MLB trade rumors and news: Dodgers clinch seventh straight NL West title

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• In some not-very-surprising news, the Dodgers clinched their seventh straight NL West title on Tuesday night, beating the Orioles and becoming the first team to stamp their ticket to the playoffs this season. It’ll now be interesting to see whether they can maintain momentum as they play two-and-a-half weeks of virtually meaningless games before beginning their postseason schedule.
• Baseball is very often unfair, and we saw another example of that on Tuesday night as Christian Yelich’s potential MVP season came to an early end after he suffered a patella fracture while fouling a ball off his knee.
• The Yankees face a major decision this offseason as they determine whether to pay Edwin Encarnacion $20 million or give him $5 million to walk away. Our Andersen Pickard analyzes the potential ramifications of each decision.
• The Red Sox have been a pretty significant disappointment this season as the defending World Series champions currently way back in the wild-card race and about to be eliminated from the AL East playoff chase. Boston’s powers that be are not messing around in showing their displeasure, as they have fired president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. A couple of less-than-stellar contract extensions (in hindsight) this offseason and the team’s performance on the field are the likely reasons, although there is a lot of blame to go around up in Boston right now.
• The Cubs have had a rough go of it of late, as not only did they lose Craig Kimbrel to injury (see below) after he has struggled mightily in a Cubs uniform, but now they are going to be without one of their best players as they try to hang on to a playoff spot, as Javier Baez was diagnosed with a hairline fracture in his thumb that is expected to knock him out for the rest of the regular season.
• It has been a little while since we have seen a high-profile PED suspension (which is good news), but sadly we did see one get handed down over the weekend as Michael Pineda was given a 60 game suspension for taking a banned diuretic that can be used as a masking agent. Pineda successfully got the suspension reduced because he was using the diuretic to lose weight, but the Twins will be without one of the more steady, if unremarkable, pieces of their rotation.
• The Cubs were aggressive after the 2019 MLB Draft in securing one of the better relievers of the last decade in Craig Kimbrel — who, until that point, had trouble finding a deal to his liking. As soon as there was no draft-pick compensation attached to him, Kimbrel was able to get a deal that pays him handsomely through 2022. Unfortunately, this has not worked out well for Chicago so far, as Kimbrel already missed time earlier this season, and now it looks he will be on the injured list for a while with elbow inflammation, which is not ever what you want to hear about a pitcher.
• The Indians announced some fantastic news — not just from a baseball perspective, but from a human interest standpoint — as right-hander Carlos Carrasco was activated from the injured list when rosters expanded. Carrasco continues to battle leukemia, but the fact that he’s healthy enough to pitch out of Cleveland’s bullpen appears to be great news for his recovery.
• Royals owner David Glass is finalizing a sale of the team to John Sherman — a local businessman who is currently part of the Indians’ ownership group but was a longtime Royals season-ticket holder — for more than $1 billion.
• Is the home run barrage throughout baseball bad for the game? Our Patrick Karraker explores the possibility that baseball has too many dingers for its own good and what that means for the future of the game.
• Cleveland has placed José Ramírez on injured list with a fractured hamate bone in his right hand. He’ll stay on the 10-day IL for now until a better timeline is fleshed out for his return. The team’s #11 prospect, Yu Chang, was recalled to take Ramírez’s roster spot.