Baseball Page 953 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

MLB Blames Everyone But Itself For Free-Agency Freeze<em></em>
A February hot stove update, while a majority of top free agents remain unsigned: Major League Baseball and its players’ association got into a sparring match via press release today....

Cobb County Proposes Cutting Libraries After Dumb Decision To Build The Braves A Stadium
The people of Cobb County, Ga., have a budget conundrum on their hands, thanks to craven former county chairman Tim Lee’s insistence on spending almost $400 million in public money for a stadium without giving the public a chance to vote on it. Despite a record-high tax digest, the county is $30 to ...

Players Are Getting Angrier About MLB's Frozen Free-Agent Market
With scarcely a week and a half until pitchers and catchers report, there are more than 120 MLB free agents—including big names like Yu Darvish, J.D. Martinez and Jake Arrieta—who remain unsigned. It’s obvious that teams are operating differently this year, even if a singular reason for why is not. ...

Report: Jeffrey Loria Takes One Last Dump On Miami
Former Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, who seemingly did everything in his power to cripple the city of Miami when he managed to scam the city into spending billions of dollars to build him a new baseball stadium, has found yet another way to be a disgusting rich person....

Bring Back Bullpen Carts
The MLB commissioner’s office has brought a new proposal to the table in the outgoing pace-of-play discussions between the players and the league. As reported by Ken Rosenthal: no changes this year, except for a cap on mound visits, but if players don’t get the average game length down to 2 hours an...

God Bless Alcides Escobar, The Actual Replacement-Level Player<em></em>
Back in the olden days of baseball writers and fans arguing about wins above replacement—say, five or 10 years ago—there was this claim that the concept of the replacement-level player was completely made-up, something too squishy to define concretely. What are you measuring from? said the wised-up ...

Rays Fire Team Doctor After Accusation Of Sexual Abuse
The Rays have cut ties with team doctor Michael Reilly, who’s worked with the franchise since its 1998 inaugural season, after a former employee at his private practice accused him of sexual abuse that began when she was a teenager. ...

Roger Goodell Assures Everyone Washington Football Team Will Remain Racist Despite Chief Wahoo Removal
After the Cleveland Indians announced that they’ll be taking Chief Wahoo off of team uniforms by 2019, the Washington NFL team naturally drew scrutiny. Would they follow suit and ditch their comically racist name for something more palatable, or at least scrub their logo for something more neutral?...

Baseball Executive Kevin Towers Dead At 56 Of Thyroid Cancer
Former Padres and Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers died Tuesday morning of thyroid cancer, which he was diagnosed with in late 2016. Towers was known as a popular and insightful executive, first entering the front office ranks as a scout before he became the Padres’ GM in 1995....

MLB Says Cleveland Indians Will Get Rid Of Chief Wahoo On Uniforms In 2019
The Cleveland Indians will no longer sport images of their racist mascot Chief Wahoo on team uniforms starting in 2019. Major League Baseball announced the change this morning, saying in a statement that the caricature was “no longer appropriate for use on the field.”...

MLBPA Sends Limp-Dick Memo About Payroll Slashing, Is Summarily Shooed Off
Next winter will be the real bellwether for the state of MLB payroll spending—handwringing over shrinking payroll today might disappear all at once if the movement of next winter’s studs lifts all boats—but the early indicators of this winter are troubling. The hot stove is cool, there’s a boatload ...

Engelb Vielma Tracker: All Your Hot Engelb Vielma Moves And Anagrams Here
“The offseason has been so slow,” you say. “Nothing is happening. Nothing has been happening.” But have you considered that the offseason actually has not been so slow if you take into account the activity of non-prospect minor-league defensive specialist Engelb Vielma? A quick look, with some in-se...

The Only Fun Miami Marlin Is Probably Better At Basketball
Even in a shamelessly slow offseason, the Miami Marlins have clobbered all competitors in a race to become the least interesting team in baseball. They traded Giancarlo Stanton, who is possibly the most exciting dude in the entire sport, for peanuts. The main goal, which the team barely bothered to ...

Guy Who Dreamed Of Playing For Marlins Should Be Careful What He Wishes For<em></em>
Coral Springs native Lewis Brinson is excited to patrol the field in front of the Marlins’ dinger machine for his childhood team. The Marlins acquired the 23-year-old prospect yesterday as part of the return package for trading Christian Yelich to Milwaukee....

Oh, Hell Yeah, The Brewers Are Going For It
Scarcely an hour after acquiring Christian Yelich in a trade with the Marlins, the Brewers have gotten themselves another outfielder: Lorenzo Cain, signed to a five-year, $80 million deal as reported by ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick and first broken by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal....

Christian Yelich Freed From Miami, Joins Surprisingly Fun Brewers Club
The hot stove is warm, baby. A week after Christian Yelich’s agent announced the outfielder’s relationship with the Marlins was “irretrievably broken,” he’s been shipped off to the Brewers in exchange for a solid haul of prospects: outfielders Lewis Brinson and Monte Harrison, second baseman Isan Di...

The Hall Of Fame Is Trying To Vacate Your Memories
Barring something truly unexpected like a teary confession from Derek Jeter or Mariano Rivera becoming the subject of a startling exposé, Alex Rodriguez will, when he joins the ballot in 2022, become the final strong candidate for baseball’s Hall of Fame to have both made his name in the sport’s dop...

Watch The Four Newest Baseball Hall Of Famers Get The Call
As worked up as we all were for the results of Baseball Hall of Fame voting, I suppose the players who got in were probably even more excited. As is tradition, cameras were rolling when Chipper Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Jim Thome, and Trevor Hoffman received the phone calls letting them know they’ve...

Edgar Martínez Is A Hall-Of-Fame Baseball Player
Many of the conceptual arguments around the Baseball Hall of Fame aren’t really about baseball. Debates about players who used steroids are about justice or punishment or cheating. Debates about the character clause are about the separation between the sport and the people who play it. Debates about...

Barry Bonds And Roger Clemens Not Elected To Baseball Hall Of Fame
For the sixth year in a row, baseball’s home run king and a seven-time Cy Young winner have both been refused entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Neither Barry Bonds, the second-greatest hitter of all-time by fWAR, nor Roger Clemens, the best pitcher ever by that same stat, cleared the 75 percent ...