My wife is now fully vaccinated and my daughter is going back to school five days a week when Spring Break ends after next week. I’ll be “eligible” to get a vaccine on April 1, although who knows when I’ll actually get one. So things are starting to look up.
- In an attempt to cut down on the use of foreign substances by pitchers, MLB announced that they will be monitoring pitcher spin rates to determine if someone is using a banned foreign substances. Jesse Rogers explains how the process is supposed to work, in theory.
- Craig Calcaterra, in his free Thursday newsletter, is quite skeptical that MLB will manage to get this right. Calcaterra prefers to implement some sort of limited legalization. He also talks about the Orson Welles wine commercials from the 1970s and ‘80s, if you’re into that kind of thing.
- Ken Rosenthal is angry at MLB for not implementing the designated hitter in the National League in 2021 (The Athletic sub. req.) and notes that it is really too late for the NL to adopt the DH at this late date.
- We’re getting to the butcher’s bill early today because it’s a big one. White Sox slugger Eloy Jimenez is going to miss the next five-to-six months with a ruptured pectoral tendon.
- In a somewhat related story, Bob Nightengale reports that the White Sox insist they will not keep prospect Andrew Vaughn in the minors to gain an extra year of service time. Vaughn’s a first baseman, but there is some hope he could handle left field in Jimenez’s absence.
- Stephen Strasburg also has a ruptured plantaris tendon in his calf, but he’s not going to miss any more time because humans don’t actually need their plantaris tendon anymore. He’s not even going to have it repaired, unless he decides to walk on all fours again. (More here.)
- Blue Jays reliever Kirby Yates underwent Tommy John surgery and will miss all of 2021.
- Jake Mailhot thinks the Blue Jays bullpen will be fine without Yates, even though he was projected to be the Blue Jays closer this year.
- Ken Rosenthal reports that twice this offseason, physical examinations of Yates caused teams to back off of contract offers to the then-free agent. (The Athletic sub. req.) The Blue Jays eventually signed him at a reduced rate.
- Rockies left-hander Kyle Freeland has a strained pitching shoulder and should miss at least a month. Luckily, he won’t need surgery.
- Astros pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. has signed a five-year, $85 million contract extension with the team.
- Ben Clemens examines what the Astros can expect out of McCullers over the next five seasons and concludes that the deal made sense for both sides.
- Tony Wolfe believes the Nationals need to start thinking about signing shortstop Trea Turner to a long-term extension.
- The Ringer is dedicating this week to the Dodgers and Padres, and Zach Kram looks at whether a combined all-star team of Dodgers and Padres players could beat a combined all-star team from the other 13 NL teams.
- And Michael Bauman ranks 15 Dodgers and Padres players on how likely they are to start a benches-clearing brawl between the two teams.
- Speaking of the Padres, generally I don’t really care who gets the start on Opening Day. But in this case I’ll mention the Padres because they’ve named our favorite Friar Yu Darvish as their Opening Day starter. I assume that means Victor Caratini will be starting behind the plate as well.
- And if you have any doubt what was the greatest high school pitching rotation of all-time, Jack Flaherty, Lucas Giolito and Max Fried will all be getting Opening Day starts. The three of them were once teammates for Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles.
- Mike Axisa has 20 players who are trade candidates in the 2021 season.
- David Schoenfield has his “all-underrated” team for 2021. (ESPN+ sub. req.) Hey, is that a picture of Kyle Hendricks?
- Maybe Spring Training stats mean something and maybe they don’t. But David Adler has 12 players who are putting up stat lines in Spring Training that you should pay attention to.
- Rhett Bollinger notes that Mike Trout has made some adjustments to his swing that look like they will make him an even better hitter. (gulp)
- Matt Harvey had his contract selected by the Orioles and he has made their Opening Day rotation. So is that “The Dark Night Returns”?
- Pitcher Gio Gonzalez announced his retirement. He was trying to catch on with the Marlins this spring, but he said his body just wasn’t up to it anymore.
- Sad news as former American League president and Yankees player Dr. Bobby Brown has died at age 96. He was a utility player on five Yankees World Series-winning teams. Brown also became a cardiologist after his playing days and was briefly president of the Texas Rangers.
- Broadcaster Dick Stockton announced his retirement after 55 years behind the microphone. I know that Stockton took a lot of flak for his job calling playoff games for TBS recently and much of it was unfortunately deserved. But when Stockton was younger, he was a top-caliber play-by-play man. In baseball, his most famous call was Carlton Fisk’s walk-off home run in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series and you can listen to it at that link.
- Amazon Prime will stream 21 Yankees games in-market in 2021. All 21 games will also be available over-the-air on WPIX, so you won’t have to have Prime to watch the games. But now if you can’t get to a TV, you can see the game on your phone or something similar.
- Eno Sarris examines whether or not it’s true that pitchers improve their command as they age. (The Athletic sub. req.) (For non-subscribers, the answer is “A little, but not a lot.”)
- And finally, as baseball increases its popularity in Europe, some MLB players are getting their own fanbases across the pond. Mike Trout and Aaron Judge are popular players, of course, but so is Orioles outfielder Anthony Santander, who has become a fan favorite in the UK. Joe Tezza has the story behind that. I remember writing about that game in this space back in 2019 and apparently Santander’s legend has only grown since then.
Tomorrow will be better. Let’s finally beat this COVID thing.