The Great Hambino

I think this is a spot where their recent failures to groom useful players from their international free agent classes shows up. Those are the guys who you can control at the age of 16, which theoretically gives them more of a chance to debut in the majors at an earlier age. Right now, the only player on the 40-man they've acquired through international free agency is Emma Rodriguez. Only two others - Duran and Pablo - came up through international free agency, and they were acquired via trade. Almost the entire roster is American/Canadian/Puerto Rican and therefore came through the amateur draft. And since most college players are getting drafted at 21, it's going to be pretty tough to have a 19-21 year old pop through when that's how you've built your roster. It's been a long time since the Sano/Kepler/Polanco class. This may be one of this front office's major weaknesses that sometimes gets overlooked.

Yeah, Ruiz is an important part of this equation. I doubt it happens if that's still Teoscar Hernandez coming up

It didn't help that Jax pitched to Ruiz like he was still facing Ohtani

I guess Lee can jump a little bit

If you don't steal third with a pinch running specialist at second and a pitcher that takes an hour and a half to get to the plate on the mound, then you're never gonna steal third

Nice play by Clemens Also, did his deke on Freeman (kept a fake tag on him) keep him at second when the ball skipped away from Jeffers? Maybe, maybe not. But I like that he did it anyway

Angels In The Outlier

Are contending teams looking to add pieces at the deadline all that interested in giving up major league bats? I guess in certain cases, but if that's what the Twins are holding out for in trade compensation, I'd bet this ends up being a stand-pat deadline

Re: the swing-off ending They were out of pitchers and it's better than a tie. Sure, why not The players in both dugouts seemed really into it. Makes it easier as a fan to enjoy it when the players are. Also, they made it seem like Kyle Stowers found out at the same time as everyone else that he was in it, which I thought was funny

Would doing so help maintain a higher sales price? If so, I could see them doing that as that would only help other franchise valuations

Manfred also was confident their media rights deal to replace ESPN's opt out would be done by the All-Star break. He's kinda running out of time on that one As several others have said, wake me up when there's an actual deal in place. These rumors and statements of confidence are worthless and meaningless

I like it for what it is - an exhibition where you get to see a good number of fun star hitter vs star pitcher matchups. I'm old enough to barely remember the time before interleague play where it was the only time some of those matchups got showcased. But if the opportunity to see Ohtani/Soto/ et.al. come to Target Field every other year results in the ASG losing a little luster, I'm perfectly happy with that trade-off. It's certainly flawed because the MLB community can't decide what it wants the game to be. On the one hand, it gets treated like Little League where every team gets an entrant and everyone who wants to gets to play in the game. On the other hand, it's given too much consideration for things like legacy, Hall of Fame candidacy, etc. It can't be both of those things. If Christopher Sanchez goes on to have a borderline-HOF career, some numbskull writer will indirectly hold the inclusion of Misiorowski against him. But it still holds value to me as a fun little snapshot of the state of the game in a given year. At least they've rectified its two worst transgressions: it no longer decides home-field for the World Series, and they're back to wearing their own unis. Those were two ideas that were so bad it's hard to understand why anyone ever thought they'd be good. After watching all the opt-outs from pitchers that were pitching over the weekend, it got me thinking: now that it's a full 4 day break instead of 3 like it used to be, would it make more sense to play the game on Wednesday instead of Tuesday? Would that open it up for more prior-weekend pitchers to be available? Or would it cause more problems than it solves by shortening the turnaround on the back end?

It was a fun show. Buxton asserted himself well. Raleigh getting plunked by his old man was funny. So was the kid robbing Caminero at the wall. And the only abject failure was a Yankee. But Oneil Cruz stole the show for me. That was some scary raw power with what seemed like a pretty smooth stroke. Even most of his misses were rockets that he just didn't elevate. It must be frustrating to be a Pirates fan and watch him not quite put it all together.

I see MLB's stance on an ABS system as a sort of parallel with the NFL trying to move to 18 games. They want 18 games, but there was too much pushback to go from 16 to 18, so they took the half-measure of going to 17 games. The next time this comes around, the idea of moving from 17 to 18 will be easier to sell than going straight to 18 right away. I think MLB would like a full system, but it will be easier to transition from the challenge system down the road as opposed to trying to make the more drastic change right away. It won't be such a stark change and everyone will be a little more used to the ABS system if it's been used for challenges at the MLB level for some time.

I'd rather they do it before the game

I guess this means the hand is feeling good

Knee buckling out is awkward Fitting for Kiersey's first good play ever

I don't know if a 1-0 lead has felt less surmountable - well done Larnach

I like Willi but he's good for a monumental brain fart every couple of months

Mighty fine relay, too bad Vazqy biffed it in the end

With his track record of durability? It's a lock

I'm enjoying hearing Terry Ryan read the analysts their own scouting reports. Beats the game action so far anyway

Bader's definitely getting his steps in today

If your goal was to get my monitor covered in coffee this morning, then mission accomplished. Not only would it be waving the white flag on this season, it would likely be waving it on 2026 and possibly 2027

Interesting list. That Adrian is still #1 sure says a lot about how the league has shifted in the last decade. And good for you CJ Ham!