Early Spring Training Story Lines

Hello baseball fans.

We’re a week into spring training games, the results of which mean absolutely nothing. Most starting pitchers have thrown two innings or less. After the fifth inning, the games feature players we’re unlikely to see much of at the major league level this season.

Still, things are happening—and not happening—in the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues that will affect how the regular season plays out. So let’s dive in.

The Ohtani Sho

It’s all about Shohei Ohtani at the Dodgers spring training complex in Glendale, Arizona. Every day, hundreds of reporters and photographers show up to watch Ohtani take batting practice. They bide their time, waiting to see if Ohtani will be available to the press on the field or in the clubhouse. During his time with the Angels, Ohtani was notoriously tight-lipped. He spoke to the media only after he pitched.

Ohtani won’t be pitching in 2024 as he recovers from surgery on his right (pitching) elbow. We didn’t learn until Ohtani signed with the Dodgers that the surgery to repair his torn UCL was not quite a second Tommy John procedure but something else—a procedure so new that it doesn’t have a name. When the Dodgers introduced Ohtani in December, the two-way star’s agent, Nez Balelo, told reporters that surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache expected that Ohtani would be ready to hit on Opening Day.

One hundred and fifty-four days after his elbow surgery, Ohtani hit a home run in his third spring training at-bat. Everyone in the Dodgers universe breathed a huge sigh of relief. Everyone in the non-Dodgers universe just sighed. Watching Ohtani do Ohtani things—even in spring training—brings joy at his talent and despair if you root for a team other than the Dodgers.

Ohtani’s recovery from non-TJ elbow surgery is a marvel, but it’s not unprecedented. Last season, Bryce Harper returned to action in a regular season game only 160 days after Tommy John surgery on his right elbow. Harper hit his first home run after TJ surgery in this fourth game back— so 164 days from operation to MLB home run.

And once he came back, Harper played every day. Ohtani’s only played in that one spring training game (on Tuesday) and hasn’t played since. Apparently he’s been busy with other activities. Ohtani announced this morning that he recently got married.

The non-Ohtani Sho

Ohtani isn’t the only new player in Dodgers’ camp. Indeed, he’s not the only new Japanese player in Dodgers’ camp.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the top starter in the Nippon Professional Baseball League, signed a 12-year/$325 million contract with the Dodgers in late December. Yamamoto made his spring debut yesterday.

In two innings, Yamamoto struck out three and allowed only one hit. He mixed a four-seam fastball, a splitter, cutter and change-up.

He looks ready for Opening Day.

Everyone in the non-Dodgers universe just sighed.

File under: taking the Dodgers down a notch

Yes, they have Ohtani and Yamamoto and Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. But the Dodgers have not been a particularly successful postseason team during their 10-year run of regular season dominance.

I had a good laugh at this story about a former San Franciscan who opened two Mission-style burrito joints in New York City. He came up with a creative way to post the required information for dealing with a customer choking on his food. Hint: it involves Clayton Kershaw.

The Boras Four is now the Boras Three

The Cubs finalized their reunion with Cody Bellinger this week. After a tremendous comeback season in 2023 in which he slashed .307/.356/.525 with 26 home runs, Bellinger was reportedly looking for a nine-figure multi-year deal.

That kind of deal didn’t materialize.

From where I sit, It looks like Bellinger’s agent Scott Boras expected the market for Bellinger to expand and get more competitive the longer Bellinger held out. That’s what happened with other Boras clients in years past—notably, Bryce Harper and J.D. Martinez.

Boras’ tricks didn’t work for Bellinger, who ended up signing a three-year deal with the Cubs worth up to $80 million. Bellinger will make $27.5 million in 2024. He then has a player option for 2025 worth $27.5 million and a player option for 2026 worth $25 million.

That leaves three other Boras clients as the top unsigned free agents: starters Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery, and third baseman Matt Chapman.

Boras’ strategy might work better for Snell and Montgomery.

Pitchers are fragile. Pitchers get hurt. Pitchers ramp up too quickly in spring training and get injured and face setbacks. It happens every year.

Those injuries can cause teams to reevaluate their rotation plans.

Exhibit A: the Giants.

San Francisco entered spring training with the idea that their starting rotation for the 2024 season would consist of:

• Logan Webb, runner up in the 2023 NL Cy Young voting and an innings eater

• Kyle Harrison, a 22-year-old rookie who pitched in 7 games for the Giants last season, but has never thrown more than 113 innings in any season in the minors

• Jordan Hicks, a former reliever who averages 100 mph on his faster, and whom the Giants believe they can convert to a starter

• Keaton Winn, a 26-year-old rookie who threw 42 innings for the Giants last season and posted a 4.68 ERA

• Tristan Beck, a soon-to-be 28-year-old who mostly pitched out of the ‘pen for the Giants last season

This is the rotation that Giants President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi believed would contend with the Dodgers. Sure, Alex Cobb is expected to return in May after rehabbing from hip surgery. And newly acquired Robbie Ray is expected back mid-season after rehabbing from Tommy John surgery.

The Giants will play all of their games against the Dodgers this season by the end of July. With that projected rotation, the Giants could well be out of the postseason hunt by the All-Star break.

And now Winn and Beck are injured.

Winn was shutdown last week after feeling soreness in his right elbow. That soreness has, reportedly, abated. Winn will throw a bullpen session this weekend. But there’s a long road from a bullpen to a spring training start to a regular season start.

Beck was diagnosed Wednesday with an aneurysm in his right (throwing) upper arm. Beck and the Giants are weighing options but new manager Bob Melvin says Beck won’t be on the Opening Day roster.

After the Giants lost out on Ohtani and Yamamoto to their longtime rival, it was obvious to everyone that the team needed to sign at least one—if not two—of the Boras Four. Not just because the Giants have big holes to fill in their rotation and lineup, but because over the last several years, the Giants have become the most boring team in the baseball.

No superstars, outside of Logan Webb. No top-of-list prospects that could change the trajectory of the team. Attendance has cratered. And all majority owner Greg Johnson wants to talk about is breaking even financially. The Giants are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the city that celebrated with three World Series parades between 2010 and 2014.

It appeared that ownership understood the whole they dug. Reports claim the Giants were prepared to pay Ohtani and/or Yamamoto millions and millions of dollars both those signed with LA.

The Giants need to take those millions and throw them at Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery or both. Now.

I have to wonder if the A’s plan to move to Las Vegas in 2028 factors into the Giants’ thinking. A’s fans are rightfully in revolt over owner John Fisher’s disastrous mismanagement and Las Vegas plans (more on that below). More fan boycotts are planned for this season—potentially the A’s last in Oakland.

Soon enough, the Giants will be the only baseball team in the Bay Area. Do they think A’s fans will just become Giants fans overnight? Or spend a lot more money to watch baseball at Oracle Park than they did to watch baseball at the Coliseum? We know Commissioner Rob Manfred thinks that, but I am skeptical. Very skeptical.

The A’s are a major league shitshow

Last November, MLB owners unanimously approved the A’s plan to move to Las Vegas without seeing either ballpark renderings or financials showing how the A’s will pay to build their new ballpark.

More than three months later, the A’s still don’t have renderings or financing.

The A’s didn’t hire architects until December 4, 2023—the day the team had originally set for making their renderings public.

In January, A’s owner John Fisher admitted that he’s looking for minority investors in the team that he can turn into cash for the ballpark project.

And now the team is in jeopardy of losing the $380 million in public financing authorized by the Nevada Legislature last summer. A political action committee of the Nevada teachers union has sued to overturn the legislation that authorized those public funds. The lawsuit claims that the legislation violates several provisions of the Nevada state constitution. You can read the lawsuit here.

Alexander Marks, the Director of Strategy at the Nevada State Education Association, told me that the union’s attorneys are preparing a motion that would ask the court to enjoin the legislation from taking effect. But, Marks added, since the A’s have made “virtually no progress” in obtaining private financing or doing the other things necessary to build a Las Vegas ballpark, the union is not in a rush to seek an injunction.

It’s no wonder that Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman recently said the A’s should stay in Oakland.

Has John Fisher’s utter incompetence shaken Rob Manfred? Does Manfred have any second thoughts about ripping a team from its dedicated fan base and moving it to a literal desert?

Nah.

Manfred told The San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser this week that the A’s relocation plan is “solid.”

I’d hate to see what a less-than-solid plan looked like.

For their part, A’s fans have not lost hope.

The folks who organized last season’s reverse boycott at the Coliseum to urge Fisher to sell the team just pulled off an incredible fans fest to celebrate all things Oakland sports. The Last Dive Bar and the Oakland 68s hosted tens of thousands of fans in Jack London Square in Oakland last Saturday. The event featured local breweries, food trucks, and several former A’s players, including Coco Crisp and Grant Balfour.

Casey Pratt, a producer for the Bay Area’s ABC station and an indefatigable advocate for keeping the A’s in Oakland, created this video with highlights from the fans fest.

The A’s response?

On Monday, they removed the “Rooted in Oakland” sign that used to greet fans as they entered the Coliseum complex.

That’s all for now. Don’t forget to follow me on Bluesky. We need more baseball fans over there.