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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!
As if the Diamondbacks haven’t been in the news enough, a report surfaced about the Dodgers considered getting ace pitcher Zack Greinke back from Arizona.
Here is a roundup of news from around the National League Central.
Yasiel Puig is only a Dodger by name.
It is hard to imagine Puig making it through the winter without being traded. The bridges with the Dodgers have been burnt down to glowing coals. With his status doubtful for even a September call-up, all signs are pointing toward Puig donning a new uniform come next year.
Perhaps Puig will be more mature. Perhaps he won’t be. Regardless of what happens on that front, he will bring with him an enormous reservoir of natural talent. Puig can still be a star. He is still one in name, after all. It’s only a matter of performing like one.
His time with the Dodgers will be remembered as one of tumult and conflict. He will be the author of the next chapter of his playing career, just as soon as the page is officially turned. For now, he languishes at Triple-A, reflecting on his transgressions and waiting for the next shot at the bigs, one that the Dodgers won’t give him despite being embroiled in a close divisional race.
Mets fans look away. Second baseman Neil Walker will miss the rest of the season and undergo back surgery.
While I hate the word, the Rangers might be one of the most clutch teams in recent memory.
Ask the Rangers, and they’ve detected a pattern. Ask Rangers fans, and they’vedetected a pattern. In a lot of ways, this is the ideal kind of ballclub to root for. The team is successful, but because of the numbers, you get to cling to a kind of underdog perception. And everybody can feel when a team has regularly come up big when it’s had to. I’m sure it’s also fun to root for the Cubs, on account of all the clobbering, but then they come with the heaviest expectations. The Rangers feel more improbable, and that can be intoxicating.
I don’t know what I’ll think about next year’s Rangers. Next year’s Rangers won’t exist for a while, so that isn’t something any of us has to deal with immediately. Next year’s Rangers presumably aren’t going to be so clutch. But this year’s Rangers? They’ve been unbelievably clutch, and it’s far too late for that to change. It’s part of their whole first-place profile. You can’t say they haven’t earned it.
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Today in Baseball History: In 1919, the National Commission recommends a best-of-nine World Series. It is viewed as greed and abandoned after three years.