NEWS/RUMORS/AROUND MLB Thread

Interleague schedule next year...

Bill Plunkett
#Dodgers road interleague opponents -- Cleveland, Detroit, White Sox, Angels. Home interleague opponents -- Royals, Twins, White Sox, Angels

 

been trying to avoid/ignore this
like during my parents final days
but months ago a guy i trust who lives near vin (calabasas i believe) said vin was not looking good
he said it stood out because vin was usually so vibrant, outgoing and full of life
i tried to convince myself he was mistaken or just wrong
but i knew deep down he wasn't
and when you think about it, dodger baseball is probably as big to vin as vin is to dodger baseball
there's no way he would ever walk away unless...
i fear the end may be near/approaching, and he knows it
i feel like i'm losing another parent and i know many of your probably feel the same
i don't know life without vinny, he's always been there
really hoping we do something special for him

 

racist

 

Giants' free fall potentially historic
by David Schoenfield | ESPN — 73 minutes ago

The Giants' second-half collapse starting to feel epic in nature. For a team that supposedly just knows how to win -- three World Series titles in six seasons! -- they've apparently forgotten how to win. It's almost like what has happened in the past hasn't really affected the current season. After their epic blown save Tuesday night, the Giants responded with a 3-1 loss to the Padres as Luis Perdomo outpitched Madison Bumgarner. They scored just five runs in the three-game series, and the Padres swept them in San Francisco for the first time since May 2010. The Giants fell to 20-35 since the All-Star break, including 5-8 in September. They're hitting .217/.288/.339 this month, with Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, Angel Pagan and Denard Span all under .200.

I threw this out on Twitter: If the Giants fade from the best record at the All-Star break to missing the playoffs altogether, how would that rank on the all-time list of collapses? Some nominees that were suggested:

2014 A's: They had MLB's best record at the break at 59-36 and went 29-38 in the second half. That .433 winning percentage is still better than the Giants' .364 mark. Plus, the A's at least held on for a wild card (though they squandered a late lead in the wild-card game to the Royals).

2012 Rangers: They had the second-best record at the break, a half-game behind the Yankees, and went 41-35 in the second half. What they did was blow a four-game division lead to the A's with six to play, although they also advanced to the wild-card game.

2011 Red Sox: One of the great September collapses, the Red Sox began the month 1½ games up in the AL East and nine games up in the wild card over the Rays. They went 7-20 and lost out on a playoff berth on that dramatic final day of the season.

2011 Braves: They had the NL's second-best record at the break and an 8½-game lead in the wild card entering September, before going 9-18 the final month and missing the playoffs. Certainly one of the bigger September collapses in history.

2007 Mets: Another late collapse more than a slow fade, the Mets blew a 7-game lead over their final 17 games, including a 1-6 record over their final seven games. They did miss the playoffs in the one-wild-card era.

1995 Angels: They held a 10½-game lead in the division on Aug. 15 and soon went on a 6-24 stretch that included two nine-game losing streaks. They actually finished over .500 in the second half, but missed the postseason when they lost a one-game tiebreaker to the Mariners.

1978 Red Sox: The long, slow, torturous collapse. The Red Sox peaked with a 10-game lead on July 8 and were up nine games a day later at the All-Star break, with a 57-26 record. To be fair, this was more about the Yankees getting red hot. The Red Sox went 42-38 in the second half and actually won their final eight games to force the famous tiebreaker game with the Yankees.

1969 Cubs: They were 61-37 (.622) at the break and went 31-33 after that as the Miracle Mets soared past them to win the NL East. Still, 31-33 is a better than 20-35.​

It's important to note that some of those earlier teams didn't have a wild-card spot to fall back on, let alone two. That's what makes this potential collapse a different beast. At the break, when FiveThirtyEight projected their playoff odds at 96 percent, the Giants were on pace to win 102 games. Now they're at 77 wins with 17 left to play (although still have playoff odds of 66 percent).

The good news: The Mets and Cardinals also lost Wednesday, so the Giants retain their wild-card lead, a half-game over the Mets and a full game over the Cardinals. And Thursday, they begin a four-game series against St. Louis. Of course, Giants fans would argue that this wouldn't even be the biggest collapse in the Bay Area this year. The Warriors, after all, lost a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals.

Andrew Baggarly✔@extrabaggs
Giants lose. Mets lose. Cardinals lose. Pennant fever: catch it.
3:37 PM - 14 Sep 2016​

 

lol
Padres GM suspended 30 games after MLB probe into Red Sox trade
by Mike Oz | Big League Stew — 37 minutes ago

San Diego Padres general manager A.J. Preller was suspended Thursday for 30 games without pay by Major League Baseball, hours after news hit that the Padres allegedly withheld player health information in hopes of getting the upper hand in trade discussions.

Details of the Padres’ wrongdoing landed in a story by ESPN’s Buster Olney, which said the Padres allegedly built a special database to document player health details while skirting MLB’s rules about injury information. In essence, the Padres kept two sets of records: One that was incomplete and shared with other teams and another that was complete and kept in-house.

The Padres were called into question because of their July trades with the Boston Red Sox and Miami Marlins, which according to Olney, left teams thinking the Padres were using “strategic deception.”

In its announcement of Preller’s punishment, MLB didn’t comment on the specifics of its probe, saying only:

Major League Baseball has completed an investigation into the July 14th transaction in which pitcher Drew Pomeranz was traded from the San Diego Padres to the Boston Red Sox. MLB’s Department of Investigations conducted the thorough review, which included interviews with relevant individuals from both Clubs. The findings were submitted to Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr.

As a result of this matter, Major League Baseball announced today that A.J. Preller, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Padres, has received a 30-day suspension without pay.

MLB considers the matter closed and will have no further comment.​

Major League Baseball has a central database for player health information, where teams are supposed to keep their notes on injuries. In the event of a trade, doctors for each team trade codes and look at player notes. According to Olney, the Padres started keeping all the important notes in their separate database this year.

At the trade deadline, the Padres traded Drew Pomeranz to the Boston Red Sox and Andrew Cashner and Colin Rea to the Miami Marlins. Rea was hurt in his first start with the Marlins and actually returned to the Padres. The Red Sox were angered when they learned about preventative treatment Pomeranz was going through that wasn’t in his Padres notes.

At least three teams complained to MLB, according to Olney, to spur the investigation. It’s the second database scandal in baseball in the last two seasons, as the St. Louis Cardinals were investigated by the F.B.I. for hacking into the Houston Astros’ database that included notes on trade proposals.

How and why did this Padres scandal happen? Olney explains:

Todd Hutcheson had been the Padres’ athletic trainer for 18 years, but the Padres replaced him in February with a new department leader, Mark Rogow, who had previously worked with the U.S. Department of Defense. After Rogow’s hiring, there were a handful of meetings during spring training with the organization’s athletic trainers, for the major and minor leagues.

According to two sources with direct knowledge of those meetings, the staffers were instructed by front office officials to document medical details about players into two separate systems.

The athletic trainers were told to post the details of any disabled-list-related medical situations on MLB’s central system, but they also were instructed to keep the specifics about preventive treatments only on the Padres’ internal notes. One source defined the distinction in this way: If a player was treated for a sore hamstring or shoulder without being placed on the disabled list, that sort of information was to be kept in-house, for use within the organization only.

According to the two sources with direct knowledge of the meetings, the athletic trainers were told that by splitting the medical files into two categories, the Padres would benefit in trade discussions.

At the annual get-together of athletic trainers at the Baseball Winter Meetings in Nashville last December, MLB officials had informed those in the room that they wanted more medical documentation. Months later, when the Padres’ directive to split the documentation was handed down, there were Padres staffers uncomfortable, according to sources, and within the room, that displeasure was expressed, with athletic trainers saying there would be backlash for this type of filing system.​

This isn’t the first time Preller has been suspended by MLB. When he was in charge of scouting for the Texas Rangers, he was suspended for 90 games after an international player negotiation that broke MLB rules. The suspension was appealed down to the 30 games, but to this day, the details on what caused the suspension are limited.

This new suspension won’t help Preller’s image in San Diego, where he took the GM job before the 2015 season. Preller did a whirlwind rebuild before last season, emptying the farm system to acquire players such as Matt Kemp, Justin Upton, Craig Kimbrel and Wil Myers. The Padres disappointed, finishing 74-88. Preller eventually traded a number of the players he acquired before the season.