[yisman]

RIP Jose

Dee Gordon hit a homer and then cried

[EmpireMaker]

There’s been plenty of notable injury news around the league today. The Nationals received a crushing blow in the form of a torn ACL for Wilson Ramos, while the Blue Jays lost setup man Joaquin Benoit for two to three weeks due to a torn calf muscle. The Red Sox, meanwhile, announced that Drew Pomeranz will be, at best, a bullpen option from this point forth due to forearm soreness and a significant increase in his workload.
Here’s a look at a few more injuries pertaining to a pair of playoff clubs and a potential 2017 trade chip…

• The Indians announced some relatively good news following an MRI for ace Corey Kluber. The test revealed a mild quad strain for Kluber, per the club, but the Cy Young candidate dodged a potentially more serious groin injury. He’ll be ready to return to game action in seven to 10 days, per the Indians, which obviously rules him out for the remainder of the regular season but gives him time to recover for the American League Division Series, which begins on Thursday, Oct. 6.
• The news wasn’t as positive for the Nationals when it comes to right-hander Stephen Strasburg, as general manager Mike Rizzo told reporters, including Jorge Castillo of the Washington Post, that it’s doubtful that Strasburg will be ready to return for the National League Division Series. “I think it would be pushing it,” said Rizzo of Strasburg, who is dealing with a strained flexor mass in his right forearm. “I think that’s fair to say. Again, I haven’t seen him after his throwing program today, but just the calendar, it’s unlikely that he’d contribute in that first series.” Strasburg did play catch from 90 feet today, per Janes, but it appears that the Nats will need to advance to at least the League Championship Series if there’s any hope of Strasburg making a postseason impact. With Strasburg out, Max Scherzer, Tanner Roark and Gio Gonzalez would probably get the first three looks in the Division Series, and Joe Ross could be a factor as well.
• Tyson Ross has received multiple medical opinions over the past couple of weeks, skipper Andy Green told Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune, and surgery to repair his right shoulder is a possibility. Ross, naturally, prefers to avoid that endgame, and he’s exploring all possible alternatives for the time being. The Padres hope to have a plan mapped out for Ross by the end of the regular season, Lin writes, and an ultimate decision could come later this week. Ross is earning $9.625MM this season but pitched only once for the Friars, on Opening Day, before going down with a shoulder injury that would eventually wipe out his entire season. Additionally, Lin writes that righty Jarred Cosart underwent an MRI and X-rays on his right elbow to determine the severity of a bone spur that he said he’s been pitching through.

[Chi_archie]

Tribe need Kluber

[El Nino]

Tribe are fukked. Bad time for injuries.

[Fire in da hole]

Fk the tribe....

[Fire in da hole]

Hoping that the rangers take it all the way this year.

[koz-man]

Yankee Stadium proposal nearly goes wrong

Yankees fan makes an error by dropping ring.

Fans at the Red Sox-Yankees game frantically looked for, and eventually found, the engagement ring that was dropped and momentarily lost by a man proposing to his girlfriend.

[Cross]

American League so boring right now.

[mr. leisure]

Yankee Stadium proposal nearly goes wrong

Yankees fan makes an error by dropping ring.

Fans at the Red Sox-Yankees game frantically looked for, and eventually found, the engagement ring that was dropped and momentarily lost by a man proposing to his girlfriend.

That`s about the most exciting thing going on with the yankees right now .

[EmpireMaker]

The Dodgers announced that left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu underwent an arthroscopic left elbow debridement earlier today. The southpaw is expected to be ready for the 2017 season, according to the team.
Ryu, 29, had a brief return to the Majors in 2016 after missing the entire 2015 campaign due to shoulder surgery. Though he did make it back to the mound with the Dodgers this season, his return lasted for just one start — a 4 2/3 inning effort in which he yielded six runs on eight hits and two walks back on July 7. That represented his only big league work since Sept. 12, 2014.
Originally signed to a six-year, $36MM contract out of Korea (plus a $25.7MM posting fee), Ryu looked to be worth the investment for the Dodgers after a brilliant rookie season in 2013 and a strong sophomore effort in 2014. The former Hanwha Eagles standout finished fourth in 2013 Rookie of the Year voting after logging 192 innings of 3.00 ERA ball with 7.2 K/9 against 2.3 BB/9 and followed that up with a similarly excellent 3.38 ERA across 152 innings a year later. While the second two seasons of that six-year pact certainly haven’t gone as the Dodgers had hoped, Ryu still has another two seasons of cheap club control remaining. He’s owed just $7MM in each of the next two seasons — a manageable sum for virtually any club but especially the deep-pocketed Dodgers — though he’ll obviously fall shy of the requisite 750 innings (2013-17) that would allow him to opt out of his contract and test the free agent market a year early.
Most likely, the Dodgers aren’t banking on a full, healthy season for Ryu as they map out their 2017 season, but Los Angeles has built a virtually unprecedented staff in terms of overall pitching depth this year (as The Ringer’s Ben Lindbergh recently profiled at length in an excellent piece), and it’s likely that they’ll do the same in 2017. Ryu joins Clayton Kershaw, Kenta Maeda, Scott Kazmir and Brandon McCarthy as pitchers that are already guaranteed contracts next season (though Kazmir does technically have an opt-out clause, even if he’s unlikely to exercise it), and the Dodgers also have Alex Wood, Jose De Leon, Julio Urias, Carlos Frias, Brock Stewart and Ross Stripling under control either via arbitration or as pre-arb rotation options. Nonetheless, they’ll also presumably be active on both the free agent and trade markets this winter as they look to remain atop the National League West.

[El Nino]

Giants choke away a great performance by the Shark.

[Chi_archie]

Big choker Giants

[Fire in da hole]

Yankee Stadium proposal nearly goes wrong

Yankees fan makes an error by dropping ring.

Fans at the Red Sox-Yankees game frantically looked for, and eventually found, the engagement ring that was dropped and momentarily lost by a man proposing to his girlfriend.

He doesn't perform well under pressure. They have a story to tell now.

[Cross]

Giants have no hitting, brutal.

[JAKEPEAVY21]

Padres rookie, Hunter Renfroe hit another homer last night after hitting 2 with 7 rbis the previous game. It was a moon shot in the upper tank of the western metal building at Petco Park.

[koz-man]

Mariano Rivera presents David Ortiz with an oil painting of Big Papi standing at home plate at Yankee Stadium and tipping his cap.

David Cone and Jacoby Ellsbury give Ortiz a leather-bound book with hand-written letters to him from Yankees players over the years.

[Chi_archie]

Padres rookie, Hunter Renfroe hit another homer last night after hitting 2 with 7 rbis the previous game. It was a moon shot in the upper tank of the western metal building at Petco Park.

Gotta like the name Hunter Renfroe

[mr. leisure]

Shenanigans in the Cinn / St louis game .

[Fire in da hole]

Giants have no hitting, brutal.

Posey has just lost his power lately, not the same guy at the plate.

[EmpireMaker]

The Rockies have not yet approached star third baseman Nolan Arenado about a contract extension, Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post reports in response to a reader inquiry. Both Arenado and his agent say that no talks have taken place about seasons beyond his current arbitration control.
Certainly, there’s no rush to explore a new pact. Arenado, 25, just played out his Super Two year and has three more years of control remaining. He remains under Colorado’s control through 2019.
That being said, the organization’s leverage only continues to diminish as Arenado’s earnings increase and his play continues to impress. He took down a hefty $5MM this year after a big 2015 season, and he has played his way into a significant raise with an even-more-impressive 2016 campaign.
Over his 678 plate appearances thus far on the year, Arenado carries a .293/.361/.567 slash while racking up forty home runs and 130 runs batted in. Those counting stats are highly valuable in the arbitration setting, all the more so since they are both league-leading totals (as they were in 2015).
In actuality, the offensive production is more very good than great, given that half of it has come at Coors Field. Looking further into the numbers, Arenado owns a strong (but hardly earth-shattering) 123 wRC+. Of course, his true value lies in the fact that he delivers that quality production as a premium defender at the hot corner.
Given his age and productivity, Arenado is unquestionably one of the game’s better young position players. And he’s young enough that any control-enhancing extension would cover late-prime seasons (his age 29 season and beyond). With a big arb salary to start, there’s a stack of cash already all but guaranteed to Arenado, so he’ll be in a nice position to demand — and receive — a major guarantee if the Rox do ever take a pass at a new deal.

[EmpireMaker]

8:13pm: FanRag’s Jon Heyman reports that Epstein’s deal actually guarantees him a bit less than $50MM, but it can exceed the $50MM threshold based on incentives. ESPN Chicago’s Jesse Rogers tweets that both Hoyer and McLeod are getting five-year extensions as well.
3:12pm: USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that Epstein’s contract is believed to be worth more than $50MM in total, which would make him the highest-paid baseball executive on record. Additionally, Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports reports that both Hoyer and McLeod have received extensions with the Cubs as well (Twitter link).
3:06pm: The Cubs announced this afternoon that president of baseball operations Theo Epstein has signed a five-year contract extension that will run from 2017-21. Epstein had been in the final season of his current contract and was widely expected to receive an extension to keep him in his current position atop Chicago’s baseball operations hierarchy. In the press release announcing the extension, Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts offered the following statement:

“In the five years under Theo’s leadership, he has brought in a strong executive team and acquired and developed some of the best players in the game. Now, the results are on the field. My family and I have no doubt that we have moved closer to our goal of delivering Cubs fans the World Series Championship they deserve.”
Ricketts also added that the extension “ensures the baseball operations team assembled by Epstein will continue its remarkable tenure of building a consistent championship contender.”
Epstein, 42, has been at his current post with the Cubs since Oct. 2011. While the early stages of his tenure were mired with losing clubs, he, alongside general manager Jed Hoyer, senior vice president of player development Jason McLeod and the rest of the Chicago front office have taken the Cubs from a cellar-dwelling team to a powerhouse that will finish with the best record in baseball this season after finishing with 97 wins a year ago.
The Cubs appear poised not only for success in 2015-16, but for the foreseeable future, as the core of Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, Anthony Rizzo, Willson Contreras, Kyle Schwarber, Javier Baez, Kyle Hendricks and Jon Lester, among others, are all controlled through at least the 2020 campaign. While certainly not all of those players are locks to remain productive — specifically Lester, who will be 36 by the time his current contract expires — the Cubs have the payroll capacity to supplement that enviable core group of players as needed.
While the Epstein/Hoyer/McLeod regime has had the occasional misstep (see: Edwin Jackson and, so far anyway, Jason Heyward), the Epstein-led Cubs have been largely successful in their moves, be they free-agent signings, trades or draft selections. Since Oct. 2011, the Cubs have acquired Hendricks and Christian Villanueva in exchange for half a season of Ryan Dempster; acquired Carl Edwards and Justin Grimm for half a season of Matt Garza; acquired Addison Russell in exchange for a year-and-a-half of Jeff Samardzija and a half season of Jason Hammel (whom they later re-signed with solid results); and, of course, most notoriously, acquired 2015 NL Cy Young winner Jake Arrieta and setup man Pedro Strop in exchange for a half season of Scott Feldman and Steve Clevenger.
The team has also picked up Hector Rondon in the Rule 5 Draft and made a number of savvy free-agent additions including Hammel (twice), Lester, John Lackey, Ben Zobrist, Dexter Fowler (after initially acquiring him for Luis Valbuena and Dan Straily) and David Ross. Beyond that, the Cubs have drafted well, landing Bryant and Schwarber as well as top prospects such as Ian Happ and Albert Almora. Chicago has also been active on the international front, outbidding the competition for Jorge Soler and spending aggressively on prospects such as Eloy Jimenez and Gleyber Torres, the latter of whom was used as the centerpiece of the trade that brought Aroldis Chapman to Chicago this past summer.
McLeod has been an oft-rumored candidate to join another organization in a higher role and was recently one of the prime candidates for the Twins as they search for a new president of baseball operations. And Hoyer, conceivably, could have drawn interest elsewhere for a team willing to bestow the president title upon an experience general manager. While the length of the extensions for Hoyer and McLeod aren’t yet known, the trio of extension ensures that the same brain trust that architected the current Cubs roster will be in place for several years to come.

[Otters27]

AL Wildcard is getting very tight. Possible that Blue Jays don't make it.

[El Nino]

Mariano Rivera presents David Ortiz with an oil painting of Big Papi standing at home plate at Yankee Stadium and tipping his cap.

David Cone and Jacoby Ellsbury give Ortiz a leather-bound book with hand-written letters to him from Yankees players over the years.

Barf...this cheater's farewell tour is getting older than Jeter's.

[JAKEPEAVY21]

Posey has just lost his power lately, not the same guy at the plate.

giants used up all their run good in previous years

[Chi_archie]

getting pumped for october

[koz-man]

Barf...this cheater's farewell tour is getting older than Jeter's.

I like Ortiz. But enough-is-enough already!!

[BigSpoon]

AL Wildcard is getting very tight. Possible that Blue Jays don't make it.

They are limping to the finish line, 11-15 in the month of September. Huge fail if they don't make the wild card game.

[Cross]

I agreeOrtiz is a cheater just like Rodriguez. A-Rod should have presented him the award.

[mr. leisure]

They are limping to the finish line, 11-15 in the month of September. Huge fail if they don't make the wild card game.

Another loss tonight .

[Fire in da hole]

Shenanigans in the Cinn / St louis game .

St. Louis got away with one in that game...

[El Nino]

St. Louis got away with one in that game...

The reason we implemented instant replay was to make sure we get the calls right...unless it's not. riggedshithole.com

[EmpireMaker]

Big finishes to the season can mean a variety of things to players. In some instances — J.A. Happ, for example — a late run of excellence can help a player land a contract that would’ve been otherwise unthinkable. Trevor Cahill and Fernando Rodney may have been in line for minor league contracts this past offseason were it not for their late showings with the Cubs. Of course, not every big finish ends with a massively boosted payday. Daniel Murphy’s late power surge was one of the game’s most notable narratives last October, but speculation about a sudden five-year contract never came to fruition, and he ended up with a three-year contract that now looks to be one of the game’s great bargains.
We don’t know what the future holds for these players, but here are five free agent bats that are impressing late in the year…

• Carlos Gomez: Astros fans should probably look away. Since joining the division-rival Rangers, Gomez has batted an outstanding .291/.371/.564 in 31 games. He’s cut his strikeout rate by more than five percent while significantly boosting his walk rate, and the eight homer he’s hit in a month with the Rangers are just one shy of the nine he hit in 126 games as a member of the Astros. Gomez played his way out of a job in Houston, but his recent run with the Rangers looks an awful lot like his peak years from 2012-14 in Milwaukee. That could be enough to land him a multi-year contract this offseason, though a one-year pact in an attempt to further boost his value remains an option as well. And of course, Gomez will have further opportunities to add to his value in the postseason, as the Rangers have clinched the AL West.
• Josh Reddick: The month of September has largely balanced out what was one of the worst months of Reddick’s career in August. He’s being platooned pretty heavily, which won’t help his free-agent value as much as showing competence versus left-handers would have, but he’s batting .406/.446/.565 in 75 plate appearances over the past 30 days. It’s been a roller-coaster season for Reddick, who has mixed in a month-long DL stint with his hot and cold streaks, but the strong finish undoubtedly salvages some free agent stock that looked to have been dwindling. Like Gomez, he’ll have further opportunities to showcase for interested teams in the playoffs.
• Sean Rodriguez: The 31-year-old Rodriguez is quietly having an excellent season in Pittsburgh, where he’s batted .272/.350/.517 on the whole — including a ridiculous .329/.398/.605 slash and six homers over the past month. He’s also played every position on the field except pitcher and catcher this season, making him a versatile asset that’s finishing his year with a flourish. That could very well be enough to land Rodriguez the first multi-year contract of his career as he heads into his age-32 season.
• Kendrys Morales: I looked at Morales’ rising stock last week, and all he’s done in the interim is continue to rake. Over the past 30 days, Morales is hitting .327/.377/.625 with nine long balls, which only adds to the monstrous production he’s compiled since mid-June. There’s no reason for him to exercise his end of the mutual option the Royals hold over him, and he’ll be an interesting qualifying offer candidate. Morales would be a threat to accept, having been burned by the QO system once in the past, but his production, in a vacuum, is enough to earn a multi-year deal.
• Jose Bautista: Bautista’s reported asking price was one of the biggest stories in baseball back in Spring Training, but the prodigious slugger has had his worst season since breaking out with the Blue Jays in 2010. Bautista’s numbers are down across the board, he’s spent time on the disabled list, and defensive metrics have soured on his work in right field. He’s been great in the final month, though, hitting .250/.400/.438 with five homers across 120 plate appearances. Bautista still seems likely to turn down a QO in search of a more lucrative contract on the free agent market, and finishing out the regular season well (plus a potential postseason showcase) should help to quiet concerns about his health and ability to produce at a high level.

[Otters27]

Blue JAYS now at risk of not making the wild card

[BarkingToad]

Blue JAYS now at risk of not making the wild card

They blew a 2 run lead, I don't want to see Tigers get in.

[koz-man]

Rodon fans first seven batters, ties AL record

White Sox pitcher Carlos Rodon strikes out the first seven Twins he faces, tying an American League record for consecutive strikeouts to start a game.