Here are some of the highlights from the weekly roundup of notes from Fancred Sports’ Jon Heyman…
- Rays senior VP of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, Brewers assistant GM Matt Arnold, and former Padres and D’Backs GM Josh Byrnes are under consideration from the Mets and Giants for their general manager positions. Reports from last summer indicated that Byrnes was likely to stay in his current role as the Dodgers’ VP of baseball ops, though it isn’t known if his stance has changed.
- MLB Network analyst Mark DeRosa “has been linked” to the Rangers’ managerial job, and Heyman also notes that DeRosa could be a candidate of interest for the Blue Jays as they look for a new dugout boss. DeRosa has worked as a broadcaster since retiring after the 2013 season, though he has often been potential as a possible future manager, even interviewing with the Marlins in 2015 and the Mets last winter for dugout vacancies. DeRosa played for both the Rangers and Jays over the course of his 16-year big league career, as well as a brief stint with the Indians (when Jays president Mark Shapiro and GM Ross Atkins were in Cleveland’s organization).
- “The strong belief is that” 2019 is Ned Yost’s last year as manager of the Royals. Yost hinted at such a timeline near the end of the 2017 campaign, and his recently-announced contract extension only covered the 2019 season.
- Infield prospect Gavin Lux was the Orioles’ “main target” in the Manny Machado trade talks with the Dodgers. Los Angeles managed to swing the deal without moving Lux, the 20th overall pick of the 2016 draft. Lux broke out in his third pro season, hitting .324/.399/.514 over a combined 524 PA at the high-A and Double-A levels. MLBTR’s Jason Martinez recently cited Lux as one of his top minor league performers of 2018, and MLB.com ranked Lux 82nd on its season-ending list of the top 100 prospects in baseball.
I’m glad we at least recognized the need for MIF talent. We have absolutely nothing coming up for at least 2.5 years. We’ll see on Diaz. Think kremer was a real find in that deal though.
Probably will address the MIF with the first pick in the draft. Bobby Witt Jr….. at least I hope.
Dero was good on MLB network tho…
Lux is gonna be special. Way to go O’s.
I mean if they’re not moving him for machado l doubt they would’ve moved him at all.
Derosa is great on MLB network, not sure how that will translate in a management position.
He carries MLB Central.
WOW
Yes because the Royals will not pay someone not to manage. Waste another year!
Whoever manages this team is going to be a facing another 100 loss dumpster fire of a year. Might as well be Yost.
KC fans are gonna suffer for the next decade. no matter who manages. More than a manager, they need a better GM.
Yea that Dayton Moore who won a world championship with the low budget Royals is no good you say?
Steve Adams isn’t on board with DeRosa. From chat: “DeRosa seems to want to manage, and maybe his camp pushes that idea on the media a lot, but his TV work makes him seem pretty old-school in terms of evaluation and data usage. I think he’d be good at building relationships with the players, which is crucial, but that alone doesn’t seem like enough qualification to be a serious candidate when he’s never coached or managed elsewhere.”
He’s already gotten himself 2 interviews and apparently he’s linked to the rangers. There’s probably still a few org out there who don’t want a guy who just reads his spreadsheet. Not saying that I agree with that philosophy but Kapler went to the extreme with his data and we saw that probably wasn’t a real hit either.
Plus, DeRosa is an intelligent guy. He’s an Ivy League scholar; I’m sure he’s smart enough to plow through numbers and data.
Or I could be dead wrong. On TV he listens and expands on philosophies that differ from his. It’s what helps make him good on the MLB Network.
Why do you care so much about the opinions of the writers on a summarization website? They take the articles of other writers and summarize them and make announcements based of other’s tweets. Their idea of a scoop is announcing a player being released from the minors (I assume they receive daily tweets from as many minor league teams as well.) Don’t get me wrong. I love MLBTR and think they provide a great service. I wouldn’t want to sit and stare at twitter all day sorting through all of that nonsense. But, anyway can basically be a MLBTR journalist if they have an above average grasp of the English language and a Twitter feed. Except for Jason Martinez that is. Roster Resource is a treasure itself and I have been a loyal follower of it since before the acquisition.
Why would anyone want DeRosa to manage after his idea that Mike Trout should sit out next season and only play against the Red Sox/Yankees
Yep. I never had much of an opinion one way or the other on DeRosa, but the Mike Trout thing was too stupid to believe, insulting to Trout, and bad for the game.
On the one hand, Manfred says Trout doesn’t market himself, on the other hand DeRosa is saying he should sit out less-important series to save wear and tear, and deny those fans a chance to see him.
agreed. he is the one of the big reasons I cant stand mlb central anymore
I’m a big fan of Dero but I do t know about him as a manager. I guess it’s worth a shot to a non contending team
DeRo does nothing for me; too many “when I was with the (fill in the blank)” stories….
The two guys that REALLY impress me from MLBnet are Mike Lowell, who seems to have a deep understanding of both the business and playing sides of the ball, including the players themselves,and Billy Ripken, who may be an “outside the box” guy, but he’s obviously (like Lowell) somebody who really thinks about stuff.
That, and you can’t deny that Dan O’Dowd is directly responsible for 22/25 guys on the Rockies’ roster this year…..
And I definitely think Heidi Whateley should be somewhere (nearby)……
Agree on 4 of those takes.
Lux’s development has gone pretty much as well as it could have possibly gone. Taken as a great glove, light hitting guy, with some project-ability..didn’t hit a single home run in his first professional season (250 odd PA’s), now he’s a double digit home run guy, adept at getting on base, and still provides excellent defense.
A genuine middle infield prospect, for sure. Kudos to the Dodgers minor league system for helping him develop – something that the Org doesn’t get a whole lot of love for generally. They’ve done a great job at turning prospects into producers.
If you believe that added strength was natural of course….
I love baseless comments like this. Just straight insinuating the use of PEDs. Great job of adding to an intelligent post.
He’s added strength, but won’t be a guy that hits for power. Rancho plays a part in it. It sort of fits the mold of a cold weather prospect just being able to play, and the Dodgers being able to develop the tools they saw. It’ll be interesting to watch this develop tbh. I want to see how the mif shakes up, because I think Brito is possibly the higher ceiling player even if he lost a year. It seems as though Lux will be destined to be fully transitioned to 2nd. With all that said we should have a clearer feeling of what he looks like at a full season in AA and likely AFL appearance.
Whether that was the insinuation, or not, Lux was drafted out of high school and he has yet to completely fill out his uniform. So I’m not sure the organization deserves any special credit for his development from teenager to adult, since that generally happens all by itself. Though they do deserve credit for seeing the development potential and not letting him go in the Machado deal.
Dero seems to talk about his family a lot…Hard to see him leaving a solid MLBN gig for the rigors of the road
Josh “ Crash” and Byrnes? Really? He destroyed the D-Backs. Gotta be someone else.
Pedro Martínez the new Blue Jays pitching coach.
Dero, a North Jersey native, was the starting QB at Penn. when they won Ivy title after Ivy title. JMHO, but I think he would make a good manager. Sometimes know-it-all managers like Kapler and Madden over think things and end up doing more harm than good.. If Dero does land a manager’s gig, it’s gonna be with a bad team. Sort of like Francona when he managed woeful Phillies teams. Phillies fired Francona, but with talent, we see how well he did in Boston and Cleveland. Gotta have the horses boys and girls.
DeRosa would be a poor choice, he’s all show and no substance!
he is a total clown. just a meathead. I really wish he would get the job so I dont have to listen to his dumb ass anymore
I like DeRosa personally, but does he have any managing experience? That’s a pretty big risk for a team that already has a lot of question marks.
Billy Ripken for manager or Dan O’Dowd for GM. Those are good choices.
DeRosa is an unkown. I do not think of him as a manager but who knows