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The MLB Daily Dish is a daily feature we're running here at MLBDD and rounds up roster-impacting news, rumors, and analysis. Have feedback or have something that should be shared? Hit us at @mlbdailydish on Twitter.
Good morning baseball fans! Happy Hall of Fame Day to everybody.
Speaking of the Hall of Fame, our own Mike Bates talked about performance-enhancing drugs and how they are impacting the voting. He reminded us of one important fact: we don't know which players didn't use PED's.
So, it's at this point that I want to make it abundantly clear: we have no evidence that Ken Griffey Jr. didn't use PEDs. For that matter, we don't have evidence that Greg Madduxor Randy Johnson didn't either. Or Rickey Henderson. Or Nolan Ryan. Or Tony Gwynn. After all, all of these guys played with players named in the PED report or who had tested positive in the past. All of them were active when PEDs were active in the game. All of them had long and distinguished careers that extended long past the point when most players' skills had atrophied to the point where they were no longer in the game. We don't know that Griffey didn't get frustrated with his slow recovery from muscle tears in his 30s and turn to HGH or some other substance in his desperation.
To be clear, this isn't an accusation of any of them. In fact, I find it unlikely that Griffey, or Maddux, or Ryan, etc used PEDs. Far less likely than either Piazza or Bagwell, who I will gladly stump for. It's not to call their accomplishments into question or to suggest they don't deserve to be enshrined in the Hall. It's an acknowledgement that we simply don't know, and no matter how good our testing becomes we won't catch everyone in the game who uses.
Angels first baseman Albert Pujols has been cleared to remove a walking boot that he has had on since November, when he had surgery on his right foot.
The Arizona Diamondbacks are not willing to give up a draft pick in order to sign a free agent.
After trading away Dansby Swanson, Aaron Blair, and Ender Inciarte for Shelby Millerand Gabe Speier, the Diamondbacks prospect depth has taken an significant hit at the expense of making the team better now. If parting with the 37th overall pick -- a pick that was worth less than $1.7 million last draft -- has somehow become cost-prohibitive of acquiring major league talent, then Stewart's plan for a contending team may be in jeopardy.
Of course, this could be Stewart just trying to publicly-leverage Kendrick into signing for less because of his qualifying offer. It just doesn't make much economic sense for a team to give up such substantial assets for Greinke and Miller to then value their 37th overall pick as too precious of an asset to give up.
San Francisco may still enter the outfield market, even after signing two high-priced starting pitchers.
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Today in Baseball History: In 1942, Bob Feller, who won 76 games for the Indians in three previous seasons, followed Hank Greenberg into the military.