Moose Comes Out of Hibernation!
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| It took awhile, but Mike Moustakas will be returning to the Kansas City Royals for the 2018 season. |
At long last, free agent third baseman Mike Moustakas has found a home as he'll be returning to Kansas City on a one-year contract with a mutual option for a second year. Moustakas is guaranteed $6.5 million and could potentially net up to $22.7 million over the course of the contract. The guaranteed portion of the deal is a far-cry from what Moustakas could've potentially earned had he accepted the Royal's qualifying offer at the onset of free agency; the Royals offered their third baseman $17.5 million to come back to the squad, but the power hitter chose to try his hand on the open market instead. Unfortunately for Moustakas, the market for him never really materialized as the handful of teams that seemed like solid matches for him went in different directions (the Yankees traded for Arizona infielder Brandon Drury while the Chicago White Sox and Atlanta Braves decided against bringing Moustakas in on long-term deals as they both go through rebuilds).
Nevertheless, Royals fans will at least be able to enjoy the slugging corner infielder for another season or two and Kansas City management will have an intriguing trade piece to flip for some prospects at the mid-season deadline. The two-time All Star probably won't be able to match his production from last year (his 38 home runs was a Royal's single-season record and his .272 batting average was twenty-one points higher than his career average), but Moose should still be able to slug between 25-30 home runs and drive in around 80 runs. Furthermore, while he is certainly no Manny Machado, the husky slugger does possess an above-average glove at the hot corner, a fact that is often overlooked in light of his skills at the plate. All in all, a good move by the Royals that should ease the fan base's pain of having to go through another rebuilding phase just three years after back-to-back World Series appearances that resulted in the club's first championship since 1985.
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| Bye, bye baseball! |
Thor Shuts Down Washington Bats in Latest Spring Training Outing
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| Met's ace Noah Syndergaard seems poised to have a Cy Young-quality season in 2018. |
Injuries limited New York Met ace Noah Syndergaard to only seven starts in 2017 and the team slumped to a 70-92 record as a result. The hulking right-hander has hardly shown any ill-effects from last season's torn lat muscle as he has utterly dominated the spring training circuit to date. Through 8.1 innings, Thor has limited his opponents to 3 hits (good for a .136 average), one earned run, and three walks while punching out thirteen batters. In his latest outing vs. the Washington Nationals, Thor worked his way out of an early inning jam by striking out seven batters in a row. Using a fastball that touched triple digits eleven times (!), a slider that sat in the low 90's, and a mid-80's curveball and changeup, Syndergaard made mince-meat of one of the league's best offenses in 2017. To top things off, Syndergaard doesn't even feel like he is at his best! "I wouldn't say I'm in midseason form yet," the tall righty said in an interview with MLB.com's Anthony DiComo, "But it's nice to go out there and have some command issues, and be able to bounce back and finish strong." As we move forward, however, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Mets limit the number of times he pitches this spring. Games in February and March don't matter and the team will surely be looking for ways to preserve his arm for the season ahead (after all, Thor did spend the offseason hurling spears at Dothraki raiders). As the early results show, a Thor on his "B-Game" seems to be too much for hitters to handle.
On This Day In History: The Devil Rays Are Born!
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| And so began a decade and a half of utter baseball ineptitude... |
Spring training baseball isn't always the most riveting product so, as a result, I took a little trip down memory lane to 1995 when Tampa Bay club owner Vince Niamoli settled for the nickname which the team would go by until their re-branding in 2008. Initial fan reception wasn't overly positive; many felt uneasy about the un-Christian connotations of the name. Niamoli wanted to call his team the "Sting Rays", but the rights to that phrase were owned by a club in the Hawaiian Winter League and the owner was loath to pay the $35,000 trademark fee. Say what you will, those old Devil Rays uniforms were awfully snazzy by 1990's standards!
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| I'm fairly certain I saw a beer-league softball team sporting these duds a few days ago... |
All photos and GIFs are courtesy of CBS.com and MLB.com.
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