JD Martinez being talked about for trades. Anybody want this guy? He's numbers have been falling
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Seattle gave up too much for CastilloComment -
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Anyone else bet against Kershaw in Colorado today ?Comment -
I wouldn't mind the Padres going after JD Martinez if Soto falls through.Comment -
People saying this trade deadline is going to be nuts.Comment -
If today was Carlos Rodon's last game as a Giant he sure did he a great job of showcasing himself to contenders out there. If I were the Giants I think I might trade him because out of all of their players he probably has the most value so if they do decide to go that route they'll get a good return for him.
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JD Martinez will be alot cheaper than Soto. Maybe a prospect or 2 at the most.Comment -
He was going to leave after the season most likely so better to get something nice for him now.If today was Carlos Rodon's last game as a Giant he sure did he a great job of showcasing himself to contenders out there. If I were the Giants I think I might trade him because out of all of their players he probably has the most value so if they do decide to go that route they'll get a good return for him.Comment -
Padres land Josh Hader in a 5 player blockbuster. The Pads needed to upgrade their closer and they did that by going out there and getting Hader who even though he's having a tough season by his standards I'd rather have him than Rodgers closing out games for me. This trade doesn't seem to make sense for the Brewers but they do have Devin Williams so maybe they felt they could move Hader and still be ok in their bullpen.Comment -
Just hoping there are some white supremacists for Hader to hang out with out in San Diego.Comment -
Holmes is having some problems. Live fade him when he goes on the gameComment -
Yankees get Montas who is a decent consolation prize for missing out on Castillo. Plus they added Trevino in the deal to help out their bullpen. I'm sure there will be even bigger deals go down tomorrow since teams usually wait until the last second to pull them off.
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The Braves are adding to their outfield, announcing agreement with the Tigers on a deal that brings in Robbie Grossman. Minor league pitcher Kris Anglin is headed back to Detroit.
It’s a familiar situation for Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos and his staff. Atlanta famously picked up a handful of lower-cost outfielders at last season’s deadline, then reaped the rewards with excellent second halves from players like Eddie Rosario and Jorge Soler. They’d of course love if Grossman could offer anything resembling that kind of production, but the veteran outfielder is amidst a rough 2022 campaign.
Through 320 plate appearances, Grossman has a .205/.313/.282 line with just two home runs. He’s still drawing walks at a strong 11.9% clip, but that’s down from last year’s elite 14.6% mark. More concerning has been the lack of power coupled with an uptick in strikeouts to a worrisome 28.1% rate. Nevertheless, the Braves are betting on his more solid track record.
Grossman was one of Detroit’s more productive hitters last season, tallying 671 plate appearances across 156 contests. He hit .239/.357/.415 with a career-best 23 longballs. That came on the heels of an excellent showing in a limited sample with the A’s during the shortened 2020 campaign. Grossman’s batted ball quality plummeted this season, but he’s continued to demonstrate a patient approach and showcase solid bat-to-ball skills.
Atlanta recently lost Adam Duvall to a season-ending injury, leaving them on the hunt for corner outfield assistance. Grossman adds a depth bat to a left field/designated hitter mix that also includes Rosario and Marcell Ozuna. Both players have below-average offensive numbers this season themselves, leading the Braves to look for additional options for manager Brian Snitker. Grossman’s a short-term pickup, as he’s set to hit free agency at the end of the season. He’s playing this season on a $5MM salary, around $1.75MM of which is yet to be paid.
In return, the Tigers pick up a young hurler whom the Braves selected in the 16th round last season. A product of Howard College, the 21-year-old Anglin has spent most of the season in Low-A. Through 12 appearances (seven starts), he’s worked 30 1/3 innings of 5.93 ERA ball. Anglin has punched out a solid 25.2% of opposing hitters, but he’s walking batters at an elevated 13.3% clip.Comment -
Padres aggressively trying to trade for Soto and Bell from the Nats. I would be surprised if they pull it off today.Comment -
Judge hits another home run. Yankees have more homers than doublesComment -
Juan Soto a Padre. They did itComment -
11:50am: Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports (on Twitter) that Hosmer is no longer involved in the deal after refusing to waive his no-trade protection. Soto is still being traded to San Diego, but it remains to be seen whether the rest of the package will change.
11:42am: Bowden tweets that there are permutations of the deal that would involve Soto and Bell still going to San Diego even if Hosmer refuses to waive his no-trade protection.
11:36am: Hosmer is “not thrilled” about the idea of waiving his no-trade protection to go from a contender to a rebuilding club, tweets Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times. Bowden, meanwhile, adds that San Diego would remain on the hook for Hosmer’s salary over the 2023-25 seasons if he were included in the deal, with the Nationals only picking up the remainder of this year’s money.
11:03am: Hosmer has 10-team no-trade protection and has yet to sign off on the deal, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Dennis Lin of the Athletic confirms the Nationals are one of the clubs to which Hosmer can block a trade. However, Heyman notes there’s a general belief they’ll find a way to get the deal across the finish line regardless.
10:57am: Eric Hosmer is headed to the Nationals as a means of offsetting salary, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post (on Twitter).
10:50am: Left-hander MacKenzie Gore is also in the deal, reports Jim Bowden of the Athletic (Twitter link).
10:47am: The Padres and Nationals are in agreement on a deal that sends Soto and first baseman Josh Bell to San Diego, Morosi reports. San Diego will send back rookie shortstop C.J. Abrams, top outfield prospect Robert Hassell III, right-hander Jarlin Susana and top outfield prospect James Wood, according to Morosi.
10:43am: The Padres are “on the verge” of acquiring Juan Soto from the Nationals, tweets Jon Morosi of MLB.com. He adds that talks are in their “final stages.” Bob Nightengale of USA Today first reported the teams were nearing agreement on a deal.
It’s a stunning blockbuster, one of the most seismic trades in major league history. There’s almost no recent precedent for a player of Soto’s caliber being dealt, particularly not with multiple seasons of remaining club control. The lefty-hitting outfielder is among the game’s top handful of players, a superstar performer who has amazingly yet to turn 24 years old. Soto debuted in the big leagues as a 19-year-old in 2018, having played just eight games above A-ball at the time. Even holding his head above water would’ve been impressive in that context, but Soto immediately stepped into the majors as of the league’s best hitters.
Soto hit .292/.406/.517 in 116 games as a rookie. He’s followed that up with successively elite offensive seasons, looking well on his way to being an all-time great hitter. Between 2019-21, Soto hit .304/.440/.561. He averaged more than 25 home runs per year (even with the 2020 schedule being dramatically shortened) and drew plenty more walks than strikeouts. Soto finished in the top ten in NL MVP balloting each season, including a runner-up finish last season. He was an integral part of the Nationals World Series winner in 2019, following up a .282/.401/.548 regular season performance with a .277/.373/.554 showing during that year’s postseason. Along the way, Soto claimed a pair of Silver Slugger Awards and was selected to the All-Star Game in 2021.
The 2022 campaign hasn’t been Soto’s best, but a “down” season by his standards would be a career year for most players. Through 436 plate appearances, he’s hitting .246/.408/.485. He’s drawn walks in an MLB-best 20.9% of his trips to the dish while striking out just 14.2% of the time. He’s tied for 17th in the majors with 21 longballs, and he’s third among hitters with 200+ plate appearances in on-base percentage (.408). That’s in spite of a .243 batting average on balls in play that’s easily the lowest mark of his career, nowhere close to .330 career mark he carried into the season. The lesser ball in play results do reflect a slight downturn in his batted ball quality, but Soto’s expected batted ball metrics and exit velocities are better than his actual batting average and slugging output might suggest.
It wasn’t long ago that trading a hitter of this caliber would’ve seemed unfathomable. The Nationals are less than three years removed from their aforementioned championship. Even after a last place finish in 2020, Washington was in win-now mode heading into 2021. A swoon just before last summer’s trade deadline dropped them near the bottom of the National League and kicked off a major reboot that saw stars like Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber dealt away at last summer’s deadline. All those players were in their final season and a half of remaining control, however, while Soto was still more than three years from free agency at the time. There was seemingly never any consideration on the Nats part to dealing him either last summer or over the offseason.
That remained the case just two months ago, when Washington general manager Mike Rizzo flatly declared the club was “not trading” Soto. That was before the club’s latest (and ultimately final) attempt to sign him to a long-term deal. After Soto rejected a 13-year, $350MM extension offer last offseason, the Nationals reengaged with his representatives this summer. Soto again turned down the Nationals overtures — this time a 15-year, $440MM proposal — and the club pivoted to the trade market.
One could certainly argue whether that was the right course of action for the franchise to take. Even if the organization were convinced that signing Soto to an extension was untenable, they didn’t have to move him this summer. Soto is arbitration-eligible through 2024, so Washington could’ve held onto him until next winter or merely proceeded year-by-year through the arb process and tried to put a contending roster back around Soto. Rizzo and his staff decided against that course of action. The Nationals have a barren farm system and have curtailed payroll in recent seasons while the Lerner family explores a sale of the franchise. Turning around a team that enters play today with an NL-worst 35-69 record within the next two years would’ve been an immense challenge even with Soto on the roster, and the Nats are now fully embracing a rebuild that’ll likely take multiple seasons.
That decision will be a tough pill to swallow for at least some segment of the fanbase. Washington has now seen the departures of Scherzer, Turner, Anthony Rendon and Soto within the past few years — dramatically overhauling the franchise’s best clubs since it moved to Washington. They’re surely hopeful that players like Josiah Gray, Keibert Ruiz and the package of young players they’re receiving in the Soto deal will comprise a core of another contender down the road, but there’s no denying how quickly the Nationals fell from the top after winning the title three seasons back.
More to come.Comment -
Padres will be -300 or more to win most games now.Comment -
Wow, Soto, Machaado, and Tatis!Comment -
Well the trade deadline comes and goes with the Giants watching mostly as other teams made strong pushes to get better. I honestly felt this was something they might do but if I were in their position I probably would have sold off all my pieces that held value like Rodon and Pederson. Even though the Wild Card race is tight and they haven't completely faded out of the picture just yet the Giants are quickly fading with each passing game. I just don't think there was anything to be gained by mostly standing pat but that's just me and I'm not the GM.Comment -
Vin Scully, legendary Dodgers broadcaster, dies at 94
By Andy McCullough3h ago
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For Dodgers fans born from the Lost Generation to Generation Z, an evening would not begin until they heard Vin Scully’s opening greeting.
“It’s tiiiiiime for Dodger baseball,” Scully would say. “Hi everybody …”
Scully, the beloved broadcaster of Dodgers baseball for 67 seasons and the voice of the sport for Southern Californians of all ages, died Tuesday at the age of 94.
“We have lost an icon,” Dodger president and CEO Stan Kasten said in a statement released by the team. “The Dodgers’ Vin Scully was one of the greatest voices in all of sports. He was a giant of a man, not only as a broadcaster, but as a humanitarian. He loved people. He loved life. He loved baseball and the Dodgers.”
Scully broadcast his first Dodgers games in 1950. He called the bulk of Jackie Robinson’s career and the exploits of the other Boys of Summer. He followed the club from Brooklyn to Los Angeles when Walter O’Malley went west in 1958. He served as the soundtrack, first on radio and later on television, for the exploits of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, Walter Alston and Tom Lasorda, Maury Wills and Kirk Gibson, Fernando Valenzuela and Orel Hershiser, Mike Piazza and Gary Sheffield, Adrián Beltré and Adrián González, Kenley Jansen and Clayton Kershaw. He was the constant as ownership of the franchise transferred from the O’Malleys to Fox to Frank McCourt to the current Guggenheim era.
For so many of those seasons, Scully was the solitary voice emanating over the airwaves. He was renowned for his spellbinding monologues, his folksy wisdom and his sense of the moment — some of Scully’s most famous calls revolved around silence, his usage of the crowd to tell a story that words could not justify. When he spoke, though, he forged an enduring bond with the public. “Friends,” he called those listening. From the booth, he told stories and shared confidences. He operated with grace and humor.
The broadcast area at Dodger Stadium already doubles as a shrine to Scully. The space bears his name: the Vin Scully Press Box. A row of six portraits, capturing Scully’s fashion incarnations during his tenure, line the entrance. Another portrait commemorates Scully winning the Ford C. Frick Award in 1982. The Baseball Hall of Fame honored him with the plaque 34 seasons before his retirement. Scully spent the majority of his career as an icon, including 15 seasons calling national games for CBS and NBC.
“Vin is our Babe Ruth,” fellow Dodgers broadcaster Charley Steiner told Sports Illustrated in 2016, Scully’s final season behind the microphone at Chavez Ravine. “The best there ever was.”
Scully in the Dodgers broadcast booth in the 1960s. (Sporting News via Getty Images)
“For me, Vin Scully is the best there’s ever been for broadcasting baseball,” Giants broadcaster Jon Miller told ABC-7 in San Francisco in 2016. “And likely the best there ever will be.”
“I’m blown away at the way his mind works and his mastery over the language and his ability to weave,” Fox broadcaster Joe Buck told The Tampa Bay Times in 2016. “Probably in another life, Vin would have made great carpets. He can weave a story into the middle of play-by-play and make it seamless.”
Vincent Edward Scully grew up far from the West Coast he called home for most of his life. He was born Nov. 29, 1927, in The Bronx. His father sold silk, and his mother was a homemaker. He was raised in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood, within the shadow of the Giants’ home at the Polo Grounds. It was here he first fell for baseball.
What drew him in, as he told the story, was pity.
“Many years ago,” Scully explained in a package prepared for his final broadcast, “a little red-headed boy was walking home from school, passing a Chinese laundry, and stopped to see the score of a World Series game posted in the window.”
The Yankees had trounced the Giants, 18-4, in the second game of the 1936 Fall Classic. Feeling sympathy for the underdog, Scully declared himself a Giants diehard.
Only 14 years later, at the age of 23, Scully became the youngest person to call a World Series game. In the intervening years, he had spent time in the Navy and attended Fordham University in The Bronx. Upon graduation, he got a job in Washington, D.C., where he eventually caught the ear of Dodgers broadcaster Red Barber. Scully had found a mentor. They called games together until 1953, when Barber jousted with O’Malley and Gillette over his pay. Barber left to call Yankees games. Scully slid into his place.
And so it was Scully behind the microphone when Johnny Podres stood tall against the Yankees in the 1955 World Series. When O’Malley uprooted for Los Angeles, Scully came along. He helped a new generation of baseball fans learn the game. Robert Creamer, the Sports Illustrated scribe, called Scully by 1964 “as much a part of the Los Angeles scene as the freeways and the smog.”
“When a game is on the air, the physical presence of his voice is overwhelming,” Creamer wrote. “His pleasantly nasal baritone comes out of radios on the back counters of orange juice stands, from transistors held by people sitting under trees, in barber shops and bars, and from cars everywhere — parked cars, cars waiting for red lights to turn green, cars passing you at 65 on the freeways, cars edging along next to you in rush-hour traffic jams.”
A year later, as the Dodgers pushed toward a third championship as Angelenos, Scully kept listeners rapt on KFI as Koufax twirled a perfect game. The proceedings required only an hour and 43 minutes. After Cubs veteran Harvey Kuenn made the final out, Scully let the listeners bask in the crowd’s adulation of Koufax. Only after the cheers subsided did he speak.
“On the scoreboard in right field,” Scully said, “it is 9:46 p.m. in the City of the Angels, Los Angeles, California. And a crowd of 29,139 just sitting in to see the only pitcher in baseball history to hurl four no-hit, no-run games. He has done it four straight years, and now he capped it: On his fourth no-hitter he made it a perfect game.
“And Sandy Koufax, whose name will always remind you of strikeouts, did it with a flourish. He struck out the last six consecutive batters. So when he wrote his name in capital letters in the record books, that ‘K’ stands out even more than the O-U-F-A-X.”
The rest of the country met Scully when he called golf, tennis and the NFL for CBS and NBC in the 1970s and ’80s. His assignment for NBC placed him in Queens and Boston for the 1986 World Series. Scully got the chance to put his stamp on Bill Buckner becoming a household name.
“Little roller up along first,” Scully said, as the baseball followed its fateful path into history in the 10th inning of Game 6. Buckner bent at the waist. Then Shea Stadium erupted. The bewilderment in Scully’s voice told the tale. “Behind the bag!” he said. “It gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight, and the Mets win it!”
Scully was back in command two years later as Hershiser, Kirk Gibson and the Stuntmen reached the World Series. Gibson won the National League MVP that season, his first as a Dodger. But he was banged up when Game 1 against Oakland began. He nursed injuries to both legs inside the trainer’s room. It was there he heard Scully inform the viewers Gibson would not appear that evening. “I’m laying on the trainer’s table, and Vin Scully is on TV saying I wasn’t going to play, so I jump up and shout, ‘My ass!’’’ Gibson told The Los Angeles Times in 2017.
Gibson stuffed himself into a uniform and tried to warm up. He dispatched clubhouse attendant Mitch Poole to inform Lasorda that Gibson could pinch hit, if needed. Down a run in the ninth, Lasorda needed him. And so, with a runner on first and two outs, Athletics closer Dennis Eckersley tried a 3-2, back-foot slider to Gibson.
“The game right now is at the plate,” Scully said. “High fly ball into right field … she is gone!”
The pitch landed in the bleachers. Pandemonium overtook Dodger Stadium. Gibson pumped his fist and limped around the bases. Scully stayed quiet for one minute and six seconds. When his voice returned, he brought the ideal encomium.
“In a year that has been so improbable,” Scully said, “the impossible has happened.”
It would take the Dodgers 32 seasons to capture another championship. Scully called the first 28 of them. As he reached his 70s, he limited his travel schedule to West Coast games. His schedule continued to lighten as he kept going into his 80s. By the end, he only broadcast from California.
“I remember telling Frank McCourt years ago, I said I would like to disappear like a Cheshire cat, where all of a sudden, the only thing left is a smile,” Scully told ESPN in 2012.
If he sought a quiet exit, Scully would be denied. He had decided in August 2015 that 2016 would be his final season. “How much longer can you go fooling people?” he said. The next January, the Los Angeles City Council approved the renaming of Elysian Park Avenue, the street leading off Sunset Boulevard into Dodger Stadium, as Vin Scully Avenue. Scully described the honor as “almost too much to comprehend.”
The entire season served as a celebration of Scully. Opposing players made a pilgrimage to the booth to pose for pictures. He posed for posterity next to David Ortiz and Bryce Harper and Giancarlo Stanton. A visit by Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop left the players gushing.
“I was shaking a little bit, and as soon as I came in, he called me by my name,” Schoop told The New York Times. “I was like, ‘Oh!’ And as soon as me and Manny got out, I was like — not screaming — but like: ‘Hey, he knew me by my name! He knew everything about me!’ It was really cool.”
Amid the hoopla, Scully could still spin a yarn. As Giants starter Madison Bumgarner pitched at Dodger Stadium one evening, Scully recounted a tale Bumgarner had told Sports Illustrated years earlier about killing a snake with an axe, only to find two baby jackrabbits inside the rattler. Bumgarner and his wife nursed the rabbits before freeing them back into the wild.
“The moral to the whole story about the rabbit and the snake: You’ve gotta somehow survive, you’ve gotta somehow battle back,” Scully said. “A lesson well taught for all of us.”
The team delivered a fitting conclusion to Scully’s last game at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers were on the verge of besting San Francisco for the 2016 National League West crown. Scully alternated in the bottom of the ninth between the game on the field beneath him and Giants-Padres on a television monitor. When Rockies pitcher Boone Logan supplied Dodgers infielder Charlie Culberson with a belt-high fastball, Scully was ready.
“Swung on, a high fly ball to deep left field,” Scully said. “The Dodger bench empties. Would you believe a home run? And the Dodgers have clinched the division, and will celebrate on schedule.”
Then Scully did what he knew best. He let the fans speak for him. In the postgame bash, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts grabbed the microphone.
“Vin, we love you,” he said. “This is for you, my friend.”
Scully receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in November 2016. (Andrew Harnik / AP)
Scully would finish up his career a few days later as the Dodgers visited San Francisco. He turned down overtures to call a playoff inning on a national broadcast. He spoke highly of his successor, Joe Davis, who joined Hershiser in the booth for 2017. “Part of why I took this job is because of how special it was to be the person to follow Vin,” Davis told The Athletic in 2019. “I looked at that as a responsibility.”
The Dodgers placed Scully in their Ring of Honor in 2017. Scully attended games that autumn as the Dodgers returned to the World Series for the first time since the impossible happened during the improbable year of 1988. He enjoyed his retirement, sharing his time with his wife, Sandi. (His first wife, Joan Crawford Scully, died from an accidental overdose in January 1972.) Vin and Sandi golfed and swam together when they weren’t with their children and grandchildren.
As the pandemic raged in 2020, Scully tried to converse with fans through social media. He was 92 when he debuted on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. He expressed his hope that the discourse would involve “hopefully, nothing controversial.” Scully had vowed a couple years earlier to never again watch the NFL in the wake of Colin Kaepernick’s protest and the burgeoning calls from within the sport for racial justice.
Scully posted regularly during the Dodgers’ run to a title in the fall of 2020. The championship was a welcome distraction in a dark year. The winter was not much better. On Jan. 4, 2021, Sandi Scully died of complications from ALS. The loss of his wife, paired with the death of Lasorda a few days later, was “almost too much to bear,” Scully wrote.
Scully stayed connected with fans as a new season dawned. He answered their questions and posted his memories. The tweeting called to mind how he opened his final broadcast in 2016 — the Dodgers playing the Giants, the same club he had felt pity for all those years ago outside the laundromat in Manhattan — with an Irish benediction.
“May God give you for every storm, a rainbow,” Scully said. “For every tear, a smile. For every care, a promise, and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life sends, a faithful friend to share. For every sigh, a sweet song, and an answer for each prayer.
“You and I have been friends for a long time. But I know in my heart that I’ve always needed you more than you’ve ever needed me. And I’ll miss our time together, more than I can say.”Comment -
It's going to be an exciting few years!
Now Preller needs to restock the farm system the next few years...
Surprised you guys did not trade those guys for some nice prospects. You guys need to get younger and need a few young core players to build around.
He was the best and it is a big loss for the baseball community...This coming from a padres fan...Comment -
The Padres have loaded up for now and the future, It must be exciting to be a Padres Fan now. Vin Scully was one of the best, sad to see him go.Comment -
Jake, how do you feel now about the Padres playing the Dodgers this weekend?Comment