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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.
The White Sox want to bring back manager Robin Ventura for the 2017 season.
Sonny Gray made his return to the rotation on Wednesday night, but not in the conventional way.
Theo Epstein is staying in Chicago for the near future, as the president of baseball operations has inked a 5-year extension with the Cubs.
Speaking of the Cubs, how does their rotation compare to the rest of their National League foes?
The Cubs bullpen has not been great; in fact, in terms of RA9-WAR, of all realistic National League playoff teams — the Nationals, Dodgers, Giants, Mets, and Cardinals — they are ahead of only the Giants. That isn’t saying much, either, as the Giants bullpen has been a huge contributor to their second-half collapse. There is no clear favorite when it comes to the bullpens, but the Nationals, Dodgers, and Mets have an edge. However, if I had to choose which bullpen I would want down the stretch, I would choose the Nationals. RA9-WAR may favor the Dodgers, but as ERA- and FIP- show us, it is a lot closer than the wide gap in RA9-WAR entails.
As is the case with most playoff teams, the success of the Cubs bullpen may determine their fate in 2016. If Rondon and Strop can get the ball to Chapman, then the Cubs will have a recipe for success. More importantly, if Lester, Hendricks, Arrieta, and Lackey can go deep into games and shorten the game by bridging the gap to Chapman, than there may be little any team can do to stop the Chicago Cubs from winning their first World Series in 108 years.
Milwaukee had a better team than most expected, and they continued to add talent to their rebuilding roster.
The next generation of baseball players will have Jose Fernandez as an example, and that’s a good thing.
Here is a roundup of news from around the National League Central.
One swing shows us a lot about Rockies outfielder David Dahl.
Even if you were aware of Dahl, though, I think this can still tell us something. As much as one swing can inform, at least. The first thing that stuck out to me was that list of players from above. Gattis, Tulo, Goldschmidt, Reynolds, Duncan. These are all incredibly strong humans with extensive power-hitting resumes. Duncan brings the group down a bit, but even he put together a seven-year big-league career based almost entirely on his power. Point is, you don’t luck into a home run like this.Martin Prado is just never going to hit a pitch like this one out. That Dahl did this at all informs us that he possesses a level of raw strength in the batter’s box that far surpasses the average big leaguer, and is perhaps a standard deviation or more above that.
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Today in Baseball History: In 1914, after being in last place during mid-July, the Boston Braves clinch the pennant.