MLB Trade Rumors and News: Yankees clinch AL East amid fallout from allegations against Domingo German

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• The good news for the Yankees is that they clinched their first AL East title since 2012 on Thursday. The bad news is that earlier in the day, Yankee starter Domingo German was placed on administrative leave after allegations surfaced that he struck his girlfriend.
• The Marlins, coming off back to back seasons where they have finished dead last in the NL East, decided to give manager Don Mattingly a two-year contract extension. Some may be puzzled by this move given the Marlins’ lack of success, but it worth noting that the Marlins aren’t going to be winning much of anything over the next two years which puts less onus on getting the right guy in there at the moment.
• Gerrit Cole has been putting on a pitching clinic in his last year before free agency as he hit the 300 K milestone (becoming just the 18th pitcher in MLB history to do so) on Wednesday evening. This proved to be well timed as the Astros also managed to clinch the AL West division title with their 100th win of the season. This is the third consecutive season that the Astros had gotten to 100+ wins.
• In one of the most magical moments of the 2019 season, 29-year-old rookie Giants outfielder Mike Yastrzemski homered in his first game at Fenway Park, the same ballpark that his Hall of Fame grandfather Carl inhabited for 23 years while playing for the Red Sox. The younger Yastrzemski’s 20th homer of the season was one of the few things powerful enough to overshadow the fact that the Giants and Red Sox played a nearly-six-hour, 15-inning game that featured 24 pitchers between the two teams.
• In an extremely disturbing development, Pirates All-Star closer Felipe Vazquez has been arrested and denied bond after being charged with possession of child pornography, providing obscene material to minors, and soliciting a child. He’s been placed on administrative leave by MLB.
• Phillies left fielder Corey Dickerson will miss the rest of the season with a fractured left foot, perhaps bringing an end to the soon-to-be free agent’s brief career in the City of Brotherly Love. While Philadelphia’s outfield depth is solid, this is more unfortunate news for a team that seems to be stumbling towards the finish line.
• Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis is done for the year after suffering a fractured hamate bone in his right hand. The combination of a season-ending injury and an 84 OPS+ seemingly spells bad news for the 32-year-old Kipnis, who will be a free agent for the first time this offseason.
• Arguably the best player in all of baseball and across the board AL MVP for the past three years (and pretty much every one to come), Mike Trout has been such a high point for baseball as of late. The Baseball Gods, it seems, are cruel and mighty as more horrible news hits an already mangled Angels team: Trout will have season-ending surgery on his right foot. Trout has what’s called a Morton’s neuroma, an issue he’s been dealing with for some time. Pour one out.
• Shohei Ohtani has been one of the most fascinating stories in baseball over the last couple of years as he is the rare player that has been given the chance to excel on the mound and at the plate (it helps that he has the talent to do so). After Tommy John surgery kept him off of the mound for all of 2019, the Angels announced yesterday that he will miss the remainder of the season at the plate as well, as he will have surgery to correct a congenital knee issue that had been bothering him of late.
• Have you been praying for more intense late season baseball drama? Everything you’ve wanted is coming true: The NL Wild Card is a free-for-all.
• Everyone at this point is aware of the impact the new baseball is having on home run totals. Whether you love it or hate it, home runs are happening at a pace we have not ever seen and yesterday was the culmination of that as Jonathan Villar’s three-run homer broke MLB’s single season record for homers across the league. That homer was the 6,106th home run hit in Major League Baseball this season and given that it is only September 12th, one can expect that the new record by season’s end will be substantially higher than the old record set in 2017.
• The Red Sox surprised everyone when they ousted president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. Our own Anderson Pickard decided to take a look at some of the candidates to replace him for Boston and the odds of getting the job for each candidate.
• Dingers aren’t the only offensive move that should be getting some praise: Jeff McNeil is beating the shift and it’s pretty incredible.
• Baseball is very often unfair, and we saw another example of that last week 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 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 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 recently, 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.