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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!
Alex Rodriguez announced his retirement from baseball, effective Friday and he will serve as an advisor for the final year of his contract.
Here is a roundup of news from around the American League Central.
Another Yankee, Mark Teixeira, will retire at the end of the season. Is he Hall of Fame worthy?
Voters put more weight on counting stats than I believe they should, but there isn’t much there to help Teixeira either. A career total of 404 HR doesn’t really stand out at first base. He doesn’t even have 2,000 hits, and his 14 seasons aren’t very high when evaluating his longevity.
I believe that Mark Teixeira doesn’t meet the Hall of Fame standard at first base. My prediction is that he’ll last a few years on the ballot before falling off. At best, it’ll be several years. With voters becoming smarter and smarter, I just don’t see how he even gets close to induction. He’s firmly a “Hall of Very Good” player. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s still pretty awesome. He had a great career of which he should be extremely proud.
The MLB Week-in-Review, and the MLB Blog Review.
A scouting report on some of the upcoming Phillies prospects.
Crawford will golf out some homers but, because of where loads his hands, he has trouble driving anything up in the zone and instead mashes a lot of driveable pitches into the ground. He’s still relatively short to the ball, has plus bat speed and decent bat control. Again, Crawford is 21 and his physical ability is still far more important than mechanical refinement at this point, but I’m less apt to predict significant adjustments here because Crawford has been successful and it doesn’t make sense to disrupt that. I think it’s an average hit tool that plays up a bit thanks to Crawford’s plate discipline, and he might get on base enough to justify a place near the top of a lineup. There’s just a lot about the swing right now that suggests strong contact exclusively to the pull side and a lot of grounders and pop ups.
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Today in Baseball History: After a two day strike, baseball resumed with an 18-game schedule, including five doubleheaders.