Kuzul

Passionate coaching is valuable in any sport.

It’s so valuable, in fact, that for the right man, teams will recruit across league lines.

In the eyes of the Detroit Tigers and Pittsburgh Pirates, Jim Harbaugh is precisely the right man.

For one inning (or possibly more), the Michigan football leader will take on the responsibility of coaching first base for the Tigers come Wednesday afternoon.

Update from Wednesday, March 2

Here’s a look at Coach Harbaugh in action:

[Twitter]

–End of Update–

And he’s already attracted attention from the opposition. According to the Bradenton Herald‘s Jason Dill, Pirates manager Clint Hurdle would like Harbaugh to don black and gold as well:

I told him with his passion for stirring things up, why wouldn’t he just half the game, coach the game for the Pirates. I don’t think that’ll fly, but that’s right up his alley. I’ve encouraged him to try and get out early to spend some time with our group and our team before the Tigers get onto the field.

It’s an easy transition for Harbaugh. He gleefully accepted similar responsibilities for the Oakland A’s a season ago.

The Detroit News‘ Angelique S. Chengelis reported Harbaugh even had aspirations of being a professional baseball player.  

But Michigan football fans needn’t worry about losing their spirited chief. The Wolverines will be taking the trip to Florida along with their khaki-clad coach, and spring practice will occur at IMG Academy. 

What? You didn’t think one of the fieriest men to ever wear a headset would skip out on the opportunity to double his sideline shouting time, did you?

[Detroit News, h/t For the Win]

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Ian Desmond is now $8 million richer. Were he a normal person, that would be worthy of a pat on the back and an “Attaboy!”

But because Desmond is a fallen baseball star who could have been over $100 million richer a couple of years ago, all anyone can say is, “Tough break, man.”

For anyone who wasn’t paying attention, Desmond’s extended stay on the free-agent market following a disappointing 2015 season finally came to an end Sunday morning. As Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports first reported, the 30-year-old shortstop signed with the Texas Rangers for one year and $8 million.

Whoops. Sorry. That should read “former shortstop.” Though Desmond has played all but seven of his 920 career games in the majors at shortstop, he’ll play left field for the Rangers. They signed him not to take over for Elvis Andrus, but to fill in for the eternally banged-up Josh Hamilton.

“This is a new chapter,” the former Washington Nationals star said Monday morning, per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. “And I’m going to embrace the challenge.”

Though Desmond may not be kicking himself outwardly, it’s easy to assume he’s doing so inwardly. On some level, he must know he just became a living warning about the dark side of free agency.

As Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post reported in November 2014, Desmond could have made himself a very rich man in between the 2013 and 2014 seasons. The Nationals offered him a seven-year, $107 million contract extension that would have made him one of the highest-paid shortstops in baseball.

But Desmond turned it down. And even in retrospect, it’s hard to blame him for doing so.

Because Washington’s offer would have included the two-year, $17.5 million deal Desmond had already signed to cover his final arbitration years, it was realistically an offer to buy out five free-agent years for $89.5 million. There was also deferred money involved, which made that number less attractive.

At the time, Desmond could look beyond Washington’s borders and see the nearly $160 million extension Troy Tulowitzki signed in Colorado and the $120 million extension Andrus signed in Texas. Knowing that, he had every right to feel underwhelmed.

After all, Desmond had posted an .812 OPS across 2012 and 2013 while reaching 20 homers and 20 stolen bases each year. One defensive metric rated him above average, and he was easily the best shortstop in baseball, according to FanGraphs WAR:

Had Desmond been a younger player making the MLB minimum with a long stretch of club control still ahead of him, it would have been a no-brainer to take the Nationals’ offer. But at 28 and with only two years to go until free agency, he rejected Washington’s offer to pursue an even bigger payday—a decision virtually every player in his position would have made.

While turning down the offer may have been easy, the hard part was always going to be keeping up the performance that motivated Washington to present it in the first place.

And so begins the story of Desmond’s downfall. He regressed offensively in 2014, as his .743 OPS qualified him as only a slightly above-average hitter. That begat an all-around regression in 2015, as he OPS’d just .674 and struggled with consistency on defense.

What happened? James Wagner and Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post wrote Sunday that Desmond seemed to let the pressure get to him. Between a bad strikeout habit that got considerably worse and a problem with errors that came back with a vengeance after quieting down for a couple of years, that’s easy to believe.

The good news, such as it was, is that Desmond regained his confidence and saved face with a .777 OPS and better defense in the second half of 2015. Pair that with a widespread need for offense at shortstop, and he spurned a qualifying offer in November that would have paid him $15.8 million in 2016. It must have seemed like an obvious choice. 

And it wasn’t just Desmond who figured as much. Jon Heyman, then with CBS Sports, predicted he would find a six-year, $90 million deal. Had Desmond been able to, refusing Washington’s extension offer would have been no harm, no foul.

But it was too good to be true.

If Desmond was guilty of anything in rejecting Washington’s extension offer, it was overestimating his margin for error. 

Dave Cameron of FanGraphs noticed a couple of years ago that there has recently been a steep decline in the percentage of payroll allocated to MLB players in their 30s. This appears to be a reaction to how poorly players have aged in the post-PED era, and Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated wrote that it’s especially apparent in free agency.

Baseball is in an age when teams are better off focusing their attention and their money on younger players, and not just the ones who are already established.

Teams have all the incentive in the world to collect as many draft picks as possible, which doesn’t help players who are given qualifying offers. As soon as they say “No thanks,” they’re attached to draft-pick compensation. And as we’ve seen many times over the last four years, teams are generally hesitant to deal with players attached to draft-pick compensation.

Of course, there’s still lots of money to be made in free agency. Teams spent roughly $2.5 billion on free agents this offseason—and not all on players who had momentum going into free agency. Jordan Zimmermann, Jeff Samardzija and Ian Kennedy were all paid well despite being tied to draft-pick compensation and despite not having great seasons in 2015.

But at the same time, those three didn’t do nearly as well as they likely would have if they had performed better in 2015. And if one supbar season hurt them, it’s no wonder two subpar seasons hurt Desmond considerably more. At a time when teams are hesitant to give up draft picks and hesitant to pay for players in their declining years, Desmond might as well have morphed into a giant red flag.

Now that his saga is over, there’s no ignoring the distressing message that was sent to players who might find themselves in his shoes. If they’re going to bet on their own ability, they better make sure they win.

If they don’t, free agency won’t be forgiving.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Super Bowl winners dump gallons of Gatorade over their coach’s head. The NBA Finals conclude with stormy champagne showers. NHL champions sip (or guzzle) from Lord Stanley’s Cup. In short, sports celebrations are inexplicably intertwined with the decidedly messy utilization of food and beverage.

One MLB team, however, will part with a similar time-honored tradition. The Baltimore Orioles put an end to their beloved victory commemoration: a postgame pie in the face.  

The announcement, which came from notable sweet-smashing instigator Adam Jones via Twitter, began with some serious foreshadowing. 

Then, of course, the news came: no more celebratory on-field dessert consumption. But why?

As it turns out, the gleeful pranking has been deemed hazardous.

Is it the sugar intake? The terrifying tin? Perhaps the velocity of the impact itself is cause for concern?

Regardless of the reason for the tomfoolery’s abandonment, fans can still expect to see some horseplay. Jones isn’t abandoning antics of all kinds. In fact, he’s already fielding alternative ideas.

If his hashtags #PantsThem and #Swirly are any indication, however, his teammates may soon be lamenting the change in protocol.

[Twitter, h/t the Big Lead]

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New York Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman is awaiting potential suspension from Major League Baseball for his involvement in a domestic dispute with his girlfriend.

Continue for updates.

MLB Expected to Rule on Potential Suspension This Week

Monday, Feb. 29

MLB reportedly will decide if Chapman will be suspended this week, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network.  

“This could be one of those (situations) where an appeal could be expedited,” MLBPA union chief Tony Clark told Jayson Stark of ESPN.com on Monday, speaking about Chapman’s hearing and potential appeal. He added, though, there was no concrete understanding in place between the union and the league.

Chapman, 28, already told Brendan Kuty of NJ Advance Media he would appeal any suspension by the league.

His teammate, Alex Rodriguez, spoke to reporters about the advice he would give Chapman in the event the talented reliever is suspended, per Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News:

In October, Chapman’s girlfriend, Christina Barnea, claimed the pitcher choked and shoved her after a dispute over something Barnea had discovered on Chapman’s phone. Authorities also verified that Chapman had discharged a shotgun eight times in his garage after the dispute.

Barnea later recanted her claims of assault, however, and Chapman wasn’t charged with a crime for the incident.

The closer, who was acquired from the Cincinnati Reds in December for minor leaguers Caleb Cotham, Rookie Davis, Eric Jagielo and Tony Renda, is expected to lock down the back end of a solid Yankees bullpen that also includes Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances.

Chapman, who regularly hits 100 mph on his fastball, finished the 2015 season 4-4 with a 1.63 ERA, a 1.15 WHIP, 33 saves and 116 strikeouts in 66.1 innings pitched. His addition could give the Yankees one of the best bullpens in all of baseball, with Betances, Miller and Chapman locking down the seventh, eighth and ninth innings.

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Spring training is finally underway, and games are set to begin this week in the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues, so let’s kick things off with another updated version of our MLB power rankings.

We last updated these rankings Feb. 22, so any transactions or injuries that have taken place between then and now were factored into the changes you’ll see in the following rankings.

Notable additions during that span include: OF Ian Desmond (TEX), OF Dexter Fowler (CHC), IF/OF Chris Coghlan (OAK), OF Will Venable (CLE), OF Shane Victorino (CHC), OF Drew Stubbs (TEX), OF Domonic Brown (TOR), 1B/3B Casey McGehee (DET) and RP Rafael Soriano (TOR).

We also saw Abraham Almonte (CLE) suspended, Jose Reyes (COL) put on administrative leave and Hyun-Jin Ryu (LAD) ticketed for the disabled list.

There were also a few simple shifts in opinion on how some teams stack up to others.

There’s obviously no game action to justify shuffling these rankings at this point, but here in the offseason, the more you think about teams, the more your opinion is likely to change.

Call it analysis or call it overanalysis, it’s just a part of these preseason rankings—and 400-plus comments on the last version of these rankings gave me plenty to think about.

As with any offseason power rankings, these are not simply meant to be a prediction for the year ahead. Instead, they are a look at how teams would stack up with the rosters they currently have if the season were to start today.

Keep that in mind when considering where your favorite team falls in the following rankings, as a lot can still change between now and Opening Day.

Note: This time around, we’ve included a projected 25-man Opening Day roster for each club. The roster projections from Roster Resource served as an invaluable starting point in this exercise, though I made changes based on my own opinions.

In the following projected rosters, (R) indicates a player with rookie eligibility remaining, while a bold player is a newcomer to the team.

Begin Slideshow

It’s not a disaster that rising stars like Corey Seager and J.P. Crawford landed berths on the list of 2016 MLB rookies who are being hyped up too soon.

What their inclusions signal is that these players performed so impressively in 2015 that they are both now facing monstrous expectations as the new campaign looms. The pair of shortstops represent the two types of players who cracked this list.

The first, like Seager, are guys who have tremendous upside but who also have extremely limited big league track records. The second, like Crawford, are players who have excelled in the minors but who are unlikely to live up to the buzz because they are long shots to earn major league jobs out of camp.

As it turns out, after singling out the five rookies for this list, Seager and Crawford aren’t the only shortstops who made the grade.

Begin Slideshow

Jose Bautista won’t come cheap. Just ask him.

Joey Bats, as MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reported, is seeking at least five years and more than $150 million as he prepares to hit free agency next winter. And that’s not negotiable. 

“There’s no negotiation,” Bautista said of his current club, the Toronto Blue Jays, per Sportsnet.ca’s Arden Zwelling. “I told them what I wanted. They either meet it or it is what it is.”

That’s about as unequivocal as it gets, and the Jays should actually thank their slugger for it. At least they know where they stand.

The obvious question now: Is Bautista worth it, for Toronto or anyone else? He’s 35, after all. He’ll be 36 in October. Any team that meets his demands will be paying him beyond his age-40 season. That’s a risk wrapped in a gamble with a side of cross-your-fingers.

On the other hand, Bautista is a rare commodity in today’s power-starved MLB. He’s finished in the top 10 in American League MVP voting in four of the last six seasons and made the All-Star team in all six. During that stretch, he’s clubbed 227 home runs and amassed 33.8 WAR, per Baseball-Reference.com.

He is, without hyperbole, one of the baddest bat-flipping bashers in either league. And he’d be a game-changer for any lineup.

Again, though, does he make sense at the years and dollars he’s demanding? Let’s first parse that question for the Blue Jays, then expand our lens.

For Toronto, the answer is a fairly unambiguous “no.”

The Jays boasted baseball’s best offense in 2015, pacing the pack in runs, home runs, OPS and a host of other categories. They kept their core intact for 2016, and that’s why they’re in the mix in a crowded AL East despite losing ace David Price to the division-rival Boston Red Sox.

Looking further down the line, however, the Jays will have to make some hard choices. They just signed a two-year, $29 million deal with reigning AL MVP Josh Donaldson, avoiding a potentially messy arbitration hearing. 

But, as yours truly recently argued, that should be a mere preamble to a long-term megadeal between Toronto and its franchise player, who turned 30 in December. 

Additionally, the Blue Jays need to decide whether to re-up 33-year-old Edwin Encarnacion, who can become a free agent next winter but has indicated he’d rather work out an extension this spring, per MLB.com’s Gregor Chisholm. 

Even if they expand payroll, the Jays simply don’t have deep enough pockets to keep all these hitters in perpetuity. Someone’s got to go. And as the oldest and, seemingly, least financially flexible of the bunch, that someone looks like Bautista.

So let’s say Bautista finishes his final campaign north of the border with a stat line similar to last season’s 40 home runs, 114 RBI and .913 OPS. Is there a club out there that’ll hand him the gaudy contract he’s set his heart (and wallet) on?

It’s far from impossible. In 2012, the Los Angeles Angels gave a then-32-year-old Albert Pujols a 10-year, $240 million commitment, which runs through his age-41 season. Yes, Pujols was in his own stratosphere at the time, and that pact has turned into a cautionary tale more than a road map.

But Bautista is asking for fewer dollars, especially adjusting for inflation. And he’ll be a rare gem in a dreary 2016-17 free-agent class. Any club that offers him five years would surely understand they were eating cash later for production now, a common trade-off when it comes to top-shelf talent.

It’s obligatory to mention the New York Yankees whenever the subject of expensive veterans is broached. But the Yanks seem to be trying to move away from massive contracts, at least until some of their current albatrosses come off the books.

Instead—and this is purely speculation—Boston could be a logical landing spot.

The Red Sox and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski have shown a willingness to throw their financial weight around, tossing $217 million at Price among other high-profile moves.

And David Ortiz, who Bautista has credited as a mentor, is retiring after this season, leaving a Papi-sized hole in the middle of the Sox lineup.

Boston fans still stinging from the overpays lobbed at Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez may resist another splashy, risky payout. But they’d be lying if they said the thought of Joey Bats in Beantown didn’t hold appeal.

That’s true for most clubs, of course. And while the safe bet is on Bautista netting a shorter contract in the three- to four-year range next winter, it’s entirely possible someone will meet his demands.

That person might regret it. The list of players who stumbled off a cliff after age 35 is much longer than the list of players who kept raking. 

Regardless, Bautista won’t come cheap. That much he’s made clear. And next winter, someone with cash to burn and expensive tastes may well dig in.

All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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Baltimore Orioles starting pitcher Chris Tillman missed an intrasquad exhibition Sunday after suffering a “core muscle injury,” per Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com.

Continue for updates.

Tillman to Undergo MRI If Situation Doesn’t Improve

Monday, Feb. 29

Orioles manager Buck Showalter told reporters he’s unsure of how serious Tillman’s injury is, so he and the team’s medical staff aren’t going to take any chances in spring training.

“Right now, it’s precautionary, but who knows what [will happen]?” he said, per Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun. “If it lingers, we’ll probably proceed with some other forms of trying to find out what it is. It probably wouldn’t be as much of concern than if it was later in spring. Just want to be cautious with it right now. We’ll see.”

Tillman made 30-plus starts in each of the last three years, going 40-24 during that stretch. He’s coming off an uneven 2015 campaign, though. His 4.99 ERA was his highest since 2011, while his strikeouts per nine innings fell for the third season in a row. He also allowed one more hit per nine innings than he did in 2014, per Baseball-Reference.com.

Tillman’s spot in the Orioles rotation isn’t under threat, but in Vance Worley, Mike Wright and Odrisamer Despaigne, Showalter has three options with starting experience in the majors.

He likely won’t be afraid to roll with one of those pitchers should Tillman’s injury force him to miss a big chunk of the team’s spring preparations.

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Oakland Athletics pitcher Henderson Alvarez is inching closer to a return to the mound after undergoing shoulder surgery.

Continue for updates.  

Latest on Alvarez’s Return

Sunday, Feb. 28

The former All-Star pitcher—who signed a one-year deal with the A’s in December worth $4.25 million, per Spotrac—could be days away from throwing off a mound for the first time since last July, per Jane Lee of MLB.com.

Alvarez underwent arthroscopic right-shoulder surgery last year in his third season with the Miami Marlins, finishing the 2015 season at 0-4 with a 6.45 ERA. 

The 25-year-old Venezuelan right-handed pitcher was named to his first career All-Star Game in 2014 with a 12-7 record and a 2.65 ERA. He was one of the 12 players included in the Marlins’ trade with the Toronto Blue Jays centered around shortstop Jose Reyes, per ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick.

This is a good sign for both Alvarez and the A’s, who are looking to rebound after finishing last in the American League West a year ago at 68-94. Oakland allowed 729 runs last year, good for 10th-worst in MLB, per ESPN.com. If Alvarez is on schedule for a healthy return, he and Sonny Gray could make a solid tandem in Oakland.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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The Texas Rangers picked veteran MLB outfielder Drew Stubbs up this August after he was released by the Colorado Rockies. Few could have expected Texas to keep Stubbs around once his contract expired, but the Rangers have indeed signed the free agent to a minor league contract, per MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan.

According to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, Stubbs will receive $1.5 million if he makes Texas’ major league roster.

Stubbs had a rather strong 2014 campaign in Colorado, posting a career-best slash line of .289/.339/.482. However, he has struggled mightily to back that up and has been relegated to the bench of late as a result.

It got so bad with the Rockies that Stubbs was designated for assignment by the team and eventually released. He then started his stint with the Rangers in the minors before being promoted in September, when he proceeded to bat .095 in 27 games.

For someone who’s such a threat to steal bases when he does reach safely, Stubbs has had poor plate discipline throughout his career. Absent any significant power to justify the high strikeout rate, Stubbs has his work cut out for him to integrate with Texas as more than a situational role player.

Although Stubbs is an asset in the outfield thanks to his unique speed, the 31-year-old is becoming an increasing liability at the dish, batting just .195 in 2015.

The Rangers appear to be retaining Stubbs as an occasional defensive specialist with the hope his prolonged hitting slump won’t persist this year and beyond.

If Stubbs can’t take better cuts in the batter’s box, he may well be out of baseball before long.

This isn’t a long-term commitment by Texas to bring Stubbs back and hardly costs the club anything. It’s a potential low-risk, high-reward acquisition should Stubbs return to his 2014 form.

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