Outside The Confines: A good old-fashioned trade

I remember when a team trading a batting champion would have been a huge deal. The last player traded the offseason after winning a batting title was Rod Carew back in 1979.

• The Minnesota Twins traded second baseman Luis Arraez, the 2022 American League batting champion, to the Miami Marlins for right-handed pitcher Pablo López and prospects Jose Salas and Byron Chourio.
• The Marlins announced that because of the trade, current second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. would move to center field.
• Ben Clemens evaluates the Twins-Marlins deal and thinks that the Twins got the much better end of it.
• The Mariners signed infielder (and former Cub) Tommy La Stella to a one-year deal.
• The Braves have signed outfielder Kevin Pillar to a minor league deal with an invite to Spring Training.
• Kyle Kishimoto looks at what the Brewers can expect with their signing of veteran outfielder Brian Anderson. I’ll tell you what they can expect. They can expect a lot of confusion with their primary television play-by-play announcer, that’s what they can expect.
• Sad news as Sal Bando, the third baseman and captain of the “Swingin’ A’s” three-time champions of the seventies, has died at the age of 78. Bando also played for the Brewers and was later Milwaukee’s general manager.
• In a big first, the Diamondbacks named Ronnie Gajownik as the manager of the Northwest League Hillsboro Hops. Gajownik becomes the first woman to ever manage at the High-A level.
• Jeff Passan has eight thoughts about the 2022-23 free agency. (ESPN+ sub. req.) One of them, if you don’t subscribe, is that no team added more players through free agency than the Cubs did. (The Mets actually signed more free agents, but three of those were re-signing their own players, whereas the Cubs only re-signed Drew Smyly.) He gives the Cubs the “Sneaky-Big Step Forward Award.”
• A round table discussion of which team improved the most this winter. There was one vote for the Cubs.
• Red Sox infielder Justin Turner explains to Jack Harris how he wanted to re-sign with the Dodgers, but things didn’t work out. Turner shares his thoughts on how things went down.
• Andrew McCutchen talks about returning to Pittsburgh and how he wants to win there. Good luck with that, Cutch.
• Mike Axisa ranks 20 players who would have been free agents this past winter had they not signed extensions, and what they might have gotten on the open market.
• Manny Randhawa has some projected stat leaders for the 2023 season.
• Hannah Keyser examines how teams are planning to adapt to the new pickoff rules. That’s going to be a big deal.
• Zach Crizer looks at how the second base position is going to change with the limits on shifting. I think we’re going to get a lot more second basemen like Nico Hoerner and Crizer doesn’t seem to disagree, although he doesn’t mention Hoerner by name.
• The Blue Jays are planning to bring the fences way in at the Rogers Centre, but they will also raise the outfield walls. Still, the park should be much more hitter-friendly.
• Speaking of the Blue Jays, I’ve been on the lookout for the first “best shape of his life” statement of the spring. Keegan Matheson notes that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. claims to be in “the best shape of his life,” even if Guerrero doesn’t use those exact words. Matheson uses them though.
• Ian Browne reports that Red Sox left-hander Chris Sale pronounces himself healthy or in Sale’s words: “Humpty Dumpty got put back together.
• Thomas Harrigan has eight players who need to stay healthy in 2023.
• One of those players is Braves outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. In that vein, the Braves are reportedly not likely to let Acuña play in the World Baseball Classic. It doesn’t sound like he’s too happy about that, either.
• Ken Rosenthal has a piece on the challenges that Mark DeRosa faces as he manages for the first time as the skipper of Team USA in the WBC. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• The Hall of Fame inductees (if any) will be announced on Tuesday. David Schoenfield divides the players on the ballot into five different categories. (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• Matt Snyder has seven storylines for the Cooperstown voting.
• David Adler makes the case for the enshrinement of reliever Billy Wagner.
• Among the players the Nationals signed in the international signing period was Elian Soto, the youngest brother of Padres outfielder Juan Soto. Maria Torres reports that Nats scout Modesto Ulloa had one piece of advice for Elian: “Don’t try to be Juan. Just be Elian.” (The Athletic sub. req.)
• The Dodgers have hired Stephen Nelson to fill in for their very busy regular play-by-play television announcer, Joe Davis, when Davis is absent during the 2023 season. Nelson, whom you might know from MLB Network, becomes the only Asian-American to broadcast for an MLB team this season. Nelson is expected to call around 50 games for Los Angeles.
• Braves pitcher Spencer Strider has changed his number to 99 because he’s a huge fan of the movie Major League and Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn. Strider also plans to use “Wild Thing” as his entrance song.
• Finally, maybe had he done that earlier, he would have made this list. Will Leitch has the coolest uniform number to buy for from each team. Do you agree with his choice for the Cubs?

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