Baseball Chatter 01/03

DEC 31

Money could prevent a reunion between Rajai Davis and the Indians.  The Tribe would like to bring back the veteran outfielder, though there isn’t any payroll space after Cleveland went above and beyond their financial comfort zone to land Edwin Encarnacion.  Davis might  only come back to the Tribe if he fails to drum up enough interest from other teams

Brett Gardner is one of multiple “trade avenues to explore” for the Blue Jays before they would consider re-signing Bautista

Eduardo Rodriguez (knee) is not expected to pitch again until spring

Yandy Diaz has spent most of his time in Venezuela this winter playing left field. The Indians have tried him at second and third, so why not center field? The time to experiment is in winter ball and spring training. Abraham Almonte still has a better chance of platooning in center with Tyler Naquin.

Kolton Wong has been a better defensive second baseman than Brian Dozier, as he hasn’t ranked lower than seventh among second basemen in defensive runs saved since 2014. Dozier hasn’t ranked better than 12th in that same time frame. The Cardinals’ desire for a more athletic defense has been one of the major talking points this offseason. This would not mesh with that. But what if the Cardinals wanted Dozier to play third base instead of aging Jhonny Peralta or super-sub Jedd Gyorko? Well, Dozier hasn’t played third once during his major league career. And he hasn’t played a position other than second since he logged 732 innings at shortstop in 2012.

The Boston Red Sox will likely need to add another starting pitcher this winter. “It seems inevitable,” according to Buster Onley.

Joey Votto reached base 232 times in his last 113 games.

17 Relief Pitchers have posted seasons with K/9 above 10.0 and BB/9 less than two since 2014 (with a minimum 50 Innings Pitched), Kenley Jansen is the only one to do it twice. Relievers who accomplished this in 2016 Kelvin Herrera, Kenley Jansen, Nate Jones, Shawn Kelley, Andrew Miller, Addison Reed & Hector Rondon

One year removed from getting sent home before the season ended for “effort-level” issues, Bruce Rondon responded in a big way, ending the 2016 campaign as the Tigers’ best relief pitcher. Rondon rose up to serve as the team’s setup man late in the season and once again appears to be a closer-in-waiting. Rondon’s walk rate dipped nearly 2½ walks per nine innings and he continued to throw dominant stuff.

Miguel Cabrera has received Top 10 MVP votes in every season of his career.

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