Ben and Sam preview the Reds’ season with Jay Jaffe and Geoff Young, and Pete talks to Cincinnati CBS affiliate sports anchor/reporter Zach Wells (at 18:35).
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Episode 310
Al Skorupa writes for Bullpen Banter and (quite recently) RotoGraphs and resides just outside of Providence, Rhode Island. He discusses the specific challenges of, and opportunities for, covering prospects in the Northeast.
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.
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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 39 min play time.)
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We have had to deal with a lot of speculation about the Rangers’ infield this off-season. It is not as if the Rangers are in trouble, they have the “problem” of a looming logjam. Shortstop super-prospect Jurickson Profar is knocking on the door. The Rangers also have Ian Kinsler at second and under contract through 2017, and Elvis Andrus, who is only 24, at shortstop and under contract through 2014. Most teams would love to have this sort of problem. This is not going to be another post about what the Rangers should do with these players. Instead, prompted by Evan Grant’s discussion of how the Rangers might want to think about a long-term extension for Andrus depending on how he plays this year, I want to look at how Andrus’ bat might develop over the next few years by looking at similar players. They are actually rather scarce, as Andrus has a rather unusual combination of skills.
As Ken Rosenthal reported earlier this week, the Rockies are looking to add a starting pitcher. This should surprise nobody — the club was an easy last place in the majors in both ERA and FIP last season, and even adjusting for Coors Field leaves them 28th and 26th (last and second-to-last in the NL) respectively in ERA- and FIP-.
What did surprise me was who their target should resemble:
The team wants to add one more capable starting pitcher, major-league sources say — someone who could throw 150 to 175 innings and produce a ERA in the 4.50-4.75 range. Someone like right-hander Josh Fogg, who pitched for the Rockies in 2006-07.
Huh? Him?
In Milwaukee, Hunter Morris will battle former shortstop Alex Gonzalez and fringe big leaguer Taylor Green for the opening day nod at first base. On paper, it seems like the odds are in his favor. However, Morris’ arbitration clock and Corey Hart’s timetable for returning to the lineup will weigh heavily in the Brewers decision. For a three-to-four week stopgap, it might not be worth it to the organization — Especially when the Brewers are projected to finish with a .500 record.
Recently, Marc Hulet ranked Morris as the 11th best prospect in the Brewers system. He was the third best first baseman I scouted in person in 2012, but this was more indicative of a weak group at the position than Morris being a top prospect. Oliver projections have the left-handed hitter posting a .256/.302/.476 triple slash line and 1.7 WAR if given everyday reps, but this strikes me as generous. While Morris’ power is not in question, the rest of his skill set is.
Video after the jump
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Spring Broadcast Schedule Begins Saturday
2. Saturday Games and Probable Starters
3. Sunday Games and Probable Starters
Spring Broadcast Schedule Begins Saturday
This weekend, six spring-training games are available via MLB.TV. “Which pitchers are starting those games?” a hypothetical reader might ask conveniently for the sake of this post. To which the author responds: “That’s a reasonable question.”
Indeed, given the nature of spring training, teams’ probable starters are not available days ahead of time (through the MLB website, for example) the way they are during the regular season. For example, as the author writes this, there are precisely zero probable starters listed for Saturday’s and Sunday’s games — and yet, this is what we might call “need to know” information.
With a view to satisfying the reader’s curiosity, then, what the author has done is to utilize his Google machine such that he might procure it (i.e. the information) from the internet. What follows is the fruit of that not-very-exhausting labor.
Beside each pitcher is his Steamer projection for 2013. Source material is available by clicking on each respective team acronym. All corrections are invited.
First, Tigers’ general manager Dave Dombrowski said young fireballing right-hander Bruce Rondon would be given “every shot” at closing this coming year. Then there were rumors that the Tigers were “targeting relievers capable of closing.” Last week, the manager said he doubted that anyone would be “anointed the closer out of spring training.” Whether or not there’s a real difference in the team stance at any of these points, there do seem to be some different ideas being put forth about the team’s perception of the closer’s role.
Spring training games kick off today with four tilts: two in the Grapefruit League and two in the Cactus League. All 30 teams will be in action in Saturday. Same for Sunday, when live television broadcasts start. That’s right. Major League Baseball, live on your television for the first time since October.
Well, if you live in the right place and have the right cable and satellite operators.
If you’ve been following my posts over the past several months, you know what I’m talking about. I wrote about every nook and cranny of the baseball-on-television landscape. I dissected the local TV contracts for all 30 teams. I analyzed the Dodgers’ proposed new TV deals. I examined News Corp.’s billion-dollar investment in the Yankees’ YES Network. I explained how the new revenue-sharing program in the collective bargaining agreement is flexible enough to capture the new local TV revenue. I talked about MLB’s blackout policy and the lawsuit trying to put a stop to it. I looked at the dispute between the Orioles and the Nationals over rights fees from MASN and the one between Fox Sports San Diego and several cable companies that kept the Padres off hundreds of thousands of televisions in San Diego last season.
As the 2013 spring season gets underway, many of these disputes remain unresolved and new ones are on the horizon. Plus, there’s a growing sense that the extraordinarily rich local TV deals we’ve seen in the past few years are reaching a tipping point. That is, that the live sports programming bubble may about to burst.