Outside the Confines: Better to say nothing . . .

The big sports news over the weekend was that Everton beat Liverpool, 2-0 at Anfield. It’s Everton’s first win at their arch-rival Liverpool’s home grounds since 1999. Liverpool had won 13 times and the two teams played to a draw ten times in that span. Everton hadn’t even beaten Liverpool at home since 2010. It’s not 1908 or anything, but man did it feel good. In case you don’t know, the two stadiums of the two teams are less than a mile apart from each other. They’re just on opposite sides of a park. So it was a big deal.

Besides, it’s better than talking about what’s going on in MLB these days.

• A scandal is erupting over Mariners team president Kevin Mather and his comments to a Rotary Club on Saturday. In it, Mather criticized top prospect Julio Rodriguez and scout (and former Mariners pitcher) Hisashi Iwakuma for not speaking English well enough, all but admitted that top prospect Jarred Kelenic would start the season in Triple-A because he wouldn’t sign a long-term contract extension, called third baseman Kyle Seager “overpaid” and criticized the safety of the area around T-Mobile Park, among other things. Our friends over at Lookout Landing have the complete transcript.
• Here’s the summarized version of Mather’s comments if you don’t care to read the whole thing.
• Mather issued an apology on Sunday night and Ryan Divish has a roundup of the fallout from Mather’s comments.
• Ken Rosenthal writes that Mather needs to be fired, (The Athletic sub. req.) adding that he should have been fired three years ago when he was named in a probe of inappropriate workplace behavior around Mariners’ female employees.
• Then there is just more evidence that some people just shouldn’t use social media. Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer got into it with Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard on Twitter.
• Then Bauer mixed it up with Mets pitcher Marcus Stroman on Twitter, taking offense to an emoji Stroman posted.
• Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner explained what he was thinking when he came onto the field to celebrate the World Series win with his teammates, even after testing postive for COVID-19.
• Lindsey Adler writes about the problems the Yankees face with pitcher Domingo Germán’s return to the team. (The Athletic sub. req.) Germán was suspended 81 games over a domestic violence incident and already Zach Britton has commented “You don’t get to control who your teammates are” about Germán.
• You know that $340 million deal that Fernando Tatis Jr. signed? He’s not going to see all of it because of a deal he signed with Big League Advance when he was 19 and in the minors, Ken Rosenthal reports. (The Athletic sub. req. but you can get the gist of it without a paywall here.)
• Zach Kram argues that the Tatis Jr. deal is just the final piece on a perfect offseason for the Padres.
• Katherine Acquavella grades every team’s offseason. The Padres got an A+, but I feel the Cubs got robbed. I think they really earned that F, but Acquavella cheats them with a D-.
• Rockies outfielder Ian Desmond has opted out of the 2021 season “for now,” after opting out of 2020. This may be the end of Desmond’s career. Desmond is the final active player who played in the Expos’ minor league system.
• Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw, on the other hand, said that he has no intention of retiring after the 2021 season. Kershaw’s deal with the Dodgers ends after this season.
• Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg explained why he decided to have season-ending surgery last season, saying that his pitching hand was “numb.”
• The Brewers signed infielder Travis Shaw to a non-guaranteed one-year deal last week and Brendan Gawlowski thinks it could end up being a pretty smart move.
• The Giants signed free agent pitcher Aaron Sanchez to a one-year, $4 million deal. Sanchez sat out the 2020 season after undergoing shoulder surgery.
• Reliever Trevor Rosenthal signed a one-year, $11 million deal with the Athletics. Ben Clemens looks at what the A’s are getting with Rosenthal and how Oakland is rebuilding their bullpen.
• Mike Axisa has five players who should return to their former top level after a poor 2020.
• Red Sox executive Chaim Bloom argues the team is primed for a bounce-back in 2021. See, this is the type of anodyne comments that top baseball people should be making.
• Fabian Ardaya looks at what Angels two-way player Shohei Ohtani has done to prepare to return to pitching an entire season in 2021. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Buster Olney looks at what players could be traded at midseason. (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• Anthony Castrovince has the most “intriguing” player on each MLB team going into Spring Training. I’d say that’s Ian Happ, but Castrovince went in a different direction.
• Sad news as former All-Star pitcher Stan Williams has died at age 84. Williams was a mainstay of the early Los Angeles Dodgers pitching staffs with Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. He was also the pitching coach for the World Series-winning 1990 Reds.
• Former outfielder Johnny Damon was arrested for DUI and other charges in Florida after testing a blood alcohol level 2 ¹⁄₂ times the legal limit.
• Al wrote about Beth Mowins serving as a fill-in play-by-play broadcaster and the first woman to call Cubs games. But she’s not the first woman to call Chicago baseball as Phil Rosenthal remembers the career of Mary Shane and her work with Harry Caray calling the 1977 White Sox games.
• The Minnesota Department of Transportation is naming a new snowplow and TJ Gorsegner noticed that several names up for consideration have Twins-related names. So go vote if you want a snowplow named “Road Carew” or “Justin Moresnow.”
• Will Leitch has a wishlist of 30 bobbleheads, one for each team for a player who has never gotten a bobblehead for that team. I would imagine the Ian Happ bobblehead would have to shake his head left and right for “no” rather than up and down.
• And finally, he college baseball season started this past weekend and Florida Atlantic freshman Caleb Pendleton hit two grand slams in his first two collegiate at-bats. Also, just to go all Fernando Tatis Sr. on the game, both home runs were hit in the second inning.

Let’s all have a good day today and a better one tomorrow.