Can someone get me a hot dog and some nachos?
MLB spring training is back in full swing (low-hanging fruit) and guess what, it means absolutely nothing. Since the dawn of time, spring training success for teams or individual players has had no correlation to regular-season success. However, spring training does allow fans to buy tickets for cheap and boo the Astros, so maybe it is not completely useless.
Injuries
After a disastrous 2019 campaign, things do not seem to be looking up for Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale. Sale’s elbow injury that caused him to miss the end of last season has flared up again. Although Tommy John’s surgery does not seem to be on the table, Sale described the setback as a “gut punch.”
It is unclear when Sale will be back at the top of Boston’s rotation, but things should become more clear after seeing how Sale’s elbow responds when he starts throwing in about a week.
Boston’s arch-nemesis New York Yankees have run into a little injury trouble as well. Giancarlo Stanton is expected to miss opening day with a right calf strain but GM Brian Cashman expects Stanton back sometime in April.
Aaron Judge may be a different story. After a while of being unsure of what was actually wrong with him, Judge was diagnosed with a stress fracture to his rib. Judge is now out indefinitely, with surgery being a possibility.
Most importantly for the Yankees, is the loss of starting pitcher Luis Severino. Severino will undergo Tommy John surgery and miss the entire 2020 season. The loss of Severino is a big blow to a starting rotation that will miss James Paxton and Domingo German for the first half of the season.
Yelich secures the bag
Former NL MVP Christian Yelich and the Brewers connected with a nine-year 215 million dollar deal (put your kids in baseball folks). The deal ensures that Yelich will not hit the open market, at least, not until he is almost 40.
The deal, as Yelich describes is, is an ‘opt-in’ kind of deal, that marries Yelich and Milwaukee together for the next decade. While the deal does not have the gaudy numbers of Bryce Harper’s 330 million dollar deal or Mike Trout’s 430 million dollar contract, it is a heck of a payday for the 28-year-old.
Mic’d up dudes are fun
Players have been getting mic’d up all around the league during spring training and it has been a blast.
Guys like Kris Bryant and Freddie Freeman have given some high-quality content to the viewers and fans as they talk to the announcers in the middle of the game.
This is something the MLB has done during the all-star game and has gotten excellent responses from their viewership. Mic’d up players tears down one of the barriers between the fans and the players and gives a unique inside-look at what life is like on the field.
Hearing Anthony Rizzo talk through what’s going through his mind during his at-bat before ripping a single into center-field never gets old.