
• The Padres report that they’ve sold $3 million in additional tickets since signing Manny Machado.
• Buster Olney looks at why the market for free agent pitcher Dallas Keuchel has been so weak this winter. (ESPN+ sub. req.) Keuchel is missing two things: youth and velocity. But he’s not missing talent.
• Peter Gammons looks at Keuchel’s age problems and thinks that technology is allowing for pitchers over 30 to succeed more than they had in the past. (The Athletic sub. req.) This article also reports something I hadn’t heard before—that Red Sox owner John Henry admitted at the beginning of Spring Training this year that he made a big mistake when he refused to offer a long-term deal to Jon Lester. That mistake certainly changed the course of Cubs history forever.
• Royals catcher Salvador Perez will indeed have Tommy John surgery and will miss all of 2019.
• Jay Jaffe notes that the record of catchers coming back from Tommy John surgery is not good.
• Yankees ace Luis Severino has an inflamed rotator cuff and will miss Opening Day at least.
• Mark Feinsand looks at the Yankees’ options for replacing Severino, which probably does not include Dallas Keuchel.
• It’s looking more and more likely that Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw will also miss Opening Day with shoulder inflammation.
• Twins third baseman Miguel Sano will be out until May after a foot procedure.
• Padres outfielder Travis Jankowski broke a bone in his wrist diving for a ball in Spring Training and will be out until June. Spring Training is for suckers.
• Giants CEO Larry Baer will be taking “personal time” away from work after the video surfaced with him in an apparent domestic assault incident on his wife.
• More bad news for the Giants. Outfielder Cameron Maybin was arrested last Friday on a DUI charge.
• Tim Brown profiles Giants manager Bruce Bochy on the cusp of his final season managing the team. Bochy tells Brown that he just wants one more shot at a title before retiring. I somehow don’t think he’s going to get one.
• New Reds pitcher Sonny Gray says that his struggles with the Yankees were due in part because the Yanks kept insisting that he throw his slider, which Gray terms “sh**ty.”
• The Mets announced that they have hired ESPN broadcaster Jessica Mendoza for a front office position. She will continue to call Sunday Night Baseball for ESPN.
• And ESPN has announced that Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia will join The Worldwide Leader as an analyst this season, while he continues to play for the Yankees. If you think all of this is a conflict of interest, you’re right. You’re also late because this kind of stuff has been going on for years.
• Craig Edwards has an idea that I wrote about in September, meaning that teams should be rewarded with more money for winning more games. Edwards’ ideas on using revenue sharing money to reward teams that win more games is a lot more fleshed out than my earlier piece, so check it out.
• There’s a campaign to bring an MLB team to Raleigh, North Carolina.
• David Kagan has a piece on the physics of the fungo bat and how and why it is different from a regular bat.
• Rock star Jack White has joined a campaign to preserve Detroit’s Hamtramck Stadium, one of the last remaining Negro Leagues stadiums.
• And finally, here are some Diamondbacks dancing to the song “Baby Shark.” Hey, don’t click on it if you don’t want to see it.

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