Jacoby Ellsbury released.
A Scott Boras Client that signed for 7 years $153MM contract in 2013 has been cut by the Yankees after several years of injuries and lack of production. The Yankees will be paying him $26 MM to sit at home next year.
A cautionary tale.
Ellsbury wasn’t a malingerer by all accounts, so just some bad luck. He had hip surgery in 2018 and is hoping to be into playing shape by spring training. He wants to play in 2020 and perhaps someone will take him on as a fourth outfielder for the league minimum salary. I wish him well.
But he was an extreme disappointment and a stupid signing at the time.
Reds sign Moustakas!
Probably not a good idea to expect much in the way of Red Sox upgrades this offseason, given their [del]trade[/del] salary dump of Sandy Leon.
Yeah, this makes Rendon more expensive. Now there is only Rendon and Donaldson left with at least 3 teams in the mix.
The Reds apparently plan to have Moustakas play second. He’s not bad there, but I have my concerns about any 30-year-old player on a big deal who doesn’t get on base a lot.
Zack Wheeler to the Phillies for 5 years/$118 million.
I couldn’t decide if I wanted the Yanks to go after him or not. People still talk about him reaching his potential someday, even though he’s entering his age 30 season. Hopefully it will work out because I’m rooting for Girardi a little bit.
I’m starting to get a little concerned that the Nats won’t get either Rendon or Strasburg back. If they don’t get Rendon, they absolutely need to get Donaldson.
Patience, grasshopper.
Wheeler is 30 years old and has a history of injury but no history of greatness. Neither of which could be called great. The deal is nuts. It’s Darren Driefort 2.0.
Tom Verducci lets rip on the idiotic ‘three batter minimum rule’ proposed for next season. A final decision hasn’t been made yet, but the move has almost no support among players, managers and coaches. A few data point highlights:
There just wouldn’t be enough time saved to justify such a radical alteration of baseball strategy.
Verducci goes on to point the real pace of play culprit (besides commercial breaks): pitchers and batters futzing around between pitches. Either umpires need to enforce ‘play ball’ or MLB needs a pitch clock. And after that, robo umps.
Cole Hamels to Atlanta. $18 mil/1 year
Big news yesterday that the Mets are being sold to minority shareholder Steve Cohen. He’s a hedge fund billionaire and speculation is that he’ll change the Mets current strategy of penny pinching, though the Wilpons will supposedly remain in management positions for the next 5 years.
Wow, amazing. The Mets need this in the worst way.
Not so good. The Mets are stuck with the Wilpons for another five years, then they’ll be controlled by a guy whose hedge fund got fined $1.8 billion over insider trading (also pleading guilty to fraud charges).
One hopes the Mets won’t go from being victimized by Bernie Madoff to being run by Madoff II.
Yeah, I guess he could theoretically be the next Charlie Morton, but Morton was signed on a cheap(ish) two-year deal when he was a guy with intriguing upside but limited demonstrated ability.
And Wheeler apparently turned down more money from the White Sox. The money that was being talked about had me wondering if this was a different Zack Wheeler than the guy I know of from the Mets. If he had signed for half of that it would felt more right to me. Man, what is Gerrit Cole going to get?
I agree. You do not have to fix your batting gloves after every pitch. And if you do, you are wearing the wrong size; sorry but your tiny hands need child size gloves.
There’s a guy on the Yankees, Mike Ford, who does batting glove pantomime between every single pitch. Drives me bonkers. Just as bad are the Sunday strollers who think an at-bat is the perfect time for a walking tour of foul territory.
The Verducci article mentions the other time-chewing culprits: pitchers. The worst offender is Jose Alvarado of Tampa Bay. He averages 31.9 seconds between pitches. I swear, umps should be equipped with cattle prods.