The Dodgers dealt Kenta Maeda to the Twins last month, after which the right-hander seemingly indicated that he asked for a trade out of the Los Angeles organization. However, that’s not what happened, according to Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman (via Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register). While Maeda did make it known to the Dodgers he prefers to start (they often used him as a reliever from 2018-19), Friedman insists there was no trade request when the two met last season. “I saw the headline and then we had someone actually listen to it. And he didn’t in that meeting demand anything and nor did he actually say he did in that interview,” Friedman stated. For their part, the Dodgers didn’t enter the offseason planning to move Maeda, per Friedman, but they pulled the trigger when the Twins offered a Brusdar Graterol-led package. Maeda, meanwhile, will now have an opportunity to return to being a full-time starter in Minnesota.
- The Angels fired visiting clubhouse manager Brian Harkins on Thursday amid allegations that he provided “illegal substances” to help opposing pitchers grip the ball better, Maria Torres of the Los Angeles Times reports. The news did not come as a surprise to the Angels, per Jeff Fletcher of the OC Register. “I think everybody knows that most guys are doing it,” left-hander Andrew Heaney said. “I don’t think it’s that surprising for anybody who knows baseball.” Pitching coach Mickey Callaway told Fletcher he expects Major League Baseball to ban hurlers from using pine tar and other such substances, but he believes it could have a detrimental effect because they help pitchers’ control – especially in cold conditions. “If I were a hitter, I’d be scared to dig into the box in Detroit on April 10,” he said. Manager Joe Maddon also weighed in, saying pitchers have been using substances to better their grip for “as long as I’ve been in baseball.” Maddon wonders whether MLB will eventually have to make changes to the ball, as the current one has become slicker.
- Cardinals righty Carlos Martinez has been a starter for most of his career, but shoulder issues helped force the hard-throwing 28-year-old to their bullpen last season. He’s now back in the Cardinals’ rotation, though, and is showing off his old form this spring, as Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch observes. “Everything’s been really good,” manager Mike Shildt said after Martinez threw five scoreless innings against Washington on Thursday. “That was a pretty dramatic display of, ‘Hey, I’m a starter.’ He’s established himself, for sure.” Martinez has been quite successful in a starting role, having recorded a 3.38 ERA/3.61 FIP in 712 1/3 innings from the Cardinals’ rotation. The reigning NL Central champions would surely be pleased if he can offer similar production this season, especially with fellow righty Miles Mikolas set to miss the beginning of the year with an elbow injury.
- There is a growing likelihood that the Royals will use first basemen Ryan O’Hearn and Ryan McBroom in “a soft platoon” to open the season, Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com writes. As we touched on Friday, the left-handed O’Hearn is seeking a bounce-back year after logging horrid production in 2019. The right-handed McBroom was better with the Royals last year in his first season in the majors, hitting .293/.361/.350. However, it was only an 83-plate appearance sample, in which McBroom failed to hit a home run, struck out over 30 percent of the time and was the beneficiary of an unsustainable .440 batting average on balls in play. To his credit, though, McBroom thrived as a Yankees farmhand last season in Triple-A ball, where he slashed .315/.402/.574 and slugged 26 homers in 482 PA.
so, any opposing pitcher that came to the ball park are potentially cheaters? no wonder!
Carlos Martinez’s has the resources, the talent, plus an abundance of proficient pitch’s to be a highly talented Starter!!! But!!!!!! Until he gets that head of his lined out, to achieve mental stability, both on the field and off of it, he is too unpredictable to be counted on as a “Consistent” Starter. Martinez is not the pitcher “Such as” the Cardinals Front Office depicts him to be!!! They must be wanting to try and trade him before July!!!!!
They won’t trade him they need starting pitching and he has a ton of talent. Idc what you say!!!!
mlb has never shown anything but contempt for pitchers. Sanctioned PED use, look the other way on sign stealing, shrinking the strike zone, these are just some examples of supporting the hitters at the pitchers’ expense. No wonder so much TJS. Pitchers have to try and throw 100 MPH to compete. Sad.
Pitchers used PEDs, too.
Only on the yankees.
Did you read the article? The fake ball is too slick. I’m not advocating the cheating BUT mlb has to get rid of the fake ball! The ball has to be sufficiently tactile so the pitchers don’t need sticky substances. That said, I have no problem with preventing pitchers from cheating but let’s be honest. mlb knew about the sign stealing and did NOTHING. They knew about PEDs and did NOTHING. They have allowed home plate umpires to manipulate the game through variable strike zones. Now it’s a crisis because the pitchers are cheating? Um, ok.
Good
points!
Pineda’s on the Twins now silly
It’s not cheating if the dumb franchise refuses to build retractable domes in the era of climate change where it snows in April in places regularly now – Minnesota and Detroit need to be particularly taken to task over this.
Pitchers have to be able to grip the ball but can’t and won’t when its slick and freezing weather. That. Is. Not. Cheating.
Have you ever watched a game in a retractable cereal bowl? I have, and I don’t like it. Prefer outdoors, even in Minnesota.
Using any substance to increase grip on the ball is explicitly against the rules of baseball. By definition it is cheating.
Literally every era is an era of climate change. Do you even science?
MLB doesn’t care about Pitchers for one simple reason: “Chicks dig the long ball!!”
“Chicks dig the long ball”, but “chicks” are getting bullied out of the game by old men telling them how the game is “ruined” now who love asinine things like non-professional hitters (pitchers) hitting and complete games more, so….
Heck yeah!
1) have you been talking to Goose Gossage?
And
2) you must not remember the Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine tv commercial from 1995 where the quote came from
You mean to say that a sports league would attempt to make the playing field tilt in favor of the offense? No way. They would never do that in the NFL or NBA so I’m sure they wouldn’t do it in baseball.
If you watch pitch tracker you’ll see that they’ve expanded not shrunken the strike zone. A dozen to twenty balls a game are called strikes. The rest of your points are well taken.
The strike zone has only expanded recently, l think in an attempt to speed up the game. I think mlb should test the balls out with pitchers to assess the tactile value of the ball. That’s basically the exterior of the ball. Stitching has to be reasonable or you get blisters. The balls have to be properly mud rubbed before use. The pitchers touch and throw every ball, the hitters have no say whatsoever about the surface of the ball. Then you’ve still got the core and the windings to experiment with as far as the impact on hitting.
Outside of the 1968 mound and strikezone, nothing has helped pitches more than the shift.
What’s baseball doing about that?
Nothing, because offense has grown so out of whack with the rest of the game that the shift isn’t leaving a dent in overall offense.
Ted Williams dealt with the shift, it’s not new. I’m surprised it took this long to be implemented widely. Bunt the heck out of it then. Spin the wheel!
C’mon Royals ! Put Dozier at 1st and sign Puig O’Hearn needs a change of scenery and McBroom can ride the bench
I agree with putting Doizer at first and moving O’Hearn, but the Royals don’t need Puig. The team has plenty of outfielders already (Gordon, Merrifield, Phillips, Starling, and Khalil Lee should be called up sometime this season.)
My little league team has plenty of outfielders. None of them should be playing in the major leagues.
Poor coaching?
Badda Bing!
The Royals should trade for Will Meyers and take on all his money right now –
Then Hope Duffey shows enough the 1st half to fetch some more prospects
Same with Sal
And Kennedy, kicking in most of his cash
I hope they dont get too sentimental with this re-build-
I was thinking the other day how perfect a Will Meyers for Merrifield trade might line up – Padres kick in minimal cash if any
Youd probably get Gore or Patino, Campusano and another 10-15 prospect along with a lottery ticket – Trade Sal hopefully with Camp coming in for further prospects
I love Merrifield but if your the Royals you have to be open right now to 2022 and beyond only-
Interesting ideas…..
Haha you can keep Merrifield, Padres would never trade their top pitching prospects keep dreaming pal.
I wouldnt get in the habit of using Padres and never in the same sentence too much-
The amount of surplus value in Whitts contract is insane and we all know how much they deplore Meyers face
SS Mondesi
CF Merrifield
RF Puig
DH Soler
1B Dozier
C Perez
LF Gordon
3B Franco
2B Lopez
Loving this lineup. Franco might be terrible too, so Dozier could move back to 3B and they can plug in anyone at 1B or bring up O’Hearn. O’Hearn has options, let him figure it out at AAA.
Dozier was tried out at 1b last year and was absolutely terrible there, so no, please not this.
As a Dodger fan, I have to love Maeda. The guy could have been a top 3 starter on pretty much any team, but dealt with the Dodgers moving him from the rotation to the bullpen and back over and over again without complaint. Generally I’m a fan of the team and not the players, but Maeda seems like a legit good dude. I hope he does great in Minnesota.
Agreed
Nice to see the former Blue Jay prospect McBroom make the Majors; after all he was traded to the Yankees for this site’s favourite player. Also is it just me or does McBroom’s Baseball Reference photo with the Yankees look similar to Nick Swisher?
Swishaliciousesque indeed
Difficult to make any sense out of this new wrinkle in the Maeda story. The information about him requesting a trade didn’t come from an interview or a meeting, it came from a video he posted to his YouTube channel. It would take someone who speaks Japanese to know what he actually said.
There are about 150 million people in the world who speak Japanese. It’s not like his putting the info out on his Youtube channel should be a huge mystery.
Yep, that’s why I can’t make any sense of this story. So far nobody who speaks Japanese has stepped up to translate his video, which supposedly was the source for the story that he asked to be traded. That should settle it. Either he said it or he didn’t.
Japanese speaker here. Just watched his video and he 100% said that he was the one who requested to be traded because he wanted to be a starter. He also added that the Dodgers initially refused, but then told him they would consider it if they could get a big name player in return.
Him wanting to be traded was fake news. Sports writers like to make the story more interesting.
Why can’t players/teams just stop cheating? There is a fine line. Stealing signs or looking for pitchers tipping pitches is fine but if I see Pineda get caught with pine tar on him one more time I’m gonna snap. It’s obviously not just him either but come on MLB needs to put the hammer down.
It is baseball.
Like some of you never played the game.
It’s really not a big deal at all.
Pineda is a prime example of why the Yankees cheating narrative makes no sense. he of anyone gets caught using pine tar while on them, but Kikuchi gets away with the glob he has. that’s proof enough that the league isnt hiding their cheating, same as the A-Ror suspension.
The notion of “cheating” has been thrown out of whack by sensationalist media.
CHEATING:
What the Astros did
What the 1919 White Sox did
NOT CHEATING:
PEDs
Using substances to grip a glossy ball in cold weather
What Pete Rose did
What Barry Bonds did
3 out 4 of those could be construed as cheating.
What Pete Rose did in reality was not cheating. He gambled. No player that ever played for him when he managed the Reds has ever said Pete asked them to throw any aspect of a game.
Immoral perhaps, but not cheating.
Cheating – Anything that is against the rules of the game.
Not Cheating – Anything that is not against the rules of the game.
What is cheating
PED’s – Like Bonds and Clemens did
Gambling on baseball – Like Rose and the 1919 White Sox did
Stealing signs electronically – Like the Astros, Red Sox, & Yankees did in 2017
Using pine tar or any other substance to get a better grip on the ball
Pineda only got ejected one time for pine tar, and that was 6 years ago.
Happy to hear Martinez is looking good this spring. Not just because I’m a Cardinals fan but I hated seeing him relegated to relief duty because of his shoulder. He is a quirky guy but he’s got electric stuff hopefully he puts it all together a little aging/maturity might do him some good
I hope he pitches decent so he can be Trade bait in July.
Where is all the hate that’s been directed at cheaters? People got all self righteousness about the Astros cheating and yet no fuss about using substances on baseballs? I remember in the late 80’s/90’s when Tim Leary broke Chris hoiles wrist because he couldn’t control a baseball he was slicking up. Hoiles was having a breakout year up to that point and never came close to the same production. People get pissy about the Astros, but their behavior didn’t get people hurt.
The Astros cheating cost people jobs.
And other forms of cheating like PEDs and The_Porcupine’s story above didn’t cost people jobs? Can you honestly tell me that you believe PEDs didn’t cost people jobs?
it hardly cost anyone’s job because pitchers were doing it, too!
The only way you can say PED use didn’t cost people their jobs is if 100% of the players were using it. We know that is not true. It was just a small percentage.
Leary cost Hoiles his job. PED cost people jobs. The Astros, Red Sox, Yankees, and at least 8 other teams were electronically stealing signs in 2017. They ALL cost people jobs.
I believe the point of all the stories about this issue was that pitchers needed this stuff to control the ball because it was too slick.
I don’t know what Leary was up to. Maybe channeling his inner spitballer?
because substances like pine tar seem (and probably are) much less impactful than using cameras to steal signs and injecting performance enhancers into your body.
They are impactful. If you cannot grip the ball you cannot control where the ball goes and you get crushed. It effects every single pitch that pitcher throws. Performance enhancers are as well.
Self Righteous? This is really simple, I don’t know why people gum it up.
Cheating is gaining an unfair advantage. I don’t know why smart people have such a hard time with that?
It takes a little wisdom to understand what constitutes an unfair advantage, but when a clubhouse attendant gives the other team a substance that helps them grip the ball better so Mike Trout doesn’t accidentally get one in the ear, that’s not cheating.
Sure it’s against the rules, but so is giving everyone 400 for landing on GO while playing Monopoly. No one is their right mind would call it cheating, yet everyone knows it’s against the rules.
Smart people aren’t the ones having a hard time understanding that cheating is wrong. Neither are they the ones considering it self-righteous to find cheating unacceptable.. Consider the original post, though…”people got all self righteousness…”. Clearly that individual falls below “smart.”
Using substances to grip the ball is NOT cheating. That is where you are wrong to start with.
The rules of the game say it is cheating. When I played it was in the rule books and it is now.
Astros fan?
Imagine….a story coming out in the mainstream media that is completely false. And people read, post, believe and comment on them…..go figure.
People make mistakes and get things wrong sometimes?
Shocking!
you clearly dont understand how the media operates nowadays, do you?
yup, fox lies all the time!
“Mainstream media”? This is a free site called MLB Trade Rumors. I suggest you think before you toss around sentiments like fake news and msm, otherwise you’ll just be part of the poisonous atmosphere.
Maeda said it in an interview last year during the season. It was in Japanese but there are CC if you use it. Several reporters said that Maeda said it during the season. He said it after the season was over in an interview in English. His agent said he had conveyed to the Dodgers that he wanted a trade if they were not going to use him as a starter. Now after the fat Friedman is trying to save face and say that it was not discussed.
When all the evidence points to Maeda telling the truth, then why believe Friedman?
Where is the righteous outrage that the Angels were involved in cheating (though typical Angels, find a way to cheat that helps the other team win)
Giving the opposing team a substance where they can grip the ball better is not cheating. Cheating requires an unfair advantage.
Not much wisdom on your end Rsox.
Why was the employee fired then?
He was just doing his job no?. To protect Trout.
He was fired because the people who run the Angels and make those decisions are not intelligent people.
Other teams pitchers were paying Harkins to provide the substance. Apparently other clubhouse attendants around baseball were doing the same thing.
Interesting the ball has become slicker. Subtle way to change the aerodynamics to make it fly farther (potentially). I wonder if that’s the reason it’s slicker or if Rawlings changed suppliers!
MLB has owned Rawlings since June of 2018
This is just a player trying to save face. How many times have we seen a player get traded or sign with another team and then you hear him say “I was not happy where I was this is where I want to be“.
Pitchers are allowed to use rosin. The league should designate one substance a pitcher can use to get a good grip on the ball and just let them use it. It will make the game safer, less wild pitches and hit batsmen.
If they try and change the ball again, it might alter wind resistance and make for less home runs, lower exit speed…
so 2018 basically is what your saying
Nice to know the Angels are worried about an opposing pitchers control. Meanwhile Eppler couldn’t find a decent starter not to overpay if he was in a room with CY Young, Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver.
I don’t think Carlton and Seaver can compete at the ML level anymore, and Cy Young, well, he’s been dead for a long time,
On second thought, Carlton and Seaver are probably better right now than Teheran lol
Teheran was in the top 30 starters last season. Just 30 teams so that means he would have been a #1 on many of them. What is decent to you if top 30 is not?
Lets see, Maeda said he wanted out, his agent said he asked to be traded if they were not going to use him as a starter, several reporters have said that Maeda expressed to the Dodgers that he wanted to be traded if he was not going to start. So who is lying here? I vote Friedman.
I’ll second that vote.
Dodgers kept dumping Maeda in the bullpen to stifle his incentives. Maeda has no real reason to lie about asking for a trade. It’s not like they traded him to a big market team and has to say all the right things to win over the fan base.
He was moved to the bullpen in September and October because that’s where they needed the help and he was very effective in that role. Maeda always said it wasn’t about the money it was about wanting to be used as a starter.
April 10 in Anaheim is so freakin chilly