Category: Sports News

Shohei Ohtani could've been a Tampa Bay Ray.

The Los Angeles Angels' biggest misstep in franchise history — their refusal to trade Ohtani — has been harped on ever since they ultimately lost him for nothing to the Los Angeles Dodgers in free agency after the 2023 season. And now, one more what-if from that time has come to light.

The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal reported Thursday morning that the Rays offered the Halos a package centered around two of their top five prospects at the time according to MLB Pipeline: Junior Caminero, then a 19-year-old in Double-A and now one of the most exciting young sluggers in baseball, and Carson Williams, then a 20-year-old in High A.

Angels front office personnel not able to speak publicly confirmed to USA TODAY Sports that they were in talks with the Rays and Caminero's name was floated around. According to Rosenthal, the Angels would have wanted additional talent, which the Rays were reportedly willing to offer.

Tampa Bay, however, was just one of the teams they had been involved with. According to the staffer, front office brass were all in a room taking calls for Ohtani when they looked over to the TV and saw reports that owner Arte Moreno shut down the possibility of any trade involving the two-way phenom.

Hello, Mr. Future Hall of Famer, sir, Mr. Buster Posey Man. I am but a lowly sports blogger doing that thing that bad baseball columnists do and writing you an open letter. Here’s why.

It’s unfathomable that there’s just 17 months or so remaining on your deal to be the Giants’ President of Baseball Operations. It seems like you just got here and it feels too soon to run away from the scene of a potential crime. That three-year deal you signed up for has always felt like hedging at best and at worst the length of a deal, say, The Music Man might’ve signed. Yes, you’ve got trouble! Trouble with a capital T!

I wouldn’t blame you or the rest of ownership and especially Tony Vitello if y’all were having second thoughts about this embarrassing 20-30 situation. That doesn’t mean I think the President of Baseball Operations and his manager hire should be able to walk away after accidentally burning down the house. Oh no. Everyone involved in the fire should be made to smoke the entire pack of cigarettes that led to it. Tony Vitello might just have to lose 300 games before returning to the NCAA and you might have to create even more negative history with the team failing to record a winning season for 5+ seasons.

The state of the major league team might be dire, but that doesn’t mean anyone should be on a hot seat. You shoved aside Farhan Zaidi because you wanted the responsibility of setting the course for the future of the Giants. It was the right call in one respect (Zaidi is no longer in the baseball industry) but with the easy part out of the way, it’s time to see if your vision can survive the harsh elements thrown at you by reality. You took the keys away and now you’ve stalled the engine. It’s time to see if you can recover.

The team is losing. The fans are booing. Industry types have seen the San Francisco Giants and now wonder aloud, “What are they doing?” Yes, the sensationalism has begun, as the Giants — an irrelevant franchise for a decade now — finally has some good grist for the content mill. Not history-defining losing a la the White Sox or Rockies of recent years, but cataclysmically awful performance from an organization that has blithely turned away from some tenets of the modern game like scouting and stats to reimagine itself as a team from your championship days or whatever.

At least, that’s what it looks like from the outside. I’m sure the organization still does scouting reports and provides them to the players, but when I watch the team play, I don’t see much in the way of understanding what the opponent is doing or anticipation of what they might do. It’s true that I could live 10,000 years and still not accumulate .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the baseball knowledge that you possess, Good Sir, my obvious better in every way imaginable, but as a mouth-breathing consumer of your product, it’s a very dumb team you’ve put together. As in, they play dumb and look dumb while doing so. I doubt that’s your vision! But also, there’s no chance you’re going to turn things around in the next 17 months. It’s not a rebuild, as you suggest, but it’s more of the same that we’ve seen since 2020.

I’ll close with two much stronger points. In your recent KNBR hit, you talked up how much talent there is brewing in the farm system right now, which you hope to add to with the upcoming draft. This is an unassailable fact at the moment and you yourself are the evidence that the Giants have at some point in their San Francisco history been able to draft and develop All-Star talent. You might be the one who breaks the curse of the franchise’s overall track record on that front, however. In the San Francisco era, it really has happened so few times that the farm system has been as reliable as luck. You ought to be around to see those prospects develop and graduate to reap the full reward of your work. That usually doesn’t happen in three years!

You also owe it to yourself to stick around so you can master how to manage a bench and 40-man roster!

Your “we’re in the memory making business” line needn’t be repeated back to you mockingly because it was a great line; but right now, the memory would be that you made a mess and walked away from the business. Why not stick around and setup the Giants to be relevant again in the 2030s?

Rays pitcher Chase Solesky threw his first-ever MLB strike this week, and nobody was more excited to see it than his fiancée, golf influencer Averee Dovsek.

In a video the social media personality shared with her 36,000 Instagram followers on Tuesday, Dovsek could be seen getting emotional as she watched her future husband live out his dream while she was on a work trip in Maryland.

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Solesky got into Tampa Bay’s game against the Orioles in the top of the sixth inning, and as broadcasters were going over his pitching resume, Dovsek, who was taking in the action on a TV inside a restaurant, jumped up and down repeatedly with a big smile on her face.

“POV,” she wrote in a caption on the footage. “You are on a work trip in Maryland but your fiancé makes his MLB debut.”

Solesky went three innings, recorded four strikeouts, gave up six hits, walked one and allowed two earned runs. He was awarded his first-career hold after the Rays ultimately locked things up, 16-6,

In the afterglow of the big game, Solesky made time to drop by Dovsek’s comment section to shout her out for all her support.

“I love you more than anything,” he wrote. “I can’t wait to give you the biggest squeeze in the world! I couldn’t do it without you! I cannot wait for you to be my wife!”

The milestone moment was a long time coming for Solesky, who had toiled in the minor leagues since 2019, when the White Sox took him in the 21st round of the MLB draft.

And for Dovsek — who got engaged to Solesky in March — it’s clearly an evening she’ll never forget.

Braves go for another series win. Worst they can do is a split in this four-game set.

The Los Angeles Angels have been a chaotic mess lately. First, owner Arte Moreno was going to sell the team, then he wasn’t, then fans showed up shirtless and started demanding he sell it. Earlier this year, they had a rat infestation. Over the weekend, a Dodgers fan wrangled an opossum. Now, they might have to change their name … again. 

Let’s start at the beginning. 

The “Angels” nickname was never random. It traces back more than a century to the old Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League. A powerhouse club that played near downtown LA from the early 1900s until the Dodgers arrived from Brooklyn in late 1957 and began playing here in 1958. 

The name itself is pretty straightforward. It’s the English translation of “Los Angeles,” which literally means “The Angels.” Coincidentally, the franchise has deeper historical roots to Southern California long before MLB and the Dodgers moved West. 

Did you know that when they played at Dodger Stadium from 1962 to 1965, the Angels were the ones to call it Chavez Ravine? A name that is still used to this day.

In 1961, famous cowboy actor and singer Gene Autry, who had been living in Los Angeles making movies since the 1930s, secured an MLB expansion franchise.

He wanted to keep the continuity from the PCL team, but Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley held the rights to the Angels’ name. He ultimately sold it to Autry for $350,000, and the Los Angeles Angels were reborn.

Then came all the rebrands. 

The team became the California Angels after moving to Anaheim in 1966 with the purpose of marketing itself statewide. The name remained until Disney bought the team in 1997 and changed the name to the Anaheim Angels after raising public funds to help renovate the stadium. 

When Moreno bought the team in 2005, he wanted to chase the lucrative Los Angeles media market. That’s when the most awkward name in sports was created, “The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.” Thankfully, the name was shortened to its current iteration — the Los Angeles Angels — in 2016. 

Now, nearly two decades later, California lawmakers are trying to drag the franchise back toward Anaheim Angels again. If Assembly Bill 2512 passes, the Angels could once again be forced to go back to the Anaheim Angels, whether Moreno likes it or not. 

So, that’s the strange history behind the franchise that was born in Los Angeles, raised in Anaheim, marketed to all of California and forever caught in an identity crisis between Hollywood and Orange County.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates are promoting one of the biggest power-hitting bats in the organization to the Major Leagues.

First baseman/outfielder Esmerlyn Valdez is expected to join the Pirates in Toronto on Friday before the Pirates begin a three-game series against the Blue Jays. BBWAA member Francys Romero was first to report the promotion.

Regarded as the 9th-best prospect in the system by MLB Pipeline, Valdez crushed Triple-A pitching.

In 46 games, Valdez hit .253 with 10 doubles and 10 home runs during his first season at the highest level of the minor leagues.

Valdez totaled 29 runs driven in and held an impressive 33 walks compared to 41 strikeouts. 

Valdez, 22, has combined to hit 58 home runs over the last three seasons, including 22 in Single-A Bradenton during the 2024 campaign and 26 between High-A Greensboro and Double-A Altoona last year.

Regarded by MLB Pipeline as owning a 60-grade power tool, Valdez signed as an international free agent during the 2020-21 signing period.

The right-handed batter rocketed through the minors over the last three seasons and adds another power threat to an offense that has hit 50 home runs after only 117 all of last season.

The Pirates demoted outfielder Billy Cook to Triple-A Indianapolis as a corresponding move, according to Jośe Negron of DK Pittsburgh Sports. 

The Pirates promoted No. 4 prospect, outfielder Jhostynxon Garcia at the start of the Cardinals series after Ryan O’Hearn injured his quadriceps.

Garcia recorded three hits in his first nine at-bats and his first-career RBI in Wednesday’s victory. 

Pittsburgh will send Bubba Chandler, Paul Skenes, and Bubba Chandler to the mound against the Blue Jays.

The Crosstown Classic is not for the faint of heart. It doesn’t matter which team is winning more coming into the games, or which team has the better roster on the field. There is something about the North Side v. Southside that just inspires a whole other level of competition between the Cubs and White Sox, to say nothing of the fans. So it’s really not all that surprising that Cubs centerfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong found himself in the middle of an ill-advised interaction with a fan from the Southside after failing to make a very difficult catch during the series.

Al already wrote up the kerfuffle from a “right vs. wrong” standpoint. You should read the whole thing, and the comments. I’ll just say upfront I agree with Al that it was a teachable moment for a player who often wears his heart on his sleeve (and y’all know I have a soft spot for guys who wear their heart on their sleeves). But today’s short porch is devoted to a different question, specifically, what should MLB’s penalty for PCA have been in the aftermath of the altercation? MLB landed on a $5,000 fine for “comments made to a fan” after Sunday’s Crosstown Classic loss at Rate Field, but every baseball group chat and DM I’m in was much more torn. Half the fans of other teams thought he should have been suspended for at least a game. To be clear, I personally think MLB’s penalty was the correct result, but it did get me thinking about the threshold for suspending a player.

The video of the exchange is uncomfortable viewing and it seemed like an ill-advised engagement with a fan from my vantage point. The full picture matters here: a female White Sox fan began booing Crow-Armstrong and yelling “you suck” when he was just feet away after he missed a potential highlight-reel catch, and PCA responded with a profane and frankly crude verbal comeback that he acknowledged immediately was indefensible in terms of word choice. Crow-Armstrong apologized Monday for his language, saying he didn’t think “any of the women in my life would think I would say those kinds of words regularly” and adding that he was bothered by the idea of young kids seeing the exchange on social media. That’s a start, but honestly, it’s pretty clear he does use those words to at least some women who aren’t in his life, and that’s a double standard that is more than a little troubling.

Additionally, there’s the being a role model of it all. PCA is an electric player who has a lot of young fans. Two of my dear friends celebrated their son’s fourth birthday recently. They are huge Cubs fans and I may or may not have bought that kiddo his first Cubs jersey before he was born. He proudly wore a hyphenated last name No. 4 jersey to celebrate his big day. I admit I wondered what his parents thought of that interaction and MLB’s response. To PCA’s credit, he seems to understand and appreciate the weight of that responsibility, but I wonder if a $5,000 fine for someone who recently signed a six-year contract extension to be the face of the Cubs in center field through 2032.

In terms of the MLB history here, the suspension threshold in MLB player-fan altercations has historically been anchored to physical contact or escalating aggression. Anthony Rendon received a four-game suspension in 2023 after grabbing an Oakland Athletics fan by the shirt through the guardrail and taking a swipe at his cap. Dennis Santana was ultimately suspended three games last season after actually leaping up and taking a swing at a fan near the Pirates’ bullpen during a doubleheader in Detroit. PCA’s interaction with the White Sox fan is obviously in a different category than either of those instances. That said, Tim Anderson received a one-game suspension in 2022 for an obscene gesture towards a fan, which doesn’t seem all that far off from what happened with PCA.

So I ask you, BCB, should PCA have been suspended for his altercation on the South Side or was a fine with no suspension the right answer?

Tigers fans were given hope that injured ace Tarik Skubal could be back as soon as next week. 

The reigning American League Cy Young winner threw a bullpen session on Thursday, the third of his rehab schedule, leading to speculation he could return from elbow surgery well ahead of schedule.

However, Skubal himself quickly debunked those theories.

If you’re not in those conversation, I wouldn’t trust anything you see,” he said, per The Athletic. “Now, I get it. I want to be back as fast as I can, too. What’s going on right now is kind of unprecedented. I don’t know in the history of the game if there’s been a surgery 15 days ago and I’m throwing a one-inning hypothetical start.

“So I get it. I want to be back as fast as possible. I also want to be healthy. It does me no good to come back fast, and then something happens, and I go back on the shelf again. But it is kind of day by day. It is how I feel and how I bounce back. Tomorrow, how I wake up, how I feel is going to be important.”  

The surgery — a non-invasive procedure to remove a loose body from his left elbow on May 6 — has a recovery time of around 2-3 months. Skubal seems to be way ahead of schedule, with the bullpen session jumpstarting hope for fans and pundits.

One possible reason for the quick recovery time was that Skubal underwent a new procedure called the “NanoNeedle Scope 2.0,” with Dr. Neal ElAttrache using a microscopic needle that would result in less scarring and inflammation. 

“This is really almost like receiving a shot,” Skubal’s agent, Scott Boras told the “Baseball Tonight” podcast. “We think that’s going to be a much shorter period (of rehabilitation).”

Skubal has pitched seven games this season with a 3-2 record and a 2.70 ERA. The Tigers would like to have an arm of his quality back as soon as possible.

The Tigers are struggling in the AL Central, sitting ten games behind .500. The start of the season has been a disaster for the playoff-hopeful squad.

There is no timetable for his return — at least nothing official.

“There are little hurdles to clear along the way when you come back from a procedure,” manager A.J. Hinch said Thursday. “As much as we described it as simple, it’s still a procedure.”