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With a week full of contentious back and forth between owners and players over how the money will play out, I’m going to stay far from that….
1.) Franklin Barreto, the last remaining piece of the Josh Donaldson trade from 2015, hit a paltry .123 last season as it’s looking more and more grim for this trade scenario. With the help of Gleyber Torres, he worked hard this spring, hitting .306 in spring training after spending much of the offseason working on strike zone awareness. The Athletics hitting coach Darren Bush agreed. Barreto is definitely a waiver wire player currently, but I will be watching to see how his first month in the big leagues pans out.
2.) Luis Guillorme. Does he sound familiar to anyone who is NOT a Mets fan? The video below showing a calm and collected Mets player catching a slipped bat from Adeiny Hechavarria in mid-air without any effort, that’s Luis. He was selected in the 10th round of the 2013 MLB draft and added to their 40-man roster after the 2017 season. Last year in August, he hit his first ever home run in the majors.
3.) Here are the top 10 players in home runs last year (2019) by position: 1B (1 player); 2B (0 players); 3B (3 players); OF (5 players); DH (1 player)
Five years ago (2014), top 10 in home runs by position: 1B (3 players); 2B (0 players); 3B (0 players); OF (4 players); DH (3 players)
10 years ago (2009), top 11 in Home Runs by position: 1B (7 players); 2B (1 player); 3B (1 player); OF (1 player); DH (0 players)
4.) The Atlanta Braves site Talking Chop has been breaking down the 2020 MLB draft by position. This is one of the weaker shortstop drafts we’ve seen in a while:
5.) According to ballparksofbaseball.com, here are shallowest left and right Fields
- Right Field Shortest: Dodgers (300); Red Sox (302); Giants (309); Yankees (314); Pirates (320); Orioles (320)
- Right Field Longest: Cubs (353); Rockies (350); Marlins (335); Cardinals (335); Nationals (335); Diamondbacks (335) White Sox (335)
- Left Field Shortest: Red Sox (310); Rays (215); Astros (315); Yankees (318); Indians (325); Pirates (325); Reds (325)
- Left Field Longest: Cubs (355); Rockies (347); Tigers (345); Marlins (340); Twins (339); Giants (339)
6.) Stadium factors going deeper: looking for a player who can hit doubles? Look to games at these stadiums: Red Sox, Rockies, Pirates, Royals and Nationals had the most doubles hit in their parks in 2019. The fewest? Yankees, White Sox, Giants, Mariners and Mets.
7.) Division rankings by total years of managerial experience. This all depends if you think this is good or bad, the last two champions had about a year of managerial experience (N/A for Boston right now):
- AL West: 58 years of combined managerial experience
- AL Central: 44 years
- NL East: 27 years
- NL West: 20 years
- NL Central: 8 years
- AL East: 7 years
8.) I’m hoping there is no correlation in this but over the last 5 years, every time Avisail Garcia gets a hefty pay bump, he has a bad season:
- 2016: $523k up to $2.1MM (games played dropped from 148 to 120 and BA dropped from .257 to .245)
- 2018: $3MM up to $6.7MM (games played dropped from 136 to 90 and BA dropped from .330 to .236)
- 2020: $3.5MM up to $7.25MM (unknown)
9.) A shortened season might help the Cleveland Indians starting pitching rotation, which has a history of injuries (Mike Clevinger and Carlos Carrasco) as well as up-and-coming Shane Bieber, Zach Plesac and Aaron Civale (who could be on an innings limit).
10.) Los Angeles Angels prospect Alexander Ramirez is jumping up the prospect rankings. An international prospect out of the Dominican league, he had a decent rookie year, scoring 37 runs with 19 RBI, four homers, and nine stolen bases across 39 games.