Weekly MLB Update - 1/4/21
Welcome to this week’s MLB Update. It’s finally 2021 and spring training is right around the corner. This is usually the time of year that my baseball withdrawals are at its peak. This year feels a little different with the fact we still don’t know for sure when the start of spring training will be or the start of the season. But January is usually the last full month we don’t have baseball so let’s hope that stays true!
Last week, I mentioned the San Diego Padres making a big splash trading for left-handed pitcher Blake Snell from the Tampa Bay Rays. I also teased that the Padres were in talks with the Chicago Cubs in acquiring right-hander Yu Darvish. It was about 3 hours after the article posted that we got the news that the Padres did indeed pull off a trade to land Darvish in San Diego. It was a 7-player deal that sent Darvish and Cubs catcher Victor Caratini to the Padres in exchange for right-hander Zach Davies and four prospects: outfielders Owen Caissie and Ismael Mena and infielders Reginald Preciado and Yeison Santana. If you didn’t think the Padres were going for it all in 2021 after the Snell trade, you have no choice but to respect this team’s roster now heading into the season. Now, this doesn’t guarantee success on the field but on paper the Padres have one of the best starting rotations in baseball and an already great offense and bullpen. It is going to be a fantastic battle out west between the Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers. These two teams had some great regular season matchups and a division round playoff series, in which the Dodgers swept, last season. Look for and even better showdown in 2021.
Player-wise, the Darvish trade is all that’s worth mentioning. The free-agent market still hasn’t begun to take shape other than whispers and rumors. I would be surprised if we see any of the big names sign deals before the end of the month as negotiations between players and ownership don’t exactly go smoothly most of the time.
In some historical news – the Boston Red Sox hired the first black female coach in the league’s history. Bianca Smith, 29, will be a player development coach for the Red Sox minor league’s facility in Fort Myers, FL. Smith has been an assistant coach and hitting coordinator at Carrol University in Wisconsin since 2018. She also has some professional baseball experience interning for the Texas Rangers and Cincinnati Reds in their Baseball Operations departments. This comes a couple of months after the Miami Marlins hired Kim Ng, the first female GM in MLB history. It’s definitely a positive thing to see female leaders in the game and hopefully it leads to many more.
That’s all for now. Thank you for reading and keep an eye out each week for more MLB updates!
Tyler