Daily Clips
March 28, 2018
LOCAL
Kauffman Stadium is ready for opening day with new grass field
March 27, 2018KC Star
What fans should expect from the Royals starting rotation in 2018
March 27, 2018By Jared Koller/KCTV5.com
NATIONAL
Players, some unhappy with MLBPA leadership, ponder the fate of union chief Tony Clark
March 27, 2018By Ken Rosenthal/The Athletic
The Indians are the frontrunners, but the young Twins and White Sox are rising in the AL Central
March 27, 2018By Jim Bowden/The Athletic
Three days in the life (and finances) of a minor league baseball player
March 27, 2018By Eno Sarris/The Athletic
Minimum Wage Exemption Is The Culmination Of A Battle Over MLB And Minor League Economics
March 26, 2018By Maury Brown/Forbes
How the Kansas City Royals can be the 2021 World Series champions
March 27, 2018By Dirk Chatelain/Omaha World-Herald
MLB TRANSACTIONS
March 28, 2018 •.CBSSports.com
LOCAL
Kauffman Stadium is ready for opening day with new grass field
March 27, 2018KC Star
Are you ready for baseball? Kauffman Stadium is.
Here's a look at the new turf after the field was replaced this offseason for the first time since 1994.
The Royals tore up the field — and much of what was below it, including the irrigation and drainage system — after the 2017 season ended.
“Everything below surface, it started to become kind of like an old house,” Royals head groundskeeper Trevor Vance told The Star last year. “The irrigation is showing some age and it wasn’t draining as well as it had. Pipes were getting weak. We had repeated repairs with the system.”
New sod was rolled onto the rebuilt field in mid-November and the grass is green and ready for the first pitch on opening day: 3:15 p.m. Thursday for the Royals' game against the Chicago White Sox.
What fans should expect from the Royals starting rotation in 2018
March 27, 2018By Jared Koller/KCTV5.com
The Royals starting rotation should offer tangible hope for Kansas City in 2018, with five reliable pitchers primed to take either the next step up or rebound from a disappointing 2017 campaign.
Danny Duffy
The unquestioned ace of the staff, Duffy enters his 29-year old season with a mission of putting together his ability and major league track record over the course of a full big league season. The lefty has a combined 3.61 ERA over the past two seasons, but with an average of just 163 innings pitched.
If Duffy wants to back up his ace potential, the last hurdle to overcome is staying healthy and producing for 30 or more starts, 200 or more innings. 2017 looked like his true breakout year, following success in 2016 that featured 188 strikeouts and 42 walks over 179.2 innings, but a litany of on and off the field complications halted Duffy’s progress.
Fellow southpaw Cliff Lee finally put all his talent together at age 29, where he won the Cy Young award a 2.54 ERA after pitching just 97 innings the year before. This represents the last real year for Duffy to take the step forward into the Cy Young race. If he again struggles to carry a work load every five days again in 2018, that’s likely just what he is as a pitcher.
Another season with a mid 3.00 ERA is enough to maintain that ace status, but with an unproven, rebuilding bullpen, innings are what Kansas City needs most from its rotation. Duffy averaged nearly 7 innings per start in 2016, and just how close he gets to reaching that mark will be one of the biggest storylines to follow, especially as trade season rolls around.
Ian Kennedy
2016 Ian Kennedy was worth every penny the Royals paid, turning in 195.2 innings, 33 starts, 184 strikeouts and a 3.68 ERA. However 2017 Kennedy saw a drop off at every single statistical category, leading to the highest season ERA of his career.
Kennedy had a 2.30 ERA through his first six starts, but subtle injuries nagged on the 32-year old righty just enough to provide consistent discomfort, but not enough to land an extensive DL trip. Considering the Royals rotational depth issues, Kennedy had no choice put to power through and start every fifth day.
2018 now serves as a chance to regain that 2016 mojo and serve as the front end of the rotation piece the Royals are paying him to be. Kennedy looked sharp in spring training with a 2.50 ERA and 23 strikeouts over 18 innings, but it’s fair to wonder if Kennedy really hit his wall and will never fully rebound. With still three years on his contract, the Royals are counting on it.
Jason Hammel
The Royals may have been able to overcome disappointing seasons from Kennedy or Hammel, but not from both. Coming off solid 2016 seasons, both veteran righty’s turned in the worst full seasons of their career. Hammel, two years older than Kennedy, didn’t come close to reaching his 30 start, 3.83 ERA 2016 season in Chicago.
Hammel did hunker down and lead the Royals in innings pitched at 180.1, something he’ll again be called upon to do in 2018, but a home run total of 26 allowed in a pitchers park like Kauffman Stadium must improve. Now in a rebuild, the Royals aren’t as likely to stick with Hammel every fifth day if he continues to struggle, especially at age 35 in the final year of his deal.
Nate Karns
Unlike Kennedy and Hammel, 2017 saw reasons to be excited about 2018 with Karns on the mound. The 29-year old in year one of a four-year contract turned in a 3.43 ERA over eight starts, with 49 strikeouts to just 11 walks before season ending injury.
That promising start is now accompanied by a spring training line that says Karns has fully recovered, with 1.98 ERA over four starts. But much like Duffy, health has always been a factor for Karns, only topping 15 starts in a season once in his career. However, if Karns can stay on the mound, he has shown all the signs to potentially end up as a front end starter.
Jake Junis
The breakout star of 2017 looks to maintain a full-time start spot now in 2018, as the 25-year old aims to show that 9 wins and 98 innings over 16 starts was not a fluke. Junis has also looked strong in spring training with a 1.88 ERA over 4 starts, but fans shouldn’t go expecting Junis to take too big of a step forward.
The right-hander does not have dominant stuff and has never been considered a major prospect, and there’s many examples of strong rookie seasons, followed by sophomore slumps because the league no longer overlooks the AAA rookie. Junis has lots to gain and lots to prove in 2018, especially as the definitive fifth starter, with other prospects waiting in the wings.
Depth
There’s a wide variety of names to keep in mind when thinking of who could join the rotation after an injury, with right now Eric Skoglund serving as the first in line starter. Skoglund had a strong major league debut, but struggled to regain that magic in his 24-year-old rookie season.
Acquired via trade this offseason, 28-year old Jesse Hahn is the most major league ready of anyone not in the opening day rotation, but will start the season on the 60-day disabled list with a UCL sprain. If fully recoverd and ready to return come May, if Junis is not performing, Hahn is the top candidate to slide into that fifth starter spot.
Wily Peralta will most likely make the club out of spring training and start in the bullpen, but the veteran did make a handful of starts for the Brewers in 2017 and could slide back into the rotation if KC’s in a pinch.
Prospects to watch include newly acquired Trevor Oaks from the Dodgers, along with former highly ranked starters Kyle Zimmer and Josh Staumont, both of which are coming off disappointing years, but still could make an impact in some capacity. Andres Machado, Heath Fillmyer, Scott Barlow and former Red Sox All-Star Clay Buchholz round out most of KC’s initial starting pitching options.
Opening day at Kauffman Stadium is set for Thursday with Danny Duffy taking the mound at 3:15 p.m.
NATIONAL
Players, some unhappy with MLBPA leadership, ponder the fate of union chief Tony Clark
March 27, 2018By Ken Rosenthal/The Athletic
The next few months, even weeks, will be telling. If major league players intend to oust Tony Clark as the head of their union, they probably will want to act sooner rather than later.
Players are upset by the difficulties many free agents experienced in the open market. An unknown percentage of them—and a number of agents—are agitating to remove Clark, believing the union needs to be led by an attorney and not a former player, sources say.
None of the five players or five agents who expressed discontent with Clark in recent interviews with The Athletic was willing to go on record with their criticisms of the union’s executive director, who became the first former player to assume that position following the death of Michael Weiner in Nov. 2013.
Players and agents generally like and respect Clark, and do not want to embarrass him. Many believe the union would benefit from Clark’s intelligence, passion and playing background in another role even if he were removed as executive director. Some players do not think Clark should be blamed at all, saying the problems in the free-agent market resulted more from changes in the way clubs evaluate players than flaws in the collective-bargaining agreement that Clark negotiated in Nov. 2016.
Clark, who recently completed his annual tour of 30 spring training camps with other union officials, is aware some players are unhappy with his leadership. Teams spent nearly $2.5 billion on free agents in 2015-16, according to published reports. That number dropped to less than $1.5 billion in 2016-17, the first under the new CBA, and is expected to be in the same range when the final totals for 2017-18 are calculated. A number of free agents, including reliever Greg Holland and outfielders Jose Bautista and Melky Cabrera, remain unsigned.
The players’ frustration with their current predicament was evident during the union’s tour. “I don’t see how (the meetings) weren’t contentious, how guys were not trying to rip people’s heads off,” one player said. According to sources, a number of veterans — including the Boston Red Sox’s Rick Porcello, Toronto Blue Jays’ Josh Donaldson, San Diego Padres’ Eric Hosmer and Colorado Rockies’ Charlie Blackmon — asked pointed questions of Clark, who said the meetings were “as constructive and lively and as candid a dialogue as we’ve had.”
Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, a member of the union’s executive sub-committee and a supporter of Clark’s, said this is the most informed and united the union has been since his major-league debut in 2011.
“I think almost every organization in the world, including MLB and each and every club, is always self-evaluating and looking for ways to improve and that’s what we’re doing, too,” Goldschmidt said. “Especially after an unprecedented off-season, this is even more important. If we or any group wasn’t doing that, it would be a red flag.”
Some of the talk in the spring meetings concerned the teams’ lack of spending. The union, as it does at the conclusion of every off-season, will examine whether to pursue a collusion grievance against the clubs, sources say. But some players raised concerns about the CBA, which included relatively modest increases in the luxury-tax thresholds and failed to address what Clark recently called the “race to the bottom” by rebuilding clubs. Some even challenged Clark’s qualifications for his current role.
“To the extent that guys are asking questions, to the extent guys have concerns, to the extent those questions are pointed and direct, all of that is accurate,” Clark said. “All of it in each of these meetings led us to the focus of how we are going to move forward. And I’ll tell you this, too. It was clear to me that the guys were unified in that focus and that commitment, wanting to make sure every opportunity and every concern we have is focused on positively being addressed, both now and moving forward. That was my takeaway.”
And if the players identify him as the person to take the fall?
“This is their union. This is the players’ union,” Clark said. “If there are concerns about what we have done, what we are doing and just as importantly where we are going, we’ve talked through and will continue to talk through all of that with the players. And we expect that, based on them knowing intimately what we are looking to do and how we are looking to do it, that there is a level of confidence among the group about how we are going to position ourselves moving forward.”
The union’s executive board of 38 players, comprised of representatives from each of the 30 clubs and eight elected sub-committee members, has the authority to remove Clark and choose a new executive director, according to sources familiar with the union’s by-laws. But if the players decide to act, they will not make a change until they can find an interim or permanent replacement—and they are not close to identifying such a person, sources say. “They don’t have a fully flushed-out plan right now,” said one representative who is familiar with the players’ thinking.
A rapid transformation at the top would give Clark’s successor ample time to become familiar with players, identify major issues and prepare for the next round of collective bargaining before the expiration of the CBA on Dec. 1, 2021. The players effectively must decide whether they are confident in Clark to protect their rights between now and 2021, successfully negotiate the next CBA and possibly navigate the union through a strike. Clark raised the possibility of a strike to players during his spring training tour, and the union—with the players’ approval—usually starts withholding part or all of players’ licensing money early in a CBA to build a war chest for a potential work stoppage, sources say.
While some on the players’ side saw growing signs of trouble for the middle class of free agents as early as the 2015-16 off-season, others say it’s far too early to judge the impact of the current CBA less than 16 months into the agreement. One player—another supporter of Clark's—said flatly that the criticism of the executive director stems in part from agents who are looking for a scapegoat after misreading the market for their free-agent clients over the winter.
“A lot of this is coming from agents,” the player said. “A lot of agents promised clients a lot of money, stole clients from other agencies and promised a lot of money that they weren’t able to deliver. They need a reason other than they made a mistake judging the market.”
Clark’s relationships with agents generally have been less collegial than Weiner’s were, but he agrees with agents on one significant point: The union is under-staffed. The union had 54 full-time employees according to a 2016 filing with the U.S. Department of Labor—the fewest of any of union in the four major professional sports, sources say.
The union employs outside counsel and outside economists—“rock stars” in the estimation of one player. But Clark indicated that the union is seeking additional full-time expertise and support. “The industry has undoubtedly grown and morphed and changed,” Clark said. “It seems to be doing that even more quickly than has happened in the past. As a result, we will look to reflect those changes and those adjustments to make sure we best position ourselves to represent players and protect their rights.”
Hiring additional attorneys, in particular, would help Clark compensate for his lack of legal background; Dan Halem, MLB’s chief legal officer, graduated Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, in 1991, and before joining MLB worked as a partner in the Labor and Employment Department in the New York office of Proskauer Rose LLP, an international law firm.
Legal expertise, though, is but one element in collective bargaining. Leverage also plays an important role, and in the last round of negotiations the players were unwilling to fight and, if necessary, strike. Their collective will, by virtually all accounts, is hardening. The clubs’ increased reluctance to spend in free agency—a market they long have viewed as inefficient—gave the players a wake-up call.
The question is how the players will direct their anger—at their clubs, at Clark, or both. Weiner was an attorney, as was his predecessor, Don Fehr. The union’s first executive director, Marvin Miller, was as an economist for the International Association of Machinists, United Auto Workers and United Steelworkers before taking over leadership of the MLBPA in 1966.