Though he was clearly carrying plenty of rust, Cubs righty Yu Darvish nevertheless turned in a rather promising first spring outing today, as MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian writes. Darvish says he felt great and the radar guns reflected it. While he struggled a bit to stay in the zone, that’s a secondary concern at this point given the major health ailments that ruined his 2018 season. With $101MM still owed to Darvish over the next five years, the Cubs have to be encouraged to see him feeling strong, though he still has a ways to go to reestablish himself as a front-line starter.
More health notes from the central divisions …
- Reds right-hander Sonny Gray, who was scratched from his spring debut due to some elbow stiffness, is expected to throw a bullpen session Thursday, writes MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. The team’s most notable offseason addition to the rotation, Gray will also throw from flat ground at a distance of 120 feet today, per the Cincinnati Enquirer’s John Fay (Twitter link). Manager David Bell told Feinsand that Gray was initially concerned about the elbow discomfort but is in vastly better spirits and has felt improvement each day since being scratched. For the time being, it seems, the Reds have decreasing reason to be concerned about Gray’s status.
- The Royals are “backing off” from using Danny Duffy for the time being, manager Ned Yost tells reporters (Twitter links via Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star). The southpaw experienced tightness in his shoulder and had difficulty getting loose for his latest side session, though he eventually completed that session. Duffy feels it’s a minor issue and some standard-issue early spring stiffness. The Royals are already down a rotation candidate with righty Trevor Oaks perhaps headed for hip surgery, and subtracting arguably their most talented starter from the mix would be a considerably more damaging blow. Duffy, 30, struggled through a down season in 2018 but was Kansas City’s best arm in 2016-17 when he worked to a 3.64 ERA with 8.8 K/9 against 2.3 BB/9 in 326 innings.
- There was some ominous news out of White Sox camp, as Bruce Levine of 670thescore.com tweets that pitching prospect Dane Dunning is due for a closer medical look after experiencing forearm discomfort. The talented young righty has shown quite well ever since he cracked the professional ranks and entered the 2018 campaign as a consensus top-100 prospect leaguewide. Unfortunately, he missed half of the 2018 season owing to an elbow sprain. The hope was that Dunning would be able to pick up where he left off this spring.
Darvish will throw a No-Hitter with the Cubs
Sounds like there could be another TJ for a White Sox pitching prospect. With all of the injuries and slow development at the MLB level, it seems the rebuild has not been going according to plan.
You can say that again.
lol
Um… are you surprised? It’s the same clueless, inept front office that claimed to be “ALL IN” just a few years ago… remember? When thru traded Tatis Jr(MLB’s #1 prospect) for James No Game Shields THEN proceeded to finish with a worse record than teams actively tanking. Hahaha, and they wonder why Machado turned them down?!? Why EVERY top free agent has turned them down? I mean, if the fans and the media know how clueless and irrelevant the team is, why wouldn’t the players and their reps know? Haha, no wonder they obsess over anything Cubs, can you blame them? You don’t need to be Freud to recognize the blatant inferiority complex. Poor saps.
Tatis wasn’t anywhere near the top prospect in baseball. They traded some young kid with potential but he wasn’t even close to the guy he’s seen as today. I don’t understand the need for you and Chicity to go at each other over this nonsense. The cubs themselves have made a lot of bad moves recently. The amount of Top prospect trade chips you had at one point with your major league core was insane. Theo didn’t cash those minor leaguers in for a whole hell of a lot. Candelario,, Jimenez, and Cease got you Q, and Justin Wilson. He got burned on Heyward and chatwood. And we’re off to a rough start on Darvish.
Hamels was a great get. And he’s made a couple other nice additions of Cishek, brach etc. But for a team who just a few years ago had that much young talent in the minors and majors to have so many question marks right now is not good. I would’ve bet this cubs team was built to be a great team for years and years. Looks a lot more questionable at this point.
The last part of your comment rings true. Cubs’ fans were hoping for years of dominance with their young core, and minor league prospects. Hard to say that now. They will still be tough, but they certainly are no juggernaut, and enter 2019 as a maybe division champ at best, with questions in the rotation and bull pen, and with an offense that got no better, and let’s face it struggled at times in 2018. Even if Bryant and Darvish return to form they still aren’t a lock for the division.
Tatis hadn’t even played a game in the U.S. when he was traded. He was all potential.
Right. 9/10 you grab a guy like Tatis in that trade and he flops. You’re talking about a guy who was considered the #27 prospect in his class that year. He signed for 850K not 5.5 MM. And that’s when the Padres grabbed him. Great snag by them but not exactly the #1 prospect in baseball.
Yep; the Padres got very lucky. It helps that Preller was on board when they made that trade and Preller had actually seen Tatis in person and his background is in scouting, but usually when you trade for a 17-year-old it’s a total crapshoot. That trade was more about getting Shields’ salary off the books than it was about acquiring an elite prospect.
Gray’s “stiffness” is very minor, he didnt even get an MRI
Yeah, sounds like a precaution more than a panic coming from the Reds. Can’t say that I blame them.
Good news for Cubs fans: Darvish looks like a Cubs starting pitcher. Bad news for Cubs fans: that pitcher is Chatwood
Haha
lol
BEST news for Cubs fans…. they’re not White Sox fans. But yeah, let’s overreact to a spring training game. Is that really how sad and thirsty you guys are? Haha, so under this logic, I should be thrilled that KB is batting 1.000 so far, has yet to make an out. I guess he’ll do that for the whole season… Hmmm, being ignorant is kinda fun. lol
Chisox, sorry for being such a crabby pants at you! I tweaked my back at yoga yesterday!
Sonny Gray is doing a great job filling the Homer Bailey role with Cincinnati.
Hansen, Dunning, Kopech, Burger, Basabe, Adolfo, Burdi, Robert, Anderson, Moncada, Giolito, Collins, Rutherford, Fulmer all injured, regressing or stagnant in development and an owner unwilling to spend on the top tier FA’s.
Go Sox!
K.C. Needs to sign Dallas Keuchel. They need a proven ace
Kuechel’s not an ace.
KC looks like they’re going to be one of the very worst teams in baseball this year; I doubt they open the wallets for anyone at this point.
KC needs an ace, a cleanup hitter, a #2 starter, a legitimate bullpen, a 3B, an outfielder or two…… They’re not even close to be considering an expenditure of that size. Would be extremely stupid.
They also need someone on the team who understands the importance of, you know, getting on base. That’s important.
I’d sign him and others whose markets have collapsed. They can sell fans on the idea of competing, while receiving good/better returns for their players when they trade them.
Just put Duffy in the ‘pen already. He’ll never have much value as a starter at this point. Shouldn’t say never, just very unlikely.
Darvish is made of glass. This was an extremely poor investment.
The White Sox rebuild is already teetering toward being an abject failure.
I definitely wish the Twins would have targeted Darvish this offseason. I believe the Cubs would have been pushed to move him for very little while eating a fair chunk of his salary. Darvish would have been fine last year if he was diagnosed correctly early on.
If the hope of the White Sox was really…“that Dunning would be able to pick up where he left off this spring.” That wish has been accomplished…Dunning left off last year hurt in June until the end of the season and continues to be hurt this spring!!!