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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Mar 19, 2024 12:48:47 GMT -5
Players Reportedly Pressuring MLBPA Director Tony Clark To Replace Deputy Director Bruce Meyer
By Steve Adams | March 19, 2024 at 12:15pm CDT
As frustration bubbles among players regarding the state of free agency this offseason, a significant portion of their ranks are pushing for changes in union leadership. Reports from Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic and from Jeff Passan of ESPN indicate that during a call between union reps and union leadership earlier this week, players pushed executive director Tony Clark to replace deputy director Bruce Meyer with Harry Marino.
Marino, the former head of Advocates For Minor Leaguers who temporarily joined the MLBPA, worked alongside Meyer to spearhead negotiations on the minor league collective bargaining agreement. That agreement was hammered out last year when minor leaguers unionized and were formally adopted by the MLBPA. Marino and Meyer have a “strained” relationship from their time working together on that effort, per Drellich and Rosenthal.
Meyer, 62, joined the union in Aug. 2018 after the union had been panned for its negotiations of the 2016-21 MLB collective bargaining agreement, which was widely viewed as a success for the league. He’s spent more than three decades working with unions for other major sports, including players unions in the NFL, NHL and NBA.
Frustration from the players’ side of things stems from a number of topics. The stalled market for top free agents, the erosion of the middle class of free agency, an overall decrease in free-agent spending and the peculiar J.D. Davis release after he’d won an arbitration hearing all contribute to the unrest, per the reports.
Passan notes that support for Marino’s ascension to the No. 2 spot in the union was not unanimous among players but was broadly supported. Detractors question his youth (33 years old) and lack of experience in high-profile negotiations prior to his work with the minor league union. Notably, Marino was not involved on the call, and Clark rebuffed player requests that he be present. Support for Marino isn’t a big surprise, given the rather surprising 38-34 split of the union’s 72 executive board slots first reported by Drellich and Rosenthal (38 big leaguers, 34 minor leaguers).
The lingering presence of many top free agents has been attributed to myriad factors: uncertainty surrounding the television broadcast rights of roughly a third of the league due to the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings at Diamond Sports Group (which owns Bally Sports Network), a slate of typically high-spending clubs running into top-level luxury tax penalties, and the large contingent of Boras Corporation clients atop the free agent market. Rival agents, according to both The Athletic and ESPN, have pushed the idea that Meyer is influenced and ideologically aligned with the Boras Corporation more than other agencies. Meyer called allegations of Boras’ influence on collective bargaining negotiations “absurd” back in 2021 and has continued to push back on them.
The presence of Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger, Jordan Montgomery, Matt Chapman (and to a lesser extent, J.D. Martinez) lingering atop the market into the late stages of spring training has been an oft-cited point throughout the winter. Someone as vocal as Scott Boras is always going to have his share of detractors — both in terms of rival agents and a vocal portion of the MLB fanbase that sees him as bad for the game.
It’s undeniably been a tough offseason for the top clients of the game’s most recognizable agent, though it’s worth pointing out that beyond the “Boras Four,” his agency has negotiated Major League contracts for 13 other free agents (Jung Hoo Lee, Rhys Hoskins, Sean Manaea, Nick Martinez, Kenta Maeda, Erick Fedde and Frankie Montas among them). That’s not presented as a means of defending the series of disappointing outcomes for the top of this year’s class but rather to simply provide context on the offseason as a whole. Both reports suggest that fellow agents are the root of a good bit of the pushback regarding Boras and whatever influence he may or may not have, though it stands to reason that many clients of those rival agencies harbor similar suspicions.
More concerning than the top end of the market stalling out — at least for many players — is the fading middle class of free agency. Surprising as it may be to see players like Bellinger and Snell settling on short-term deals with opt outs, it’s surely every bit as concerning for players to see veterans like Gio Urshela ($1.5MM), Amed Rosario ($1.5MM) and Adam Duvall ($3MM) sign for a relative pittance after struggling to find much of a market.
Also telling is the dwindling number of long-term free agent deals. There were 17 contracts of four or more years doled out in free agency last offseason. In the 2021-22 offseason, 19 such deals were brokered. During the current offseason, there have been 11 deals of four-plus seasons — five of which went to international free agents coming over from the KBO or from NPB. Only six established MLB free agents have signed a four-year deal (or longer) this offseason, and one of those was reliever Wandy Peralta, who took an uncommon opt-out laden structure with a light AAV after apparently not finding a deal more commensurate with market norms for a setup reliever of his caliber.
As far as the Davis situation is concerned, it’s understandable if players are uneasy with the manner in which things transpired. Davis’ agent, Matt Hannaford of ALIGND Sports, has accused the Giants of negotiating in bad faith, making only one offer less than an hour before the deadline for players and teams to exchange figures. Hannaford said he and Davis felt they were left with little choice but to go to a hearing, which they won — only for the Giants to release Davis midway through spring training at a point when only one-sixth of his $6.9MM salary (approximately $1.15M) was guaranteed.
Davis spoke to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle about his frustrations over the manner and his concern that future instances along these same lines may occur. “If one team does this after going to arbitration then it turns into 70% of teams, what’s to stop teams from just making the lowest possible offer knowing no one will take them to arbitration?” Davis asked rhetorically. “That bothers me for future players in this situation.”
Meyer and his defenders (presumably including Clark) can point to the fact that the Davis situation was actually something that could have happened (and in the past has happened) to any player — and not just the ones who go to an arbitration hearing. Under prior collective bargaining agreements, all arbitration salaries were non-guaranteed unless specifically negotiated otherwise (which was rare). Any player who’d agreed to a one-year deal in arbitration was subject to the same rules: they could be cut for 30 days’ termination pay (roughly one-sixth their salary) with 15 or more days remaining in camp or for 45 days’ termination pay with fewer than 15 days until the season commenced.
That the majority of players were protected from this fate was viewed as a win for the union. Of course, Davis’ concerns that some clubs could just make low-ball offers, push for hearings and then move on from fringe players who best their teams in a hearing is not without merit.
Other perceived wins for players under the leadership of Clark and Meyer were the increase of minimum salary ($570K in 2021; $740K in 2024), the creation of a pre-arbitration bonus pool for young players, a draft lottery designed to cut back on aggressive tanking/rebuilding, and notable increases to the base thresholds for the luxury tax/competitive balance tax ($210MM in 2021; $237MM in 2024). In exchange, the players conceded to the creation of a fourth luxury tier with particularly stiff penalties and the expansion of the playoff field from 10 to 12 teams — among other elements.
Clark has not made a formal declaration on Meyer’s future with the union. Unrest notwithstanding, it’s not yet clear whether any significant changes to union leadership will be made.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Mar 19, 2024 19:27:27 GMT -5
Scott Boras, Harry Marino Discuss MLBPA Dispute
By Darragh McDonald | March 19, 2024 at 6:00pm CDT
Recent reporting has painted a picture of a divided MLBPA, where some players are pushing for deputy director Bruce Meyer to be replaced by Harry Marino. One of the charges coming from the pro-Marino camp are that Meyer and executive director Tony Clark are too aligned with agent Scott Boras. Evan Drellich of The Athletic spoke to Boras and Marino while also reporting on various other factors of the feud.
“If you have great ideas, and you want those ideas to be promulgated in a manner that is beneficial to the union and the players they represent, you go to Tony Clark with your plan,” Boras said. “You discuss it with him first, and the many lawyers in the union. If you have issues with the union and you want to be involved with the union, you take your ideas to them. You do not take them publicly, you do not create this coup d’etat and create really a disruption inside the union. If your goal is to help players, it should never be done this way.”
Marino also provided comment: “The players who sought me out want a union that represents the will of the majority. Scott Boras is rich because he makes — or used to make — the richest players in the game richer. That he is running to the defense of Tony Clark and Bruce Meyer this morning is genuinely alarming.”
It’s understandable why there is frustration among the players right now, as the offseason has clearly not been kind to them. Many notable free agents remained unsigned into Spring Training and some are even languishing on the open market right now. Various teams are claiming to be at their respective spending limits, often due to uncertainty around TV revenue or competitive balance tax concerns.
Players like Jordan Montgomery, J.D. Martinez, Michael Lorenzen, Brandon Belt, Donovan Solano, Tommy Pham, Robbie Grossman and many others are currently unattached. In recent weeks, players like Michael A. Taylor, Adam Duvall, Tim Anderson, Gio Urshela, Amed Rosario, Randal Grichuk and others have signed for $5MM or less. Players like Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman were predicted for nine-figure deals at the start of the offseason but had to recently pivot to short-term, opt-out laden pacts.
On top of that, the players seem to have been rankled by the peculiar situation involving J.D. Davis and the Giants. He and the club went to an arbitration hearing, which he won, as the arbiters awarded him a $6.9MM salary for this year instead of the $6.5MM figure the club sought. Arbitration salaries are guaranteed if the sides avoid a hearing but not if they go to one. After the Giants signed Chapman and no longer needed Davis as their third baseman, they released him, only owing him 30 days’ termination pay of $1.11MM. He later signed with the Athletics for a $2.5MM guarantee and $1MM of incentives. Even if he unlocks all those bonuses, he’s still wind up losing more than $2MM by this series of events.
Casey Mize, the Tigers’ MLBPA player rep, spoke to Drellich about the various issues causing the upset. “I think if you went around the room and asked, I think everybody would give you a different answer,” Mize said. “Coming off the heels of this free agency is a pretty glaring one. But there’s tons of details. You could look at the J.D. Davis situation. You could look at free agency. I think you could look at the taxes of the CBT (competitive balance tax) stuff. So many guys are going to give you different answers, whether it’s service time or whatever. I don’t want to get into details of what frustrates me or what I heard last night, but in general, we’re just looking for ways to get better. Those are discussions we have all the time, and yeah, we had one last night.”
Drellich reports that this winter’s frustration has “banded together some agents and players” who have had past dissatisfaction with the union but without being spurred into action until now. The earlier reporting had suggested there was a “strained” relationship between Marino and Meyer, and Drellich depicts a split in the MLBPA between a Marino camp and a Meyer camp. The report adds that the fates of Clark and Meyer are tied, so that both would depart the MLBPA if Marino has enough support to be put into a leadership position. A scenario where Marino effectively replaces Meyer and works alongside Clark is seen as unlikely at this point.
Though it’s plain to see why the players may not be thrilled with the developments of this offseason, it’s surprising from a distance to see such animosity bubbling out into the public, as this isn’t the first time the players have faced difficulties with the economics of baseball. The executive director of the MLBPA has historically been a lawyer or labor leader, but Clark became the first former player to hold the position in 2013. The 2016-21 collective bargaining agreement, this first of his tenure, was widely panned for being a poor result for the players. Meyer was brought aboard in 2018 to help negotiate the next CBA, bringing with him his three decades of experience working with the player unions of the NBA, NHL and NFL.
It was generally perceived that the players made some gains with the current CBA that came out of the 2021-22 lockout. The minimum salary went up from $570K to $700K in 2022, and would continue to have annual increases, set to be $740K in the upcoming season. A pre-arbitration bonus pool was created to get more money to younger players. Salaries for arbitration-eligible players, which were previously not guaranteed for any of them, became guaranteed for those that avoided a hearing. A draft lottery was implemented with the hope of disincentivizing tanking.
The competitive balance tax lines also moved up noticeably, with the base threshold going from $210MM in 2021 to $230MM in 2022, further increasing annually with that threshold at $237MM this year. The other two thresholds holds moved up by comparable amounts. Though the current CBA did feature the addition of the fourth line, whereas there had previously only been three.
Harry Marino, meanwhile, led the effort to unionize minor leaguers. The MLBPA eventually became the collective bargaining arm of minor league players, which led to the first ever CBA for minor leaguers. Marino left the MLBPA after that, with Drellich reporting that his relationship with Meyer “soured significantly” during their time working together on that, but Marino appears to have resurfaced as the attempts to push out Meyer and/or Clark have gained momentum.
The exact nature of those disagreements isn’t clear but it seems that the frustrating offseason has brought them back to the surface and divided the players corps. It appears Marino and those in his camp are accusing Clark and Meyer of being too aligned with Boras. This is a charge that has arisen before, with Meyer calling it “absurd” back in 2021.
Drellich points out that Boras was upset when the players accepted the current CBA, believing they should have held out for more, particularly in terms of pushing the CBT. Though he also adds that many other players and agents viewed things from the opposite side. Based on the wording of Marino’s statement above, it appears his argument stems from the accusation that the union focuses too much on the “richest” players to the harm of others.
The MLBPA has an executive board that consists of 72 members and it was reported earlier today that 38 of those are major leaguers and 34 are minor leaguers. This report from Drellich specially mentions Jack Flaherty, Lucas Giolito and Ian Happ as players that are both on the board and also Marino supporters.
How Marino would do things differently to the Clark/Meyer leadership is unclear. Per Drellich, Marino’s supporters have been circulating a PowerPoint presentation consisting of eight slides. The full details of this aren’t clear but it apparently questions some of the MLBPA’s own spending decisions, in addition to the recent CBA negotiations.
Supporters of the Clark/Meyer camp, on the other hand, are pointing to track record. Meyer, as mentioned, has three decades of experience working with player unions in other sports. He has only been with the MLBPA since 2018 but has already gone toe-to-toe with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and deputy commissioner Dan Halem, enduring a lockout that lasted more than three months and saw the players make some of the aforementioned gains. The Davis situation, though understandably frustrating, was possible with all arbitration-eligible players until this current CBA. While the new deal didn’t close that loop completely, it at least made arbitration salaries guaranteed for those who avoid a hearing. The CBT impacting league spending is also understandably annoying, but those thresholds moved up considerably with this CBA.
Marino, meanwhile, is just 33 years old and has far less on his résumé. Drellich relays that MLB found Meyer difficult to deal with and would be happy to see him go, something his defenders point to as a positive. As Drellich also points out, the league is naturally happy with any discord between the players as it will only help them in negotiating future CBAs.
Per today’s reporting, it seems the outcome is a binary, where the union will either stay the course with Clark/Meyer or make a significant pivot by going with a largely unknown quantity in Marino, a decision that could have ramifications for the players for years to come. The current CBA runs through the 2026 season.
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Post by scrappyunderdog on Mar 19, 2024 20:08:36 GMT -5
Scott Boras, Harry Marino Discuss MLBPA Dispute
By Darragh McDonald | March 19, 2024 at 6:00pm CDT Marino also provided comment: “The players who sought me out want a union that represents the will of the majority. Scott Boras is rich because he makes — or used to make — the richest players in the game richer. That he is running to the defense of Tony Clark and Bruce Meyer this morning is genuinely alarming.” That doesn't sound the right move by Marino. He's already looking to ax Clark and Meyer, and now he wants to fight Boras? Most of the other agents will side with Boras, imo, if for no other reason than self-defense
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Post by scrappyunderdog on Mar 19, 2024 20:13:21 GMT -5
Column: Invite or no, Schilling should stay away on Wakefield’s day
By Gabrielle Starr | gstarr@bostonherald.com March 19, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. So it was an unpleasant surprise when the Sox announced new home opener details on Monday, and the press release specifically noted, “All members of the 2004 team are invited.” Schilling is a RS icon. Gabrielle has the option of staying home.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Mar 20, 2024 16:48:25 GMT -5
An offseason of discontent could lead to big changes for MLBPA Travis Sawchik 8h ago
Talk of labor unrest in baseball is usually confined to the period when the players' union and the league lock horns over their next long-term collective bargaining agreement.
But labor unrest was revealed this week when several reporters, including Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic, reported that player leadership demanded the removal of executive director Tony Clark's No. 2 man, Bruce Meyer. Meyer was the lead negotiator of the last collective bargaining agreement.
Many players increasingly, it seems, don't like what they signed up for in the last cycle of talks.
Agents theScore spoke with believe issues go far beyond Meyer, though. There are questions about Clark's leadership and the outsized influence that agent Scott Boras has on the MLBPA. For some, it's as if Boras essentially runs the union.
Boras told The Athletic that the union uprising was a "coup" led by former MLBPA lawyer Harry Marino and that it should "never be done."
Marino responded by saying, "players who sought me out want a union that represents the will of the majority. Scott Boras is rich because he makes - or used to make - the richest players in the game richer. That he is running to the defense of Tony Clark and Bruce Meyer this morning is genuinely alarming."
A growing fracture was already apparent in the last collective bargaining cycle. The players' eight-man executive board voted unanimously against the deal. The board was heavily represented by top-earning veterans, five of whom are represented by Boras. The larger voting group, one representative per club, voted 26-4 to adopt the proposal, which ended the lockout.
Those votes for the deal were largely tied to the interests of the most common type of player: the younger or late-blooming athlete who's playing for team-mandated pre-arbitration pay. They wanted to play, needed to play, and they wanted to enjoy the minimum wage hike and pre-arb bonus pool money that was bargained for in the agreement. (While there was a sizable increase to the minimum salary, the league's minimum still ranks among the lowest of major North American sports.)
Union leadership and Boras himself like to espouse a philosophy of an open labor market that has no salary cap or floor, and where superstars' megadeals will be a rising tide that lifts all boats. Increasingly, teams have been able to short-circuit those trickle-down economics by relying on younger players and squeezing the veteran middle class.
The majority of players never reach arbitration before their careers end. More than 60% of major leaguers play for pre-arb salaries at or near the minimum wage. Given recent improvements in player development, the quality of young players keeps improving. No other major sport leans on minimum-salaried athletes like MLB.
In the middle are players like Adam Duvall (one year, $3 million), Tim Anderson (one year, $5 million), and Amed Rosario (one year, $1.5 million), who had to settle for modest deals below what should be their market value.
Adding to the complexity is Boras' performance this offseason. He's having perhaps his worst offseason relative to expectations. Hot-stove conversations were dominated by the fate of four of his clients - pitchers Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery, and hitters Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman. They were expected to be the most sought-after free agents after Shohei Ohtani. Yet they began spring training unsigned.
FanGraphs' crowdsourcing efforts projected Bellinger, Chapman, and Snell to earn a combined 15 years and $349 million this offseason. The trio instead inked deals for a combined eight years and $196 million. Montgomery remains unsigned.
"It's too bad, but it is a reflection of the current system," Greg Bouris, a sports management professor at Adelphi University and former MLBPA official, told me last month. "Unfortunately, the 0-to-3 class of players (pre-arbitration) have become more valuable than the other two classes: arbitration-eligible players and free agents.
"The historical challenge for the union has been to make sure that no class of player becomes more valuable than others. But because of advanced analytics and relatively low minimum salary, loading up on the 0-3s makes operational and budgetary sense."
The union has fought hard against a salary cap for decades, but teams have become disciplined enough to make the luxury tax into a ceiling on overall spending. There's also no salary floor, which would force teams to spend to a minimum on payroll.
Getting squeezed from all sides, it's no wonder the rank and file is voicing its anger. The next CBA talks are still a few years away, but in calls for leadership changes, players are signaling that they want a much different deal next time around.
Travis Sawchik is theScore's senior baseball writer.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Mar 21, 2024 20:05:42 GMT -5
Latest On MLBPA Leadership
By Steve Adams | March 21, 2024 at 5:17pm CDT
With under a week until the season starts and with three seasons remaining on the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement, there’s been an atypical amount of drama pertaining to the MLB Players Association this week. Monday evening, reports emerged that a contingent of players has voiced a desire for executive director Tony Clark to replace deputy director Bruce Meyer, swapping him out for 33-year-old lawyer Harry Marino, the former head of Advocates For Minor Leaguers who negotiated the sport’s first minor league collective bargaining agreement alongside Meyer.
As one would expect, there are various lenses through which the current drama is being viewed. Reporting from Jeff Passan of ESPN, from Bob Nightengale of USA Today and from Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic offer various glimpses at a layered, complex and — to some degree — contentious situation that could have historic ramifications on the state of labor within Major League Baseball. Chandler Rome of The Athletic, meanwhile, has published an exhaustive Q&A with Astros player rep and MLBPA executive subcommittee member Lance McCullers Jr. MLBTR readers seeking to get a full grasp of the current state of affairs are encouraged to read all of these pieces in full so as to best formulate an opinion on the matter, but some of the key takeaways are as follows.
Passan broadly suggests that Marino has worked to rally a contingent of players — primarily minor leaguers, whom he knows from his time working to unionize Minor League Baseball — to gain momentum toward a change in power. The now-former MLBPA counsel — Marino left the union last summer after brokering the minor league CBA — has also spent the spring conducting secret meetings with players who are their teams’ union representatives, per Passan. Marino has deliberately avoided clients of the Boras Corporation, Passan adds, wary of the perception that Scott Boras has a heavy influence over the union — Meyer specifically. (Meyer has vehemently denied any such allegations in the past.)
Marino himself refuted the notion that he’s orchestrated a coup attempt within the ranks of the MLBPA. In a statement to Passan, he laid out that players to whom he’s spoken want to know how their union dues are being spent and that they want a new direction for collective bargaining, while also conceding that there’s some understandable skepticism regarding his youth, experience and general unknown background among big leaguers who didn’t work with him during his efforts to establish the minor league union.
Marino’s critics, according to Passan, suggest Marino has ties to agencies in the same manner he alleges to be the case with Meyer/Boras — CAA and WME — and that they’re fearful he could be more amenable to a salary cap than prior union leaders, who’ve considered the issue a strict nonstarter. Others — particularly those whose teams were excluded from Marino’s series of meetings because of his trepidation regarding Boras — feel blindsided by his efforts and think they run counter to the unity he’s preached.
Discontent regarding Meyer isn’t necessarily new, however. Drellich and Rosenthal report there have been multiple requests to make a change over the years — the preference for Marino is simply the latest among them. That decision ultimately comes down to Clark, a fact that has rankled some members of the union. The Athletic’s report wonders whether frustration over Clark’s ostensible decision to side with Meyer despite an apparent majority in favor of implementing a change could lead to a vote on Clark’s status as the union’s executive director.
That’s far from a certainty. For one, Passan notes that Clark is well liked among players on a personal level — even among those who don’t always agree with the union’s direction. Moreover, there’s on-record support from multiple prominent union voices for Clark. In his Q&A with Rome, McCullers makes clear that he “absolutely [has] faith” in Clark and that many union members share his stance. The MLBPA just extended Clark’s contract by five years back in 2022. McCullers also praised the job Meyer has done, saying the MLBPA is in a “much better place” now than when Meyer was hired. He acknowledged that the deputy director’s tenure is up in the air at the moment but doubled down that the decision is Clark’s to make.
Of course, as many readers are aware, McCullers is a client of the Boras Corporation. That might prompt skeptics to be dismissive of the right-hander’s support for Clark and Meyer. But Passan also spoke to former MLBPA executive subcommittee member Andrew Miller — a client of Frontline Athlete Management — who echoed McCullers’ sentiments that he’s never seen or experienced anything that’d cause him to lend credence to the Boras narrative. Miller noted that Meyer was “always a professional,” even when he didn’t see eye-to-eye with him personally.
I believe what [Meyer] has been quoted as saying about it not being true,” said Miller. “It’s not something I ever saw that was worrying to me.”
One of Miller’s former peers on the union’s executive subcommittee, Daniel Murphy, offered a different take — without speculating about a possible Meyer/Boras relationship. Murphy spoke more broadly in favor of new leadership, telling Passan “…guys are finally seeing the truth.”
Boras, who’s already publicly taken shots at Marino and denied having the sort of cloak-and-dagger influence over the union as portrayed in that common narrative, again spoke candidly on the matter after yesterday’s Blake Snell press conference with the Giants. Nightengale quotes Boras again blasting Marino, this time for deliberately excluding his clients in a move he suggests won’t be well received by the union membership as a whole.
“Go to the union,” said Boras. “Be upfront. Let them know what your plan is. If it’s a better plan, we should all listen. We’re not denying information. But when you take a course of secrecy, selectivity, and denial of information from a category of major leaguers, you’re not going to be well-received by the totality of the group.”
Boras further pushed back on the narrative that he holds great influence in the union, noting that he thought the MLBPA accepted a deal too soon during the last wave of collective bargaining — particularly calling out the concessions the union made within the amateur draft. He also took a not-so-subtly veiled shot at Marino and his lack of experience in negotiations of this magnitude.
“I can tell you clear and convincingly that labor expertise and CBA direction is a science of itself,” Boras said. “It requires great expertise. You have to have experience. You don’t see Major League Baseball going in and placing inexperienced people to head a negotiation on their behalf.”
Suffice it to say, there’s a broad range of opinions on the current leadership within the union, on Boras’ influence (or lack thereof), and on how the group should move forward. Some of the Boras narrative could stem from the fact that five of the eight members of the executive subcommittee are Boras clients, but both McCullers and Miller rather firmly disputed the popular characterization. Boras did as well, firmly stating that he “operates for [his] players individually” and “not for the union.”
One notable takeaway comes from McCullers, in particular, who suggested that the entire characterization that the union is weak right now is misconstrued. Rather, McCullers points to the divide in opinions as a symbol of strength — as it’s indicative that member interest and involvement is at an all-time high.
“Typically in the past, it was like the player reps had to almost, I don’t want to say pull teeth, but almost had to really engage guys and really try to get a sense of what they feel and then go to the subcommittee,” McCullers explained. “…I think now, you’re seeing all players across the board — not even guys on the subcommittee, not even guys who are actually player reps — wanting to be involved and wanting to have their voices heard. I think that’s where this is coming from. Guys want a clear, decisive path that all players are behind. I think that’s good. Maybe people want to push the narrative that the union is weak, but at the end of the day, I think the union is strong.”
McCullers noted that the engagement spans all ranks of players, from minor leaguers on the bottom end of the earning scale to the game’s top-paid stars. He recalled an anecdote from the last wave of collective bargaining talks:
“Gerrit Cole is pounding the table on year two of his nine-year free agency deal … and literally said ‘I will miss the entire year if that’s what I have to do to help advance player rights in the CBA.’ He has nothing to gain from that. All he has is money to lose. You’ve seen guys over the history of our union, especially this last CBA, willing to make big sacrifices that matter to them and that affect them negatively only.”
For now, there’s no action that’ll be forced. Clark has heard opinions on Meyer’s status, but the decision on his deputy director’s future lies with Clark alone — for now. Drellich, Rosenthal and Passan all suggest that Marino could attempt to force a vote on Clark’s very status within the union — a full-scale powerplay to install himself atop the union hierarchy. That’d be potentially damaging in its own right, however, as a massive portion of his supporting contingent lies with minor league players and not established big leaguers who form the foundation of the union and who hold a larger number of executive board and executive subcommittee seats.
Time will tell whether Clark feels enough pressure to make a move or whether Marino and his supporters attempt to further force the issue. What’s clear right now is that there are multiple factions, each with their own view of the unrest among the union, even though there are those among the group who will contest that the increased engagement is a sign of strength and good sign for the long-term health of the organization, contrary as it may seem.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Mar 22, 2024 5:28:21 GMT -5
MLB Notebook: 24 predictions about the ‘24 MLB season
Published: Mar. 21, 2024, 10:04 p.m.
By
Sean McAdam | sean.mcadam@masslive.com
Opening Day — at least for 28 of the 30 teams, with the Dodgers and Padres having already gotten underway — is on the near horizon and with it will come plenty of surprises.
It may be folly to try to predict what’s going to unfold over the next six months, since there will be plenty of twists and turns along the way.
But we thought we’d give it a try. So, here are 24 predictions about the 2024 season:
1) AL East order of finish: 1) Baltimore 2) New York (WC) 3) Toronto 4) Red Sox 5) Tampa Bay.
The Orioles won 101 games last year, have a seemingly endless supply of talent in their pipeline and added the No. 1 starter (Corbin Burnes) they lacked. The Yankees will miss Gerrit Cole in the first half and there legitimate questions about their rotation. But they will mash and will outhit their pitching issues. The Blue Jays may have the best rotation in the division, but the lineup doesn’t scare anyone. The Red Sox will be barely over .500 with a number of pitchers (Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck) taking the necessary next steps. The Rays are usually better than they should be, but this year looks like a step back.
2) AL Central order of finish: 1) Minnesota 2) Cleveland 3) Kansas City 4) Detroit 5) Chicago. The Twins now win this division somewhat by default, but have a lot of talent. The Guardians boast homegrown starters, but an anemic lineup. Kansas City spent a surprising amount in free agency, but that will only take them so far. The Tigers’ rebuilding effort has stalled out. Chicago is stockpiling prospects, but the major league roster is a mess.
3) AL West order of finish: 1) Seattle 2) Texas (WC) 3) Houston (WC) 4) Los Angeles 5) Oakland. The Mariners should have done more to get better, but their rotation is the class of the league. The Rangers hope to just hang on until injured pitchers return. Houston’s window may be closing and the pitching is thin. Arte Moreno continues to be in denial, consigning his team to the bottom. Can the A’s survive relegation before they move to Vegas?
4) ALCS: Baltimore over Seattle in six games. Two teams who haven’t won in a while fight for the pennant.
5) NL East order of finish: 1) Atlanta 2) Philadelphia (WC) 3) New York 4) Miami 5) Washington. The Braves may not have quite the star power of the Dodgers, but they may have more talent from top-to-bottom. The Phillies are going for it (again) and will be a tough out in October. The Mets seem caught in some competitive limbo and appear destined for .500. Miami can’t get any traction despite an impressive pitching staff. The Nationals are finding that the road back to contention is a long one.
6) NL Central order of finish: 1) Chicago 2) Cincinnati 3) St. Louis 4) Milwaukee 5) Pittsburgh. The Cubs just missed the postseason last year and are the best of a mediocre lot. The Reds have plenty of young pitching, but aren’t quite ready to win yet. The Cardinals opted for a veteran rotation via free agency, but injuries are already an issue. The Brewers lost their best starter and one of the game’s best managers and will pay the price. The Pirates keep spinning their wheels.
7) NL West order of finish: 1) Los Angeles 2) San Francisco (WC) 3) San Diego (WC) 4) Arizona 5) Colorado. The Dodgers have enormous talent, but some obvious holes, too. Who knows how distraction the Ohtani scandal becomes. The Giants have two front-of-the-rotation starters and that should get them to the postseason. San Diego has lousy chemistry, but the talent exists. The Diamondbacks managed to sneak into the playoff, but are due for some regression. The Rockies never matter.
8) NLCS Atlanta over Los Angeles in seven games. It’s likely this is the real World Series, with the two best teams in the game squaring off in an epic battle for the National League pennant.
9) World Series: Atlanta over Baltimore in five games
10) AL MVP: Julio Rodriguez. It’s hard to think of a more talented player, and if the Mariners have a strong season, Rodriguez could become one of the faces of the game.
11) AL Cy Young: Logan Gilbert. In a stacked rotation, Gilbert looks poised to enjoy his breakout season.
12) AL Rookie of the Year: Wyatt Langford. He could split votes with fellow teammate Evan Carter, but that’s a nice problem for the defending champs to have.
13) First AL manager fired: AJ Hinch. This is Hinch’s fourth season in the Motor City and progress has been almost non-existent.
14) NL MVP: Fernando Tatis Jr. Incredible talent and now a year removed from a PED suspension and some injuries, Tatis enjoys a statement season.
15) NL Cy Young: Spencer Strider. Owner of perhaps the most electric fastball for any starter in the game, Strider is ready to take his game to the next level.
16) NL Rookie of the Year: Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Sure there were struggles in spring training and in his first start. But there’s no denying the raw stuff and command.
17) First NL manager fired: Derek Shelton. Shelton owns a .399 winning percentage over parts of five seasons, and while that’s hardly all his fault, it’s hard to see him surviving the season.
18) Red Sox MVP: Triston Casas. After the All-Star break last season, Casas posted a 1.034 OPS and his homer total, prorated for an entire season, would have translated to 45 for the season. This is a star in the making.
19) Biggest Red Sox disappointment: Tyler O’Neill. O’Neill has plenty of talent, but in his career in St. Louis, he couldn’t stay on the field. It’s been more of the same in spring training.
20) Biggest Red Sox landmine: Starting pitching depth. The Red Sox are perilously thin behind their own rotation and reserve bullpen options like Josh Winckowski and Cooper Criswell, with no experienced arms at Triple A. It remains a mystery why the team didn’t sign more 4A starting pitchers. It can’t be because pitchers and their agents didn’t see opportunities here, which is often the biggest impediment to signing depth pieces.
21) First Red Sox callup to make an impact: Kyle Teel. Teel could have a quick climb up the organizational ladder, and it’s not hard to imagine him being with the parent club after the trade deadline, by which time he could be ready to share the catching load.
22) Most likely to be traded by the deadline: Tie: Kenley Jansen, Chris Martin. Teams in contention are almost looking to improve their bullpens, so it stands to reason that so long as they remain healthy, both Martin and Jansen — each on expiring deals — would attract significant interest. Another possibility: Nick Pivetta, who is also headed for free agency.
23) First move of the Red Sox offseason: Alex Cora and the Red Sox “mutually agree to part ways.” Again. It happened before before the start of the 2020 season when Cora’s role in the 2017 Astros sign-stealing incident became public. This time, Cora’s deal is expiring. Can Cora wring enough wins out of the current roster to convince Craig Breslow to offer him a multi-year extension. And that’s assuming Cora wants to stay, which would seem to be an open question.
24) Wild card move: Sam Kennedy resigns as team president and CEO. Kennedy was recently appointed president and CEO of Fenway Sports Group, the huge conglomerate which oversees not only the Red Sox, but also Liverpool AC, the Pittsburgh Penguins, Roush Racing and PGA investments. In his newly-expanded role, Kennedy may feel he no longer has the time to devote solely to the Sox, so a change at the top wouldn’t be shocking.
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What’s going on in the Red Sox bullpen?
Kenley Jansen, the current closer, is a native of Curacao, but a big fan of the Los Angeles Lakers. Now, the man who could well replace him as the team’s closer, Liam Hendriks, a native of Australia, and is oddly a big fan of the Montreal Canadiens.
Are they trying to anger Red Sox fans?
Hendriks, who signed a two-year deal with the Red Sox earlier this spring and hopes to be ready to pitch in the second half, knows his choice of favorite hockey team likely won’t endear him to Boston sports teams.
“My wife (a dual citizen of Canada and the U.S.) was a figure skater back in the day,” explained Hendriks recently. “When we started dating, it was, ‘You don’t like baseball. Let’s be honest — a bunch of prima donnas out there.’ Compared to hockey, where you run into each other, you pick your teeth up off the ice and you keep going. She was like, ‘This is a real sport.’ So I started watching it. We were living down here (in Fort Myers in the offseason) and we’d go to the Everblades’ games (an ECHL minor league hockey team based in southwest Florida).
“We started to follow hockey a little bit more, but we didn’t really have a team or an affiliation. So we were struggling to get into it. She spent time in Quebec City growing up and obviously, the Nordiques aren’t there anymore, and the closest team is Montreal. So I looked into it. I had no idea. I didn’t know anything about it. And that’s how it all started. We went from there.”
Hendriks said he initially didn’t know that the Habs had won more Stanley Cups than any team in NHL history. And the Canadiens haven’t won a Cup in more than 30 years, so he can’t be accused of front-running.
Hendriks has seen the Canadiens play in person a few times, including several times in Phoenix during spring training. He and his wife also attended the Winter Classic between Montreal and the B’s in Foxboro in 2016, driving from Delaware to Washington D.C., flying to Boston and driving to Foxboro to make it in time.
“It may not be a popular choice for the last two place I’ve played in (Chicago and now Boston), both being Original Six cities,” he said chuckling. “But it’s my team.”
Hendriks has fallen in love with the sport and won’t apologize for his allegiance.
“I just love hockey,” he said. “I’m not a person who’s going to hope another team loses just out of spite. So unless they’re playing the Habs, I’m fine with the Bruins (doing well). Plus, what they’ve been able to do the last couple of years with both (Linus) Ullmark and (Jeremy) Swayman has been impressive.”
He owns a Patrick Roy jersey. He’s worn No. 31, a traditional goalie number in hockey, and as a reliever, identifies with goalies — both because they’re similarly the last line of defense for their teams and their reputation as free spirits. As such, he likes Carey Price, and also, noted Montreal’s scrappy Brendan Gallagher.
“He just annoys the crap out everyone,” said Hendriks of Gallagher, “which I embrace. I love it. He’s sacrificing his own game for the betterment of the team, which is something I can relate to.”
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Mar 23, 2024 10:30:20 GMT -5
SUNDAY BASEBALL NOTES Early projections for award winners and other story lines for the 2024 baseball season By Peter Abraham Globe Staff,Updated March 23, 2024, 1 hour ago
Paul Goldschmidt and Manny Machado finished first and second in National League Most Valuable Player voting in 2022 but didn’t receive a single vote last season.
It wasn’t injuries. Goldschmidt played 154 games and Machado 138.
Corey Seager finished second to Shohei Ohtani in American League voting last season after not receiving any votes in 2022.
Baseball is a mystery. So don’t take predictions for this season as being rooted in anything but semi-educated guessing. Especially these.
AL MVP: Juan Soto (Yankees). Soto is overdue to win his first MVP and he should benefit from being part of such a dangerous lineup. RBIs still matter for a lot of voters and Soto should pile them up. Gunnar Henderson (Orioles) and Kyle Tucker (Astros) could make a run.
NL MVP: Mookie Betts (Dodgers). If he’s the regular shortstop and puts up another season with huge numbers for a first-place team, who’s going to stop him? Maybe Ronald Acuña Jr. (Braves) or Corbin Carroll (Diamondbacks).
AL Cy Young: Tarik Skubal (Tigers). One common line of conversation among scouts in Florida has been how good Skubal looks. With Gerrit Cole expected to miss at least a month, the door is open for Skubal, Corbin Burnes (Orioles), and Framber Valdez (Astros).
NL Cy Young: Spencer Strider (Braves). At 25, it feels like his time has come after striking out 281 and finishing fourth last season. His competition will come from teammate Max Fried and Zack Wheeler (Phillies).
AL Rookie of the Year: Jackson Holliday (Orioles). An obvious choice, but it’s impossible to ignore his talent. He didn’t make the team out of spring training but could earn a quick promotion. Rangers outfielders Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford will be heard. Maybe some votes for Ceddanne Rafaela of the Red Sox?
NL Rookie of the Year: Jung Hoo Lee (Giants). Experienced players from other professional leagues should not be considered rookies. But they are, so Lee is a solid choice given how well he has hit in spring training. Jackson Chourio of the Brewers could sneak in there and the Dodgers expect big things from Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
AL Manager of the Year: Matt Quatraro (Royals). There’s a chance the Royals don’t stink. Granted, that’s not a very high bar. But it would be an accomplishment. Alex Cora should get a parade if the Red Sox finish .500.
NL Manager of the Year: Mike Shildt (Padres). San Diego is going to be better than predicted. If nothing else, the expectations aren’t as high. For $8 million a year, Craig Counsell better have the Cubs ready.
On-field story of the season: Rule changes are going to be an issue again. MLB cut two seconds off the pitch clock with no men on base, angering pitchers. Umpires also have been told to call obstruction more aggressively.
There will be a major ruckus if a game gets decided by such a call. It’s bound to happen.
Off-field story of the season: There’s a brewing civil war within the Players Association as a group of players affiliated with certain agents are trying to oust deputy director Bruce Meyer. Clients of Scott Boras oppose the effort.
The turmoil could lead to the resignation of executive director Tony Clark, who has held the job since 2013.
Harry Marino, who led the successful unionization efforts in the minor leagues before briefly working for the MLBPA, is involved in the dispute. He’s a 33-year-old former minor league player.
QUIET PLEASE? Houck prepares in his own way
One of the unwritten rules of baseball is not to talk to the starting pitcher before the game.
Other than the pitching coach and catcher, the pitcher is supposed to be left alone to contemplate the task at hand. Or something like that.
Tanner Houck, a Midwesterner with the laid-back cool of a California surfer, doesn’t always see it that way. He prepared for a spring training start against the Yankees earlier this month by launching jump shots at the basketball hoop in the clubhouse and challenging Kenley Jansen to a game of HORSE.
“That’s just me,” Houck said after pitching well against New York. “Have some fun each day then go out there and do your job. Just build camaraderie in any way. It’s a long season. I’m always high energy.” Related: Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock are officially put into Red Sox’ rotation
Houck played basketball at Collinsville (Ill.) High through his junior year before devoting himself to baseball.
“I realized my calling,” Houck said. “Baseball was definitely the right option. I started focusing on working out. I knew where I wanted to be and the sacrifices that had to be made. It was a tough decision at the time because I loved playing basketball.”
Houck said Cooper Criswell is the best hooper on the team. Not Jansen?
“He tries hard,” Houck said.
A few other observations on the Red Sox:
▪ Brayan Bello has a chance to be a very good pitcher. But let’s ease up with the “next Pedro” stuff.
Other than being Dominican and throwing with his right arm, the comparisons end there. There was one Pedro Martinez, a unique blend of intelligence, skill, and competitive fire.
Bello is 14-19 with a 4.37 ERA through his age-24 season. Martinez was 48-31, 3.39 through the same juncture en route to being a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Bello, or any other pitcher, would do well to be half as good as Martinez.
▪ The biggest knock on Kutter Crawford last season was that he recorded only 24 outs after the fifth inning. To succeed as a starter long term, he had to condition his body to go deeper into games.
Crawford gained 6 pounds in the offseason and added some bulk. At 6 feet 1 inch, Crawford is considered short for a righthander and needed to offset that with more size.
“He’s stronger. He has bigger legs. That was the main goal in the offseason, physicality,” manager Alex Cora said. “He understands what he needs to do to get to the next level. It’s maintaining the stuff from pitch 80-100.”
▪ There’s a decent chance Tyler Heineman, Mark Kolozsvary, and Roberto Perez won’t play for the Sox this season unless Connor Wong or Reese McGuire gets injured. All three are catchers expected to be with Triple A Worcester.
But the Sox see them as valuable players. All three are defensive-minded backstops who can handle a pitching staff and execute a game plan. As the Sox work to develop pitchers, catchers with that skill set are better than bat-first types such as Jorge Alfaro they had at Triple A last season.
“It’s a different group than in the past,” Cora said. “Don’t know if it was on purpose or not, but our catcher group had a different mind-set, more in tune to what we have to do to prevent runs.”
▪ The perpetually plain-spoken Nick Pivetta was asked his thoughts on the team’s new pitching program.
“It’s been really good,” he said. “Everybody’s got their own individual plan and what they do best as a pitcher. It’s about how we get to those pitches as quickly as possible and execute those pitches in the zone and get some swings and misses.
“I think the fundamental [aspect] is very strong and it allows guys to be free and compete. Hitting is extremely hard. It’s not an easy thing to do even though they make it look easy at times.
“So having confidence in the zone is very important.”
▪ Pivetta and Lucas Giolito were teammates in 2013 with the Gulf Coast League Nationals, who went 49-9. They also were teammates in High A in 2015 until Pivetta was traded to the Phillies on July 28 for Jonathan Papelbon.
“We had the same agent [Ryan Hamill of CAA] and worked out together,” Pivetta said. “I was really excited when [the Red Sox] traded for him. It’s nice to have one of my better friends around.”
▪ Second baseman Vaughn Grissom has been the invisible man in this camp, spending most of his time working behind the scenes because of groin and hamstring injuries.
That could change soon. Grissom was on the field Thursday going through an agility workout and was moving well. But with the Sox leaving Fort Myers on Sunday, he’ll likely stay in extended spring training for a bit before joining an affiliate to get at-bats.
It’s unlikely Grissom will play in a major league game until late April, and that could be optimistic.
▪ Last week’s column mentioned the auction of the player murals at old McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket. The top sellers were Carlton Fisk ($3,200), Roger Clemens ($2,900), Jim Rice ($2,600), and Wade Boggs ($1,900). An apparently huge fan of Oil Can Boyd dropped $2,500 on his mural. On the low end, Todd Benzinger fetched $100 and Steve Lyons $200.
Proceeds went to the city of Pawtucket and charities in the city.
▪ Tickets for the Red Sox Hall of Fame induction on May 29 at Fenway Park are on sale at redsox.com/fenwayhonors.
Trot Nixon, Papelbon, Dustin Pedroia, and front office pioneer Elaine Weddington Steward will be honored. There also will be a special presentation in honor of Tim and Stacy Wakefield.
The event is expected to start at 6:45 p.m. Proceeds will benefit the Red Sox Foundation.
ETC. Gambling scandal shakes up baseball
The story that translator Ippei Mizuhara was allegedly stealing money from Shohei Ohtani to pay off gambling debts doesn’t add up.
Because California doesn’t have legalized sports betting, Mizuhara reportedly placed bets through a bookie who is now under federal investigation.
There’s little chance a bookie would let somebody employed as a translator run up $3.4 million in losses unless he knew the debt would get paid.
And wouldn’t Ohtani’s agent or financial advisers notice that much money was missing and raise a red flag? Mizuhara is a close friend of Ohtani, more like a personal assistant than simply a translator. But you must be some kind of friend to be able to access $3.4 million.
Mizuhara is a relatively famous figure within baseball because he rarely left Ohtani’s side. How did the Angels never find out a team employee was gambling millions with a bookie? How did the Dodgers not discover this when he was hired a few months ago?
MLB will want this to go away quickly. But there’s a lot there.
Whatever shakes out, this is the latest warning to Major League Baseball and other sports. As gambling becomes legalized in more states and teams partner with sports books, larger scandals are inevitable.
There’s no evidence Ohtani was involved and Mizuhara denies betting on baseball. But if the most notable player in the sport can be affected so directly, the threat is real.
Teams clearly have to do a better job of vetting employees and controlling who is around players at the ballpark or associated with the team. Extra bases
New Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto has started four games including three in spring training. His line: 10⅔ innings, 19 hits, 14 earned runs, 5 walks, 16 strikeouts, 2 wild pitches, 1 hit batter. The strikeouts are evidence why Los Angeles signed him to a 12-year, $325 million contract. But his command has been erratic, which could be the result of MLB using a different ball than Nippon Professional Baseball. Yamamoto’s first pitch in a regular-season game came against the Padres in South Korea and was crushed by Xander Bogaerts for a single with an exit velocity of 105.4 miles per hour. Yamamoto threw 43 pitches, allowed five runs, and was pulled after one inning . . . Bogaerts, by the way, has a hit in five countries: the United States, Canada, England, Mexico, and South Korea. He tied a record held by Edgardo Alfonzo and Paul Goldschmidt . . . Eduardo Rodriguez is dealing with lat tightness in his pitching shoulder, but the Diamondbacks don’t feel it’s serious. Rodriguez had a 3.30 ERA in 26 starts for the Tigers last season and should benefit greatly from working with Arizona pitching coach Brett Strom. The early returns have been positive. Rodriguez also has exhibited leadership . . . The Braves signed 35-year-old Adam Duvall to platoon with 24-year-old Jarred Kelenic in left field. Kelenic has had a rough spring training at the plate . . . Alex Verdugo paid for haircuts for any player on the Yankees roster with two years or less of service time. It was his way of fitting into the team’s culture. Verdugo also had a meeting with manager Aaron Boone to ask how many chains he could wear during games. The answer was one . . . Tampa Bay righthander Aaron Civale has faced the Red Sox in Cleveland, St. Petersburg, Fla., Fort Myers, Fla., and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, but never in Boston. The former Northeastern pitcher grew up a Sox fan and lives on Cape Cod. He’s hoping to get a start at Fenway this season . . . Nate Eovaldi is the Opening Day starter for the Rangers. It would be the righthander’s fourth such assignment in five years going back to his time with the Red Sox. Not retaining Eovaldi after the 2022 season was a bad decision by the Sox and has gotten worse over time . . . Andy Pettitte plans to be around the Yankees for 50 games or so this season to help with the pitching staff. It’s his biggest step back into baseball since retiring after the 2013 season. Joe Torre, who hasn’t had much to do with the Yankees since essentially being fired in 2007, was in camp this past week and even put on a uniform at the behest of Boone and made a pitching change. Torre, 83, is a special assistant to commissioner Rob Manfred and vice chairman of the Hall of Fame . . . MLB named All-Star teams for its Spring Breakout series. The second team included Cardinals outfielder Joshua Baez, a Boston native who attended the Dexter School in Brookline. Baez was 1 for 3 with a homer and a walk against the Marlins. Baez was a second-round pick in 2021 who has hit .219 but with a .344 OBP and 50 extra-base hits in 475 at-bats. Marlins lefthander Thomas White, a 19-year-old out of Phillips Andover, also made the second team. He threw a scoreless first inning against the Cardinals and struck out three. He was a supplemental first-round pick last year . . . The Giants and groundbreaking public address announcer Renel Brooks-Moon parted ways after 24 seasons when they couldn’t agree on a contract extension, or she was prodded out, depending on which version of the story you believe . . . Happy birthday to Bruce Hurst, who is 66. The lefty was 88-73 with a 4.23 earned run average for the Red Sox from 1980-88. He was fifth in AL Cy Young Award voting in 1988 after winning 18 games, then signed with the Padres as a free agent. Hurst was magnificent in the 1986 World Series. He allowed two earned runs over 17 innings to win Games 1 and 5 and would have been MVP had the Sox not blown Game 6. Starting on three days’ rest for Game 7, Hurst lasted six innings and allowed three runs, leaving the game when it was 3-3. A soft-spoken native of Utah, Hurst had some rough patches early in his career, even temporarily quitting the game while in Triple A in 1981. But he finished his 15-year career with 145 wins . . . This is the 250th of these columns I’ve done since Nick Cafardo died in 2019. He remains very much missed, especially with another season starting.
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Post by scrappyunderdog on Mar 23, 2024 14:11:28 GMT -5
SUNDAY BASEBALL NOTES Early projections for award winners and other story lines for the 2024 baseball seasonBy Peter Abraham Globe Staff,Updated March 23, 2024, 1 hour ago Gambling scandal shakes up baseballThe story that translator Ippei Mizuhara was allegedly stealing money from Shohei Ohtani to pay off gambling debts doesn’t add up. Because California doesn’t have legalized sports betting, Mizuhara reportedly placed bets through a bookie who is now under federal investigation. There’s little chance a bookie would let somebody employed as a translator run up $3.4 million in losses unless he knew the debt would get paid. And wouldn’t Ohtani’s agent or financial advisers notice that much money was missing and raise a red flag? Mizuhara is a close friend of Ohtani, more like a personal assistant than simply a translator. But you must be some kind of friend to be able to access $3.4 million. These will be the same questions everywhere. So far, nothing makes sense, And the only one with the answers isn't talking.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Mar 24, 2024 6:37:37 GMT -5
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Mar 24, 2024 6:43:50 GMT -5
Some Things I Think I Think: On Red Sox and Curt Schilling doing the right thing
Published: Mar. 24, 2024, 5:15 a.m.
By
Sean McAdam | sean.mcadam@masslive.com
* It’s funny how sometimes things work out.
In inviting Curt Schilling to the Opening Day ceremony that will pay tribute to both the 2004 World Series champions and honor the memory of both Tim and Stacy Wakefield, the Red Sox acted properly. Schilling was, of course, an integral part of that team and the franchise doesn’t snap its 86-year title drought without him.
The problem here, though, isn’t Schilling’s political stands or public comments on the issues of the day. The issue is that he violated the privacy of the Wakefield family by disclosing Tim’s condition just days before his death.
As abhorrent as Schilling’s disregard was, to exclude him from the ceremony would have only made him into a martyr. Undoubtedly, he would have claimed he was somehow being blackballed by the team’s owners because of his political beliefs, blah blah blah.
So the Red Sox extended the olive branch and invited him, probably crossing their fingers and hoping he would have the good sense to respectfully decline.
Lo and behold, that’s precisely what happened. In a rare demonstration of humility and common sense, Schilling took the hint and decided his appearance on April 9 would only tarnish the ceremony and distract from the reason for the gathering. Schilling further took the opportunity to apologize on Facebook for his decision to defy Wakefield’s wishes, saying he’ll “forever regret” his actions.
Now, the players will gather and celebrate their collective achievement as well as their departed teammate and his wife. They’ll fondly recall their ALCS comeback and all they overcame, and they’ll pay tribute to their late friend, who exemplified selflessness.
Schilling, meanwhile, will not be in attendance to revel in what he and they accomplished, having made himself persona non grata. That’s the price he pays for his callous disregard of his friend’s wishes. And for that, he has only himself to blame. The work karma comes to mind.
Wakefield will be properly remembered, along with the 2004 team, and there will be no side shows or distractions. I call that a win-win.
* The Shohei Ohtani mess represents an absolute PR nightmare for Major League Baseball. The league finally got its most famous player into a huge market, part of a Super Team, and almost certainly will have him taking part in the postseason for the first time in his career this October.
But before Ohtani and the Dodgers can play a single regular season game at home, Ohtani finds himself smack in the middle of a full-blown gambling scandal. Even if Ohtani is cleared, his reputation has already taken a hit. And as happened with Michael Jordan, there will be conspiracy theories dogging him for the rest of his career.
MLB has announced that it has launched its own investigation. Let’s hope it will be transparent in its findings. Anything less will resemble a cover-up.
* Paging Mr. Charlie Baker. Please pick up the white courtesy phone.
College basketball is in crisis. The NCAA tournament selection process is a joke, and schools are in revolt. More than a dozen schools turned down NIT bids because they can’t field enough players. The day after the tournament, when all the focus should have been on the field, the sport was instead consumed by the transfer portal.
In weeks to come, it will be all about NIL money. And what should be a fun few weeks will instead be dominated by upheaval as coaches slip out the back door, players plot transfers and the games get overshadowed.
* No, as a matter of fact, I’m not the least bit interested in your bracket, any more than I’m interested in improvements to your golf game or your fantasy draft strategy.
* Get ready for an epidemic of obstruction calls on the bases in the opening weeks of the baseball season. You can already see in spring training how umpires are cracking down on infielders blocking access to the bag. That’s likely to carry over into April, with reversed calls galore on force plays. Just what the game needs — more delays and arguments over minutiae.
* After all that’s happened, there would a certain undeniable irony if Linus Ullmark again became the Bruins’ most trustworthy option in net in the playoffs. But with three weeks to go — his play in the third period Saturday notwithstanding — it’s starting to look that way.
* Interest in baseball is down across New England. That much is blindingly obvious after the Red Sox finished in last place in three of the last four seasons, then compounded matters by not spending to improve this winter. The team has brought this upon itself and its owners and upper management can blame themselves for the alarming drop-off in popularity.
But “interviewing” five people at random near Fenway two weeks before the home opener to make the point that “nobody cares about the Red Sox anymore!!” is both poor journalism and a lousy polling method.
* As a profession, no one - no one — whines more than college basketball coaches. That applies to men and women. And occasionally, preemptively, too, right Kim Mulkey? And I sure open no one at TD Garden says anything objectionable to Dan Hurley next weekend.
* The pitching staff remains an open question, but there’s little doubt that the Red Sox will be much better defensively this year, what with Trevor Story available from the start and healthy, and Ceddanne Rafaela in center. That should help.
* Goaltending is important, of course, but the Bruins are in for another early exit in the playoffs is Brad Marchand doesn’t soon find his game. Marchand has one goal in his last 15 games, and the team doesn’t have nearly enough scoring depth to survive without contributions from him.
* Understanding that Ohtani’s interpreter reportedly placed his bets with an illegal bookie, this is what happens when pro sports leagues partner with gambling outfits. The lure of sponsorships proved too lucrative to pass up, and now MLB — along with the NFL, NBA and the NHL — find themselves in business with companies they sprinted away from as recently as five years ago. And it’s only going to get worse.
* The fact that the NFL has turned its schedule release announcement into An Actual Event is further testament to the league’s unmatched ability to dominate every news cycle. After all, this is a league that figured out a way to convince you to intently watch prospective players running around plastic cones.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Mar 27, 2024 10:34:13 GMT -5
Peter Gammons @pgammo Sportico Top 5 MLB Franchise Values:Yankees $7.93B, Dodgers $6.3B, Red Sox $5.96B, Cubs $5.31B, Giants $4.2B 11:10 AM · Mar 27, 2024
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Mar 29, 2024 5:49:31 GMT -5
FSG’s message to Red Sox fans seems to be ‘you walk alone,’ and other thoughts By Dan Shaughnessy Globe Staff,Updated March 29, 2024, 1 hour ago
Picked-up pieces while finally understanding the message Fenway Sports Group has delivered to loyal Red Sox fans around the world …
From this point forward, you walk alone.
▪ Sadly, that’s it right there, folks. After a couple of decades of all-in, four-championship, money-is-no-object ownership, Red Sox boss John Henry evidently has decided that the Sox are no longer a top priority, but merely a part of “a global sports, marketing, media, entertainment and real estate portfolio.” FSG is out of the winning business with its baseball team in 2024, and Sox fans have every right to feel abandoned.
Red Sox Nation was once like FSG’s prized Premier League soccer team, whose fans locked arms, raised a pint, and sang, “You’ll never walk alone.”
No more. If you still care about the Red Sox, you very much walk alone.
It should be clear to all by now: The Red Sox brass is not going to spend money or make much effort to improve this team. The message to Alex Cora, his staff, and fans, is unambiguous: This is your team. Figure it out. We don’t care if you finish last for the fourth time in five years and the seventh time in 13 years, we are not going to spend another penny to make it better. We are done.
Suddenly Red Sox fans are like characters from “Eleanor Rigby.” They are all the lonely people. And I am writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear.
After Tom Werner’s pledge in early November for a “full throttle” offseason, the Sox have arrived in Seattle to open their season this week with a certain-to-break-down starting rotation of Brayan Bello, Nick Pivetta, Kutter Crawford, Garrett Whitlock, and Tanner Houck. Aggregate career won-lost record: 105-123.
These are the Boston Red Sox, people.
In 2004 — when the Red Sox were committed to bringing you championships — their starting staff was Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, Derek Lowe, Tim Wakefield, and Bronson Arroyo.
Boston baseball’s winter of neglect was downright demoralizing.
After announcing that some ticket prices would indeed rise again, Henry (who also owns the Globe) skipped the annual Winter Weekend fan festival in Springfield, then went to Saudi Arabia in January to discuss FSG’s $3 billion golf investment with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who manages Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which finances the LIV golf tour. Henry hasn’t participated in a Red Sox press conference since trading Mookie Betts in 2020 (which the Sox said was “a baseball move”).
Boston’s still-life winter was packed with cost-cutting and a quest for payroll flexibility over established talent. How else does a team ignore Adam Duvall (21 homers, .834 OPS in 92 games for the Sox in 2023) and sign C.J. Cron to a $2 million minor league deal? Duvall signed with the Braves for $3 million. The Sox released Cron and will go with contract-friendly Bobby Dalbec (.204, one homer in 2023).
The best example of ownership’s neglect unfolded when new Sox starter Lucas Giolito was lost for the season after elbow surgery and the front office did not even pretend to try to get Cora another quality arm. Agents and GMs were astounded when the Sox made zero effort to get “in on” Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery. The price was too high even for the immortal Michael Lorenzen — who went to the Rangers for $4.5 million.
The Sox settled for 36-year-old journeyman Chase Anderson (seven teams in 10 seasons; 1-6, 5.75 ERA last year), who makes $1.25 million.
Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow explained the move to the Globe’s Alex Speier, saying, “We have to make the moves that make sense for us working within all of the constraints. It’s really easy to talk about about the financial ones, but there are more.”
“Constraints”?
Maybe fans should go Full Bres-LowBall when they’re at the Fenway ticket window deciding whether to pay some of the highest prices in baseball for the product the Sox are putting on the field. Try telling the person behind the window that you’re working within the “constraints” of your monthly budget. You may have to choose between making your car payment or watching some Triple A players learning on the job in the big leagues.
Cora certainly appears to be in on the joke. We have never seen a manager more comfortable going into the last year of his contract. When the 2024 season is over, Cora is going to cash in with a team willing to spend money.
Here’s the New York Times’s preseason assessment of your team: “The Red Sox once again appear to be a last-place club that didn’t make much effort to get better in the short term.”
Strap yourselves in for the big 162. The Sox are young and hungry and maybe they’ll be fun to watch. The pitching philosophy is better-structured than it was the past two years and the spring training vibe was positive. But they are a largely starless lot who’ve made more errors than any other team in baseball over the last four seasons and have very little pitching at the minor league levels.
It’s pretty obvious that ownership is counting on tourists and pink hats filling the old ballpark for what Werner sells as “the Fenway experience.”
Mercy.
Bad times never seemed so bad.
You’re on your own, Red Sox fans. From this point forward, you walk alone.
▪ Quiz 1: Name the Red Sox Opening Day infield in 2004. Quiz 2: Five lefthanders have pitched the opener for the Red Sox since 1986. Name them (answers below).
▪ Bob Kraft. Wow. He tells writers he was unaware that players ranked his team/facility near the bottom of the NFL in terms of family accommodations and player experience even though the Patriots ranked near the bottom in the exact same poll last year.
And then … Kraft has the gall to say he was disappointed with the negativity of “The Dynasty,” an Apple TV+ series that he basically sculpted from start to finish. Kraft quarreling with negativity in “The Dynasty” is like Martin Scorsese complaining that his 3½-hour “Killers of the Flower Moon” is too long.
▪ When Theo Epstein came back to the Red Sox (part of the FSG empire) and was said to be involved with Liverpool, one of my friends became convinced that Theo was going to hire Cora to coach Liverpool, Ted Lasso-style.
▪ Speaking of Liverpool, it’ll be John Henry vs. Steve Pagliuca when Liverpool plays Atalanta in the Europa League quarterfinals in April.
▪ I don’t know about you, but it makes me nervous to hear Jerod Mayo’s nonstop homages to “ownership” and “the Krafts.” He sounds like a man totally beholden to Bob and Jonathan, anxious to give the bosses the credit and respect they covet.
▪ Old friend J.D. Martinez informed the Mets that he won’t be ready for Opening Day and will need to start the season in the minors. The new Mets boss, 39-year-old David Stearns (Harvard ‘07), was the young Astros assistant GM who released Martinez in 2014.
▪ It’s not just us: Six of six New York Post baseball writers picked the Red Sox to finish last. In a related note, 2023 was the first time the Red Sox and Cardinals finished in last place in the same season.
▪ Caitlin Clark scored 27 points with 10 assists and 8 rebounds in a first-round win vs. Holy Cross last weekend, but the superstar looked petulant and tight throughout the afternoon. She missed nine of her first 11 shots and committed five first-quarter turnovers against the Crusaders. HC lost, 91-65, but easily beat the 38½-point spread. Iowa did not look like a team en route to a national championship.
▪ Hero Ball Dept.: NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg reports that Jaylen Brown bounced the basketball 23 times before rushing up a bad shot late in Monday’s 2-point loss to the Hawks — a game the Celtics had led by 30. This pairs well with Jayson Tatum’s 19-dribble isolation effort before missing a last-second fallaway in a 1-point loss to the Cavaliers earlier this month.
As good as they are, the Celtics need work with their late-game execution when the score is close. That stuff matters in the playoffs.
▪ Can’t believe Larry Bird did the commercial with the wildly annoying Allstate “Mayhem” guy.
▪ Red Sox Nation and New England sports lost a giant when Arthur D’Angelo died at age 97 in late February. One of the kindest men who ever lived, Arthur came here with his twin brother, Henry, in 1938 and built the Twins Enterprises souvenir empire on Jersey Street, which became the global 47 brand.
Arthur befriended Ted Williams when The Kid became a legend at Fenway and regularly drove Tom Yawkey home to his Boston hotel suite after long, thirsty days at the ballyard.
Arthur raised four wonderful sons, hired a million local kids to work at his store (young employees in the old days were paid in cash in brown paper envelopes), and was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2018.
▪ RIP Joe Fitzgerald, a longtime Boston Herald columnist who died at the age of 79 in early March. A devout and devoted newspaper guy, Joe Fitz wrote Luis Tiant’s first biography and knew everything there was to know about Red Auerbach.
▪ Quiz answers: 1: 1B Kevin Millar, 2B Mark Bellhorn, SS Pokey Reese, 3B Bill Mueller; 2: Chris Sale (2018, ‘19), David Price (2016), Jon Lester (2011-14), David Wells (2005), Bruce Hurst (1986).
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Mar 30, 2024 11:19:01 GMT -5
SUNDAY BASEBALL NOTES Once one of the most feared hitters in baseball, Mo Vaughn is making a comeback of sorts By Peter Abraham Globe Staff,Updated March 30, 2024, 38 minutes ago
Mo Vaughn had a second career as a successful businessman and real estate investor after he retired from baseball in 2004.
Now the Hit Dog is making a comeback of sorts.
Vaughn, 56, has joined Perfect Game as a special assistant to owners Rick Thurman and Rob Ponger. He’ll work to identify talented players in parts of the country where economic status is holding kids back from playing.
“We want to do it right,” Vaughn told the Globe. “We want to spotlight players and make sure we don’t miss anyone. We want to find those diamonds in the rough.”
Vaughn finished out his playing career on the injured list because of a chronic knee injury. It was a bitter ending after many years of success.
“I left the game with a lot of anger,” Vaughn said. “Luckily, I was able to spin that around and have some success in business. The most important thing as a baseball player is to have a plan, and I had a plan and was able to get there.”
Vaughn stayed away from baseball for years until his son, Lee, was old enough for Little League.
Vaughn started coaching his son and eventually built a facility in Boca Raton, Fla. The Vaughn Sports Academy grew and now fields travel teams, runs camps, and aids in getting players seen by college coaches.
Vaughn has former major leaguers Mike Easler and Omar Moreno helping out as coaches. He has 50 teams in all.
Thanks to his son, Vaughn found a second act in baseball. The three-time All-Star and 1995 American League MVP found himself driving kids across the state, getting them ready for games and teaching baseball.
“That’s what got me back on the field,” Vaughn said. “With all the different things I’ve been able to have success with, I’m still a baseball guy. I have information and I want to share it with whoever will listen.
“I was hesitant about getting back into baseball. But I enjoy the clubhouse setting and being on the field and working together. I’ll help anybody willing to play the game.”
Major League Baseball has invested in grassroots baseball in the Black community with its RBI program and urban academies. But Vaughn was quick to say he doesn’t view this new role in racial terms.
“Black, brown, green, gold, I don’t care who you are,” he said. “I want to give every player access to the opportunity to be spotlighted by Perfect Game. That’s why I’m doing this. I believe in what they’re trying to do.”
Thurman, a former MLB agent, saw Vaughn as a good fit.
“His stature in the baseball community cannot be understated as he is as beloved off the diamond as he was feared on it,” Thurman said.
Lee Vaughn is 11 now and a much different player than his father, who was a slugging first baseman.
“He’s a middle-of-the-field athlete, one of those five-tool kids,” Vaughn said. “I love seeing him play. I coach my team personally and I’m working on his mind-set as a player so he can move forward.”
Vaughn also is keeping an eye on the Red Sox. He was thrilled when Joe Castiglione was elected as the winner of the Hall of Fame’s Ford C. Frick Award for major contributions to baseball as a broadcaster.
“Tremendous,” Vaughn said. “Joe is a great guy who really loved me and took care of me. He was sad to see me leave the Sox. He’s Boston through and through. It couldn’t happen to a better guy.”
Vaughn also has found himself following the career of Triston Casas, another big first baseman with a good approach at the plate and a high on-base percentage.
“Good player and he has some pop,” Vaughn said. “I’ve watched him. He knows what he’s doing. Now he has to take the next step and become elite.”
Vaughn recently got together with new Astros general manager Dana Brown, a teammate at Seton Hall.
“One of my best friends and my college roommate,” Vaughn said. “I saw him in spring training and I’m just so proud of him. He came from a tough background and to see him get to this point, it’s tremendous.”
Brown hired another of his former college teammates, John Valentin, as an adviser.
“Johnny Val, it’s great that he’s back in the game,” said Vaughn. “The Astros have another Northeast guy with Jeff Bagwell, too. It’s a nice group there. I love that those guys are working together.”
Vaughn hit .315 with a .974 OPS and 392 extra-base hits from 1993-98 with the Red Sox, one of the best runs in team history.
“I had my time,” Vaughn said. “Hopefully I can help these kids.” SPEEDY SOX? Athleticism could change how they play
Red Sox manager Alex Cora used the word “athleticism” seemingly every day during spring training. It was a running theme as he discussed the team.
He had a point. Jarren Duran, Tyler O’Neill, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Trevor Story are all capable of changing the game offensively and defensively with their speed.
Rafaela did it on Opening Day, turning what would normally be a double into a triple and coming around to score on a two-out single by Connor Wong in the sixth inning.
The Sox stole 112 bases last season, five better than the league average. They’re capable of a lot more this season.
“We’re about to see,” Cora said. “It feels good. Defensively, we’re going to make errors but we’re going to make plays, too. It starts with Trevor, the attitude and the way he goes about it.
“Compared to last year, you see our roster and what we have right now, with all due respect to the guys [from last season] we’re a lot more athletic.”
A few other observations on the Red Sox:
▪ When Brayan Bello faced Luis Castillo on Thursday, it was only the second time two starters from the Dominican Republic opposed each other on Opening Day.
The first time was in 2015, when Johnny Cueto of the Reds faced Francisco Liriano of the Pirates.
At 24 years, 316 days, Bello was the second-youngest Opening Day starter. Garrett Crochet of the White Sox is 35 days younger.
▪ It will be a good story if 31-year-old lefthander Cam Booser gets called up this season.
The Sox were excited with what they saw from Booser in spring training as he allowed two runs on four hits over 10 innings and struck out 10 without a walk.
He averaged 97.6 miles per hour with his four-seamer in his final outings and threw his cutter for strikes. Booser is a career minor leaguer who quit baseball in 2018 to become a carpenter and came back in 2021 via an independent league. The Sox signed him last season.
▪ The Sox opened the season with 26 players and 12 coaches in uniform. The only ones wearing single digits were Masataka Yoshida (7) and Reese McGuire (3). Vaughn Grissom, who is on the injured list, has No. 5.
As we know, Nos. 1, 4, 6, 8, and 9 are retired.
No. 2 is still available. Justin Turner had it last season and home clubhouse manager Tom McLaughlin held it open in case Turner returned or another notable player joined the team.
That hasn’t happened yet.
No. 2 has a pretty good history. Xander Bogaerts, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jerry Remy, and Mike Andrews all wore it with the Red Sox.
▪ The Sox will have an open house at Fenway Park on April 6 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fans can walk on the warning track, sit in the dugouts, tour the clubhouses, and look inside the Green Monster.
There will be activities for kids, photo opportunities with the World Series trophies, and autograph sessions in the Aura Club with former Sox players including Orlando Cabrera, Manny Delcarmen, Lenny DiNardo, Keith Foulke, Sam Horn, Bob Montgomery, and Ken Ryan.
There also will be a display of memorabilia from the career of Tim Wakefield.
Fans can enter using gates A, B, and D. ETC. A changing of the guard?
There’s little question the American League East is a difficult division. The Blue Jays, Orioles, Rays, and Yankees have legitimate postseason aspirations.
But is it still the best division in baseball? That was the question put to ESPN’s David Cone, Eduardo Pérez, and Karl Ravech.
“I used to think that,” Pérez said. “The National League West is pretty strong this year. The American League West is really strong this year. You could even say the National League East, as well, with the Braves and Phillies.
“The divisions are definitely challenging right now, especially out west. When you look at the Rays, last year was an interesting year for them. They started off the season as hot as any team that we’ve ever seen, and then they sort of plateaued with all the injuries.
“Kevin Cash was able to get this team in the postseason, but it was a team that sort of came limping in compared to the team that we saw strong at the beginning of the season.”
Ravech went even further.
“I don’t think the American League East is the best division at all. I think the National League West is better. I think the American League West is better,” he said. “Oftentimes the perception of the league going in or the division is associated with the amount of money that’s spent, and in the case of AL East, traditional spender Boston isn’t spending anything.
“The Orioles don’t need to spend anything yet, and they’re the best team in the division. The Yankees have some injury concerns right now that you don’t see out in Los Angeles or Arizona. San Francisco spent money late, which was really encouraging.
“I don’t have the American League East being the power they have been recently partly because of the Yankees’ inability to succeed lately and the Red Sox’ unwillingness to spend money. I think those other divisions are better.”
Said Cone: “The Rays are always the X-factor in the American League East. They’ve been the envy of the sport for a while now from doing more with less. They may have the best pitching coach in the big leagues. Kyle Snyder has a track record that is second to none. The development of pitching there is phenomenal.
“I think the American League East has always been kind of the one division to look at and then compare to everybody else. So that’s no longer the case depending on what happens in Boston.” Extra bases
There were 264 players from outside of the 50 United States on Opening Day rosters or inactive lists. That was 27.8 percent of all players. The Dominican Republic (108), Venezuela (58), Cuba (18), Puerto Rico (17), Canada (13), Mexico (12), and Japan (10) had the most. The Astros (16), Padres (15), and Red Sox (14) had the most foreign-born players . . . The Yankees are increasingly concerned with the health of DJ LeMahieu, who is on the injured list with a bruised left foot, the product of a foul ball during spring training. New York obtained infielder Jon Berti from the Marlins to have another option at third base . . . David Robertson is now with his eighth team, having joined the Rangers on a one-year deal. The 39-year-old righthander, who makes his home in Rhode Island, represents himself and deals with teams directly. “Just looking for a good situation and a chance to compete,” he said. “It’s not too complicated.” Robertson signed for one year and $11.5 million with a mutual option for 2025. The Red Sox, a team he would love to play for, never called. Robertson has a 2.70 ERA since 2022 and has averaged a healthy 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings. His fastball still plays . . . East Longmeadow’s Nick Ahmed was released by the Diamondbacks in September after 10 years with the franchise. It was a reasonable baseball decision given his .560 OPS through 72 games. Ahmed, 34, joined the Giants on a minor league deal two weeks into spring training, made the team, and was 2 for 3 with a double and two RBIs on Opening Day at San Diego. The Giants host the Diamondbacks on April 18 . . . The Guardians can’t afford to make mistakes on contract extensions like they did with center fielder Myles Straw. He was signed to a five-year, $25 million deal in 2022 and has since posted a .580 OPS with one home run in 997 at-bats. Straw cleared waivers and was outrighted off the 40-man roster this past week with the Guardians owing him $19.25 million. He’s now with Triple A Columbus . . . Players who are still free agents: Mike Clevinger, Zack Greinke, Rich Hill, Evan Longoria, Mark Melancon, Wil Myers, Tommy Pham, and Noah Syndergaard . . . Seattle signed Nelson Cruz to a one-day contract on Thursday so he could retire as a Mariner. He signed the deal on a small table in front of the plate after throwing out the first pitch. Cruz, 43, played eight seasons for the Rangers (2006-13) and only four for the Mariners (2015-18). But Cruz was a three-time All-Star with Seattle and had some of his best seasons. “I have always identified myself with the Seattle Mariners,” he said. Cruz had a mishap throwing out the first pitch, spiking the ball into the ground before picking it back up and tossing it to Felix Hernandez. Ichiro Suzuki also took part in the pregame ceremonies and was in full uniform. Suzuki, now 50, is around the team often. He will be eligible for the Hall of Fame Class of 2025 and should be a unanimous choice . . . Braves manager Brian Snitker told his wife, Ronnie, and other family members not to come to Philadelphia for the first series of the season. He was worried about their safety because of the hostile fans at Citizens Bank Park . . . The mystery of Adalberto Mondesí remains unsolved. TheRed Sox acquired Mondesí before the 2023 season for lefty Josh Taylor. Mondesí never appeared in a spring training or regular-season game and was released after the season. He spent the entire year on the injured list with what was described as “recovering from left knee surgery.” This was from surgery he had in May 2022. There was talk in January that the Marlins were interested in signing Mondesí but it never happened. At 28, he’s a free agent . . . Happy birthday to Jamie Brown, who is 47. The righthander appeared in four games for the 2004 Red Sox, all in May. He was released after the season and went on to play four seasons in Asia, the first in Japan before spending three years in Korea. Brown is a native of Meridian, Miss. As any good Red Sox fan knows, that is also the hometown of Oil Ban Boyd.
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Post by scrappyunderdog on Mar 30, 2024 14:14:31 GMT -5
SUNDAY BASEBALL NOTES Once one of the most feared hitters in baseball, Mo Vaughn is making a comeback of sortsBy Peter Abraham Globe Staff,Updated March 30, 2024, 38 minutes ago A changing of the guard?There’s little question the American League East is a difficult division. The Blue Jays, Orioles, Rays, and Yankees have legitimate postseason aspirations. But is it still the best division in baseball? That was the question put to ESPN’s David Cone, Eduardo Pérez, and Karl Ravech. “I used to think that,” Pérez said. “The National League West is pretty strong this year. The American League West is really strong this year. You could even say the National League East, as well, with the Braves and Phillies. The NLW will be about .500, while I doubt the ALW will reach .500.
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