MLB Bullets could all be for sale

Good morning.

• Tragedy struck in the baseball world yesterday as the wife, son and mother-in-law of Rays minor league pitcher Blake Bivens were all killed in their rural Virginia home. The brother of Bivens’ wife has been arrested in connection to the deaths. The Montgomery Biscuits game at Chattanooga was understandably cancelled.
• I don’t quite know how to transition off of that story, but Neil deMause looks at all the explanations of “Why is attendance in baseball declining?” and evaluates which ones make sense and which ones don’t.
• There’s a report that the Royals are close to being sold to local businessman John Sherman for $1 billion. Current owner David Glass purchased the team in 2000 for $96 million.
• Rustin Dodd talks about his experiences with Sherman and explains what new ownership might mean for the Royals. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Vince Naimoli, the original owner of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, has died at age 81.
• This hasn’t gotten much attention at all, but Truman “Tex” Clevenger, who pitched eight years in the majors including two with the World Series Champion Yankees of 1961 and 1962, has died at 87. Tex was from California.
• Tom Verducci outlines how the Mets improved their offense by going against the current trends in baseball and hiring “old-school” hitting coach Chili Davis. You may remember Davis as the Cubs hitting coach.
• Gerard Gilberto writes that newly-acquired Mets pitcher Marcus Stroman hasn’t lived up to expectations yet.
• Zach Kram has one injured player from several contenders whose return could have a big impact on the playoff races.
• Craig Edwards calculates how much impact losing third baseman Jose Ramirez to injury will have on the Indians playoff chances.
• Diamondbacks outfielder David Peralta is out for the rest of the season after shoulder surgery.
• The Diamondbacks also set a very weird record this season as they’ve had the most consecutive days within two games of the .500 mark.
• Dan Szymborski has some suggestions for teams out of the playoff hunt, suggesting several rookies and minor leaguers who should be getting major league experience in preparation for 2020.
• Katherine Acquavella is the latest to go down to the Atlantic League to see how the “robot umpires” are working. She discovers that most everyone seems to think the automated strike zone is working pretty well.
• Bradford Doolittle has a look at how the Astros just keep getting better. (ESPN+ sub. req.) There’s some comparisons here between the Cubs and the Astros.
• The Brewers released their Opening Day starter Jhoulys Chacin.
• Also, Shelby Miller, who had signed a minor league deal with the Brewers and was pitching in Triple-A San Antonio, has exercised the release clause in his contract. Miller is now a free agent. He dominated the I-Cubs earlier a week ago in Des Moines.
• Mariners outfielder Keon Broxton was suspended two games for hitting an umpire with his batting glove. No, his hand wasn’t in the glove at the time.
• They had a rain delay at Miller Park last night, despite having a roof over their heads. That just highlights what’s gone wrong for the Brewers recently.
• Jon Tayler ranks all eight of Mike Trout’s major league seasons.
• Jason Linden has some first-hand observations about the cruel nature of Triple-A baseball. I wish someone could do an experiment and recreate Triple-A and Major League games with accurate computer animation and the teams, stadiums and faces greeked out so you couldn’t tell which was which. I think it would be very difficult for someone to tell which one was the majors and which one was Triple-A. A trained eye could probably do it, but it wouldn’t be easy.
• Athletics reliever Liam Hendricks is glad the Golden State Warriors are leaving Oakland, saying that the NBA team “treated us like s__t.”
• Red Sox outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. hit a 478-foot home run at Coors Field. That was the longest home run by a Red Sox player since the introduction of StatCast in 2015.
• And here’s the longest home run by each MLB team since the introduction of StatCast.
• And finally, Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich posed nude for the ESPN the Magazine’s annual “Body Issue.” That upset one fan named “Roxanne” which caused Yelich to change his walkup music to “Roxanne” by The Police.

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