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Good morning baseball fans!
The Nationals placed Stephen Strasburg on the disabled list with an elbow injury, but they expect him back sooner rather than later.
Another ace pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, might be nearing his return to the rubber. He said that he feels ‘100 percent’.
Serious changes may be coming to the Diamondbacks front office.
Speaking of changes and the Diamondbacks, Dave Cameron of FanGraphs broke down how to fix the problem of the D-Backs.
But of course there’s plenty of potential harm to be done. The team only has Paul Goldschmidt and A.J. Pollock for a few more seasons, and they’ve already squandered most of Goldschmidt’s prime. The team is in a position where they probably need a coherent plan for the future, one that goes beyond “let’s get some good pitching and try to win a bunch of games”, which was seemingly the only evaluation the team did over the winter. The franchise is in a crucial situation, and needs people in charge who can weigh the pros and cons of various options and determine a reasonable expectation of outcomes depending on which path is chosen.
I don’t see much evidence from the last two years that would give me confidence that LaRussa and Stewart are the right guys to trust with a vitally important offseason for the organization. The Diamondbacks are at a crucial juncture, and they need better decision-making processes than they have now. They shouldn’t let the current staff go because they’re angry about how this season has gone; they should let this group go because they can likely find people more willing to make rational decisions rather than believing that they can see what everyone else cannot.
Pittsburgh inked David Freese to a two-year extension on Monday.
Here is a roundup of news from around the National League East.
In his MLB debut, Yulieski Gurriel left with a tight hamstring.
Tanner Roak’s two-seam fastball has help his dominance.
It will be interesting to see if Roark can continue this level of production going forward. As Chamberlain pointed out, contact managers like Sonny Gray and Marcus Stroman have faltered in 2016, which highlights how inconsistent pitchers with lower strikeout rates can be. Additionally, Roark will be entering his age-30 season in 2017, and could start to lose some of the zip on his fastball. The Nationals can stomach some regression — they do still have Scherzer and Strasburg around, after all — but even an ERA closer to his mid-3’s FIP would make him a valuable commodity considering his cost-controlled salary.
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Today in Baseball History: In 1998, Barry Bonds becomes the first player in MLB history to hit at least 400 home runs and steal 400 bases.