We’ll round up a few notes from around baseball this weekend.
- Last month, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that José Bautista had been eyeing a return as a two-way player. While his hope of representing the Dominican Republic in the Olympic qualifying tournament was dashed by the event’s postponement, Bautista doesn’t appear to be giving up his two-way dream. He tells Sportsnet he would consider trying the dual role in the 2021 World Baseball Classic. Interestingly, he seems open to the idea of representing Team Spain (his father is a Spanish citizen, thus granting him eligibility), Sportsnet adds, if the Dominican team doesn’t offer him a roster spot. The former Blue Jays’ star admitted it’d be a long shot for him to ever pitch in the majors, but noted he’d be “ready just in case.”
- Derek Holland was on track to crack the Pirates’ season-opening rotation prior to the shutdown, reports Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He’d likely have slotted in behind Chris Archer, Joe Musgrove, Trevor Williams and Mitch Keller for first-year manager Derek Shelton. If the 2020 season is indeed played, Holland would presumably still figure to grab a roster spot, particularly since any playing scenario is likely to involve significant roster expansion. Holland’s minor-league deal originally called for a $1.25MM base salary if he were to make the club, reported ESPN. As MLBTR’s Jeff Todd explained this week, though, player salaries would be paid on a prorated basis in the event of a shortened season.
- Major League Baseball economics are sure to be rocked by the coronavirus hiatus, notes Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. It’s obviously too early to know exactly how teams, players and the league will respond to the loss of gate receipts. Nevertheless, Speier speaks with a handful of sports economists (and Scott Boras) about ways in which MLB could look to mitigate their losses in attendance revenue. As former SABR president Vince Gennaro points out, fan-free games might force teams to explore innovative media packages as alternatives to in-person attendance. Speier’s piece is well worth a full perusal for those interested in the sport’s economic future.
“We’re all told at some point in time that we can no longer play the children’s game, we just don’t…we don’t know when that’s gonna be. Some of us are told at eighteen, some of us are told at forty, but we’re all told.”
I respect Joey Bats hustle and passion in the attempt. That said, I don’t think the first truly successful modern day duel player is gonna be a 40 year old who hasn’t been a good-enough hitter in four years.
Ya but that bat flip though. Best ever
That punch out by Odor will always be better. And well-deserved.
It was a sucker punch. What’s manly about that? If he wants to prove anything to me he should try hitting above 0.200.
Odor gives old man Bautista his best shot. Bautista doesn’t go down, doesn’t even flinch. Odor’s career goes south ever since. Just embarrassing.
Ahaha imagine thinking a punch that couldn’t even knock the guy down Is better than a soul crushing homerun that made one whole team cry for a whole year.
Odor hasn’t hit since. Still can’t field.
What fight did you watch? Odor landed clean, Bautista wobbled back and would have been KTFO had the players not gotten there to intercede. Bautista wobbling backwards like some guy dragged the rug out from under him was a magnificent site.
He blasted Bautista, and it was awesome. Also, he’s a lifetime .240 hitter. So, he does hit above .200
You can keep the punch. The Jays will take 2 playoff series wins. Maybe the Rangers should raise a banner for the punch since they’ve never won anything noteworthy.
Re-watched the Odor punch. Bautista wasn’t wobbling backwards; he was loading up to murder Odor. Odor was already backing up to avoid Bautista’s return shot. He wasn’t given the chance. More important, Odor has had a history of being scared of runners sliding into second like that. It is why he helped Toronto finish the 2016 ALDS thanks to his scared throw.
Anyway, thank you for attempting to re-write history. Gotta love the beauty of video access.
You gotta be absolutely delusional to think Jose wasn’t put on skates by that punch lmao. He was covering his head and took four or five good steps backwards.
What a clown.
You’d have to be blind to think that puny Odor punched him back four or five steps. I’d tell you to watch the video again but that would be too much work for you.
Go back to sleep.
Hmm, Shohei Ohtani disagrees…
Shohei hasn’t played enough to prove anything yet. He shows high potential but injuries haven’t allowed him to prove anything yet.
He’s proven he’s both the best pitcher on his team AND good enough to bat cleanup when healthy, which hasn’t happened since Babe Ruth. He hasn’t quite put it all together yet, but you can’t not call him a successful two-way player.
bballblk
Shohei Ohtani is not “a 40 year old who hasn’t been a good-enough hitter in four years.” I believe that was the point.
Ruth wasn’t really a dual threat. He only had one year (1919) where he was a serviceable pitcher while being the best hitter in the league. His pitching career pretty much ended when his greatest hitter of all time career took off.
Oh no disrespect to Ohtani, but he hasnt done both at the same time for a long enough period yet. He’ll prob be the first lol
Geesh, did you even bother to look at his stats before you posted this?
1916- led MLB in era+ and shutouts
1917 – led MLB in complete games
Matter of fact, his worst year as a pitcher was 1919 (and still far better than a ‘serviceable’ pitcher)
Oof. Do me a favor and look at his hitting stats from 1916 and 17. And he was approximately average in 19 as a pitcher.
1915- 188 ops+
1916- 121 ops+
1917- 162 ops+
1918- 192 ops+
1919- 217 ops+
Clearly he was a dual threat while he pitched.
Ok first, stop liking your own comments. It’s weird.
Second. Look at his ABs and Hits. He had minimal volume before he gave up pitching full time.
He never had more than 40 hits before 18. He could hit while he pitched, but he wasn’t a hitter. He was only a 2 way player for 18 and 19.
Look at his pitching and hitting stats separately. You can see he had two careers. One as a pitcher and one as a hitter. There was one maybe two years of overlap, but he was not a force offensively while he was primarily a pitcher. And he didn’t pitch while he was the greatest hitter of all time.
Dispute that all you want but you’re wrong if you do.
Lmao. Ok way to be an adult. I know what I’m saying is facts so I’m good
forums.ootpdevelopments.com/showthread.php?t=28842…
I told myself to stop playing slow pitch softball at age 38 . I forced myself to retire
You know you miss it every summer. I know I do.
The Archer and Cole trades set the buccos back a decade. For what they didn’t get for Cole and what they gave up for Archer. Such a nasty franchise.
Agreed. What they gave up for Archer is what they should have got for Cole.
At the time, I don’t think an Archer-like package is what Cole was worth. He was coming off two rough seasons and had 2 years of control left. They should have at least gotten 1, top 100 prospect out of it all, but I don’t think he was worth half of the Astros’ farm system at the time.
How’s that?, same players don’t play on onother team? You want to switch it up? That would require Astros to trade for meadows & Glasnow presumably for Moran, Musgrove, Felix, & Musgrove. The Pirates needed to dump Cole anyway, he was cancer.
Oh sorry Martin not Musgrove twice
Actually we’ll never know until an actual decade has passed. That is unless you’ve seen the future and I doubt that. Nasty franchise? Lots of tradition with the Pirates that even the total ineptitude of the current owner can’t erase.
The tradition you talk about with the Pirates ended in 1992. They haven’t won a World Series or a playoff series (not a one game play-in) since 1979. The talk of tradition is what nutting and his lackeys keep spouting. The marketing cliches have grown old. Anybody younger than 35 doesn’t remember the Pirates winning a World Series. That’s the kind of tradition Bob Nutting has been selling.
35? I’m 38 and I can’t remember them winning one. I remember them losing in the playoffs to the braves because they were my favorite team at the time (I was on the Pirates the year before in Little league and became a life long Giants fan after Bonds moved to my home town team the next year, I was 11 don’t judge me).
Tradition by definition goes back further than their last winning season. I’m a Pirates fan win or lose. Some fans are bandwagon jumpers. They’ll be back….just takes a few wise moves and I’m not sure the current group is capable.
You could call it a “Nutty” franchise!
the archer and cole trades were so bad that they made people forget how awful the Jose Bautista trade was.
Bautista never showed much for the Pirates. Took a couple of seasons with the Jays before he stared really hitting HRs
The Rays who usually get the better half of a trade let Joey Bats go also. He was a late bloomer…it happens.
So did the Royals and the Orioles. Bautista had a crazy rule 5 pick rookie year bouncing between teams
Pretty sure he was pounding the ball for the Jays for the last few months of the year they acquired him
Bautista joined in 2008 and was forgettable. Had a big September in 2009 after making an adjustment. Then he took off like a rocket.
Actually no….. .214 BA and .648 OPS in 2008 for the Jays. Hit .235 and an OPS of 757 in 2009. Suddenly went from 13 HR in 2009 to 54 in 2010, never hit more than 16 before that. I do not blame the Bucs for letting him go. as he never showed much in several years of getting a lot of at bats.
In fairness the Pirates gave Bautista a fair chance
Show me literally one comment at the time that was critical of the Jose Bautista trade. This is the best example of hindsight 2020 I’ve ever seen. Nobody was high on Jose at the time
I agree. Amazingly on this site when the trades were announced fans were supporting Huntingdon! Unbelievable
The Globe piece is incomplete because it makes no mention of MLB’s policy for compensating fans who’ve paid for tickets to games that won’t be played. In short, they don’t have one. Those games are still being classified as “postponed,” though we know full well they won’t be played. But calling them postponed means they don’t have to communicate with fans about any sort of compensation, whether it be vouchers, credits, or refunds. Team owners are alienating a lot of fans by treating our money as their money and playing talk to the hand when asked about it. They might want to enter that effect into their financial spreadsheets too.
Agreed. Why alienate the fans who actually buy tickets?
What a shame that middle class America has to wait a little longer to get their money back for baseball tickets!
A true crime to have to wait to get cash back for such an essential purchase!
expecting answers right now is kind of absurd given that nobody knows how much of the season gets played, if any at all. I’m waiting to see whether I get to use my mlb.tv subscription that auto-renewed before the pandemic changed everything, but I certainly don’t expect mlb to have answers right now on what that will look like
bingo. understandable that ticket buyers are angry, but you have to consider the reasons. then again, ive never bought a ticket or package myself, so my opinion doesng mean as much id say.
Hmm. I wonder what that has to do with my point. Nothing, as far as I can see. I guess it doesn’t occur to some that millions of real people are suddenly unemployed and struggling to make ends meet and they might have as much use for the money as any sports corporation, and maybe they deserve some sort of answers. I guess it also doesn’t occur to some that the teams not communicating anything at all to ticket holders creates bad will with the very people who fork out their hard-earned money to support the game and who they will want to come back to the ballparks when this is all over.
Exactly. Not every ticket buyer is independently wealthy.
Spot on Blue Sky and Mo. I imagine there are 1000s of people who have shelled out hard earned $ for a game, or three, in advance who could really use that money now for their daily needs. It’s not right that those fans’ $ is sitting in the coffers of the MLB team corporations with no games on the immediate horizon. MLB owners should refund that money now. It won’t happen….but it should.
At this point I’ve lowered my expectations to the point that I’d accept any sort of communications from the teams about the status of tickets purchased for unplayed games as real progress. They’ve been hiding behind calling these games “postponed” for the single reason it allows them to avoid even discussing what they will do to compensate fans who paid to see them. If this charade goes on much longer I wouldn’t be surprised to see class action lawsuits filed. Nobody wins them except the lawyers.
They should give anyone who wants one a refund on tickets this year. Don’t automatically refund everyone, as some people would rather hang on to their seats in case games are played, but a lot of people could use that money right now
Any news on Chad Kuhl’s health status?
The salary thing is going to be a real issue. On one hand…. the owners can certainly afford to pay the players there full wages. Also, there contracts are fully guaranteed (I believe) unless there is language included that covers not playing of games.
On the other hand… It wouldn’t look very good to fans if the players got paid for not playing while such an over whelming amount of people in this country are being laid off or furloughed. After all – the players are 99% millionaires as well
A new study out of Stanford shows that way more people have already been infected with the Coronavirus and just didn’t know than previously assumed. I know an accurate number would be nice, but if what the study suggests is true that puts the mortality rate well under 1 percent. Somewhere from .12 to .2 percent. Mlbtr won’t let me post a link, but it’s easily available via Google. I can’t understand why this isn’t being talked about. We all need to go back to work tomorrow. Stay home if you are old, sick, or scared.
paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/04/17/stanford-study-…
By the admission of the authors, the study has major potential limitations in terms of selection bias. Like Howie 415 pointed out, extrapolating a study of 3300 people in a single county to an entire nation of over 328 million is problematic.
Additionally, the study has not yet been subjected to peer review or published in a reputable journal. This doesn’t mean that the results are wrong, but it does make it highly premature to be touting them as a justification for any public policy decisions.
In Canada or Ontario we are being refused the test if they think you will make a full recovery. I was told to come back if I had trouble breathing and they would test me. I was sick for 7 days. This is a common story.
bingo. way too early to look back, and probably not worth it now. tests are becoming more available, and its more important who is infected now than who might have been. no one has a time machine to go back and cure people who got it in the past.
Nowhere in the study do they suggest what a true mortality rate is. The study is for one county. It is difficult to extrapolate to the whole country.
The most authoritative data we have for the country says we’ve had 756.6K tested positive and 40.1K deaths. The math says 5.3% death rate among those testing positive. That’s data collected and vetted by experts. Common sense says wash your hands. Experts say for 20 seconds. That’s the difference. I’ll go with the experts, even if they aren’t always 100% correct. The odds are with them, not common sense.
On a related note we passed the 37K total for auto fatalities for the entire year a couple of days ago. That’s one month of Covid. And that’s with most of us being extremely careful. I don’t know when or how this will end, but it’s still a threat.
That’s also with people staying off the roads for the last month, so……
The 37K isn’t for this year. It’s an average. This year is only a third done, so the data’s not there to report… So no, 37K is not with people staying off the roads.
The mortality rate will be much lower than that 5.3% though even if it is the number based on data. There’s probably thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people who have had it or have it and have not been tested since the symptoms are minor for the vast majority of people.
Exactly. The only mortality rate that is being reported is based on the confirmed number of positive cases, which is lower than actual cases. When all is said and done,and a more accurate number of infections is agreed upon, I’m betting that it will be on par with the flu mortality rate wise.
I specifically said the death rate among those testing positive. I did not say among infected… I am well aware there are more infected than tested positive. Read more closely.
To say it will be on par with the flu is a extreme though. Very extreme. It’s not likely to go from 5.3 toi .1%.
@tedtheodorelogan. That’s also deceptive. Even if the true mortality rate is only 0.10%, and only half of the population becomes infected, then it translates to 170,000 deaths. That would not be even remotely on the par with any flu at least not in living memory.
As I’ve pointed out to you before these are deeply flawed measurements since they do not include the great many unreported and undiagnosed infections. Random antibody studies are taking place in California right now. The findings of one released last week for Northern California produced the result that the infection rate might be 50 to 85 times greater than the statistics you are citing. What this means is the real mortality rate could be as low as 0.10%. These findings aren’t necessarily inherently good or bad news, but (if they are verified) should alter the way we look at the virus and how best to combat its spread.
I specifically said the death rate among those testing positive. I did not say among infected… I am well aware there are more infected than tested positive. Read more closely.
And as I have had to say every time you bring this up that it is a meaningless number. Last time you brought this up I pointed you to a lengthy explanation of why this is so, which I can only assume you didn’t read, at least not closely.
Then you chose to over-react. I stated a fact. That’s all. There absolutely is value to that fact. It means that among those deemed worthy of testing (pretty much all of whom are showing symptoms, whether serious or not), 1 in 20 die. That means something to me if not you.
No I choose to make corrections that provide a better understanding of this situation. You are quoting a statistic derived from a numerator with no denominator. Again, I shared a lengthy article that explains this far more completely and authoritatively than I need to do here. All you are being asked to do is read it. I don’t believe that you have, yet you remain snarky about it, which is just too bad. People are choosing to be deceptive about this in all sorts of ways, none of them at all helpful or productive.
It’s being talked about quite a bit just not in places like this. Another study in Los Angeles County will be completed soon. A lower mortality rate isn’t necessarily great news since it could still lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths if the virus is allowed to spread unchecked.
It is good news. People who are at risk can continue to stay home if they wish, and the rest of us can get back to work before we are completely destitute. It is totally unreasonable to expect people to just not work for a year or whatever until they find a vaccine. I’m sorry a few hundred thousand people will still die, but it is what it is. 22 million people have lost their jobs. Endless unemployment and stimulus checks for that many people isn’t sustainable. Enough is enough. Let us go back to work so we can feed, clothe, and shelter our families. Enough is enough.
Then you should personally apologize for and pay for those dying.
it would be good news if people were smart and didnt use the lower mortality rate as an excuse to act like its nothing. your comment proved that people cant be trusted with such information.
The death rate is low because all the people with extreme symptoms are getting treated in hospitals by medical proffesionals. If everyone goes back to work the virus will spread out of control. Hospitals will be full and people who would have been saved with a ventilator will die outside. That’s a real quick way to multiply the fatality rate many times over.
It isn’t clearly good or bad news, in large part because the concept of separating those at risk from those not at risk is fundamentally not achievable. Not that you care, since you’ve said it’s okay for hundreds of thousands of people to die, so long as none of them are you, I guess.
Oh I’m sure teams are trying to figure out ways to keep the money already bought by fans. Best guess is they’ll try and voucher it for a future purchase in 2021 and piss a lot of people off because if the season ever starts in 2020 we all know they’ll be no fans in the stands.
Has anyone had success reversing ticket purchase charges with their credit card company or PayPal?
I just want him to throw one pitch to Odor. One is all it should take.
I just want hi to throw one pitch in general to see if anybody calls him Joey Balls.
I look for MLB to introduce artificial audiences into their broadcasts. Soon we won’ t know the difference between a well attended event and a poorly attended event.
The real money is in the broadcast rights and those rights flow right to the bottom line. Make the games appear to be better attended and the rights valu increases.
Those attending games are playing their bit roles in furtherance of the owners objectives. And if you enjoy it and will come again, everyone is happy.
I’d love to see Joey’s velo on YouTube, since he’s likely taking steroids. After all, he isn’t tested.
Note in the last paragraph the reference of Scott Boras to have his say regarding MLB economics and players salaries etc. The only thing I can say in that regard is WHO CARES. Besides an agent that gets lots of money for his clients what special knowledge or insight can he really supply as it relates to professional baseball and economics. I can’t get over the fact that he will be involved in any discussion thereto.
Keep the dream alive Jose!
It would be nice to see Speier’s column but you need a subscription. Why doesn’t MLBTR mention that? You usually do…..
You know you miss it every summer. I know I do.