Last night, MLB.tv decided to make all its old games unavailable -- hopefully only temporarily. That delayed one post idea I had.
This morning, Team Shuster beat Canada, the defending three-time Olympic gold medalists. That delayed the other post idea I had.
And then I was on Mully and Hanley, talking about the Olympics, and then some White Sox.
So let's take a jog through some things I've been meaning to link to, after going through the probable starters for the first Cactus League games.
https://twitter.com/whitesox/status/966410890378539008
Tyler Danish was supposed to start Friday, but the recently outrighted Covey gets the start instead as his strange beginning to spring training continues. Danish will appear in relief, pitching exclusively out of the stretch.
The biggest name is Kopech, who will be starting for a webcast audience on Monday. Make your plans now, since those games aren't archived. The full White Sox spring training broadcast schedule is here, and also on the menu at the top of the site, in case you need to access it at any point this spring.
Spare Parts
Major League Baseball is avoiding implementing pitch clocks, but the solution to limit mound visits sounds like it could create more problems, at least assuming umpires even bother enforcing them. There are so many potential headaches even before guys like Willson Contreras get a chance to create more of them.
A lot of the dissatisfaction about Carlos Rodon's condition stems from his admission that he didn't have a routine. That sounds like a cardinal sin for a starting pitcher, but that's also a byproduct of getting fast-tracked. Usually a young arm has a couple of full five-month seasons to find out what it needs to survive the jump from the collegiate schedule. Rodon didn't even get a full April.
The Rays are in the process of trading or dumping normally affordable arbitration-eligible players -- Souza, Corey Dickerson, Jake Odorizzi -- for cheaper, more volatile versions of them. (OK, Carlos Gomez is making a hair more than Souza, but they acquired a couple prospects with the deal, too.) It's extremely fan-unfriendly, the incumbent veterans aren't thrilled, and it even puts the marketing arm of the front office in an awkward spot, but there's a logic to it that could make the Rays no worse for the wear while giving them a little more malleability supplementing their next wave of prospects.
Sam Miller tests your mettle by asking whether how much embarrassment you could tolerate while starting for an MLB team on your current salary. This is how it starts:
All you have to do is get to the park five hours early, hang out awkwardly in a clubhouse where the players all try to avoid acknowledging you (your presence is actually quite shameful to them), feebly take batting practice in front of those same major leaguers, wear a uniform that looks wrong on you, strike out three or four times -- once or twice with runners on base -- against a major league pitcher in a game that counts, run out to left field nine times and stand out there while strangers yell weird insults in a melted gummy mess at you, attempt to catch a couple of cans of corn, periodically sprint (while trying to track incomprehensibly high fly balls) in front of a television audience, try to throw a baseball farther than you actually can, and perhaps cower at a line drive hit directly at you that at the last second you dive away from. You will have to turn and chase after the ball, and you will think about how television viewers are looking at your butt; after the play ends, the camera will focus on the face you are making, and this face will forever be the first return on a Google Images search of your name. Would you play?
One game is an easy call. That basically makes you a trivia question associated with your favorite thing for the rest of your life. I think Will Ferrell showed it's more fascinating than embarrassing watching a normal guy try to hang, so one game seems doable, even in the regular season. Sure, I'd be the Scott Halpin of baseball.
