Conflicting! I'd certainly rather have Ryan than Sheehan if I'm the Tigers. Riskier, but considerably more upside. Sheehan seems best utilized as a reliever, imo.

They need to get rid of these ridiculous catcher interferences when the batter isn't even trying to swing. Grisham just tapped the catcher's glove after the ball was already in there. Nothing is being interfered with.

Not interested in seeing Willson Contreras complain about another HBP this season.

Braves booth asking why Juan Soto didn't slide on this and suggesting that he could have gotten someone hurt when sliding on this probably would have been the thing that got someone hurt.

Worked for Mead this time. Throw hit him square in the back.

MLB reviews need to be more like NBA reviews, because if you can overturn this and get it called a pickoff, you can also see that this is obviously obstruction on Stewart's part and thus not a pickoff at all.

They threw at your franchise player three times and you're sticking up for... them???

False advertising.

This is Joel Kuhnel's first appearance for the Brewers, against the team that DFA'd him and sold him for cash.

Anthony Volpe's last two at-bats have been a purist's dream: a liner up the middle over the pitcher and an opposite field liner to right-center. 15 years ago, they would have been a single and an RBI double. Today, both outs (the first a double play). The fielders are simply already there.

Sometimes they call the runner out for this. Sometimes they don't. And there's no rhyme or reason. Fernandez botched the play, but he probably makes a better throw here if the runner is where he's supposed to be.

This didn't actually do Mead any good here, but I still just don't understand why MLB lets this be a part of the game.

Oh.

Alex Cora three hours later:

Adolis García made a fantastic throw here to get Nico Hoerner, but..... this is obstruction! Edmundo Sosa has the entire path to the bag cut off while standing and waiting for the throw. Hoerner has absolutely nowhere to go.

When there's only one game to recap.

Bo Bichette should just go ahead and steal this.

I'll admit to being a little bummed that my second auto from a box of archives turned out to be Brooks Baldwin, but damn, that's a nice signature.

Aaron Judge apparently hit two homers tonight when I wasn't looking.

If you have to slide early (and Tatis obviously did here) because someone without the ball is blocking your path to the base, that's obstruction.

Figured Carlos Estévez would find his fastball in the WBC, but it's just not happening. Worrisome.

Nick Madrigal supposedly hit a ball 111.6 mph yesterday. His high in 285 games as a major leaguer is 106.9 mph. In the same inning, Nick Senzel hit a ball 111.1 mph. His high in a regular-season game is 109.8 mph. Might be spring training for Statcast, too.

I'm not typically one to bring stuff over from the bad site, but everything about this is gold.

Was worried after I badly overshot on Naylor to begin the offseason, but my contract predictions are looking pretty good so far. Still surprised Devin Williams settled for that (really 3x15 after deferrals). Also whiffed on Pomeranz... thought contenders would be pretty interested.

Daryl Thompson pitched six scoreless innings in the Puerto Rican Winter League yesterday. He was the Expos' eighth-round pick in 2003, their next-to-last draft. Chad Cordero was their first-rounder that year.

That's fine then. Zerpa, like Jose A. Ferrer, is another underrated lefty groundball machine. Sure would be nice to see the Royals get a legit starting outfielder, though. Neither Collins not Lane Thomas can be viewed as a starter.

Got one right. FWIW, I had Valdez at 5 yr, $150 million and Suárez at 5 yr, $135 million. Expect that this will be the biggest contract for a SP.

This makes a couple of times recently where Rosenthal has gotten sniped because of The Athletic's apparent desire to present breaking news as an article, rather than to have it just tweeted out. Interesting, to me anyway.

Damn. Rojas actually replied to this tweet of mine, saying something along the lines of it was all hard work, but it's gone now... looks like he deleted his twitter.

Seems like we at least deserved a sideview of the Clement non-swing.