MLB News Outside The Confines: Let’s get the World Baseball Party started

[ASFN Admin]

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Good morning. We’re still mostly World Baseball Classic here.

• The big news is still the controversy over Team USA’s manager Mark DeRosa and his handling of the game against Italy. DeRosa tried to defend himself from charges that he didn’t know the situation, but then he got more facts wrong later. Jack Baer with the story.
• Ken Rosenthal seems dubious of DeRosa’s defense, but he writes that Team USA has gotten a second chance and DeRosa needs to stop treating it like an exhibition. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Team USA made three substitutions after pool play, with Will Vest, Tyler Rogers and Tim Hill joining the team.
• DeRosa also announced that Twins ace Joe Ryan will join Team USA if they beat Canada in the quarterfinals.
• Jake Mintz loved the Dominican Republic/Venezuela game, calling it a celebration of Latin American baseball.
• Matt Martell has a recap of the Dominican/Venezuela game for those of us who missed it watching Italy put Team USA into the elimination rounds.
• Buster Olney profiles Junior Caminero, believing his terrific WBC tournament is just a preview of what the budding superstar will do in the near future.
• Brian Murphy and Thomas Harrington have the top highlights from pool play in the WBC.
• What we’ve learned so far in the WBC. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Johnny Flores Jr. ranks the next four WBC games by watchability. (The Athletic free reg. req.)
• Over in Japan, they’re worried that putting all the games on Netflix is hurting the tournament’s popularity. (The Athletic free reg. req.)
• Michael Clair profiles Dane Dunning, who feels the heritage of his American father and Korean mother equally Dunning’s kids got to meet their Korean grandmother for the first time as well.
• Jayson Stark offers his plan to “fix” the World Baseball Classic. (The Athletic sub. req.) It seems like we get these articles every tournament. His plan is the same one that always gets suggested—hold the knockout rounds in July during All-Star Week.
• Maria Torres looks back at the brawl between Canada and Mexico in the 2013 WBC and how it led to changes that have strengthened Canadian baseball. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Yadier Molina hopes that his time managing Puerto Rico will lead to him managing a major league team. Anthony Castrovince with the story. Is Yadi the only person on the planet who doesn’t know that he’s going to manage the Cardinals as soon as they fire Oli Marmol?
• Stepping away from the WBC for a moment, the Reds got bad news as Hunter Greene is expected to be out until July after an operation to remove bone chips in his right elbow. Honestly, I thought that was good news as it mean he didn’t need Tommy John again. But yeah, Reds fans were hoping for better than that.
• Astros closer Josh Hader will start the year on the injured list with biceps inflammation.
• Diamondback Corbin Carroll has started swinging a bat again after hamate surgery. Steve Gilbert reports Carroll is using an axe-handle bat for now.
• R.J. Anderson has ten players returning from injury-filled 2025 seasons.
• Mets left-hander Sean Manaea says he’s not concerned about the drop in velocity this spring. Matt Sullivan with the story.
• Rhett Bollinger checks in on Angels camp and has five takeaways.
• Ryan Blake traces the decline in the Angels to the decline of Mike Trout from superstar to just good.
• Paul Casella looks at how great Pirates top prospect Konnor Griffin has been in Spring Training and what the Pirates still need to see out of him. Sounds like an excuse to game another year of service time out of Griffin.
• Ben Clemens examines how much longer can Aaron Judge be the best hitter in baseball.
• Kiley McDaniel has one breakout player for every MLB team.
• Dan Szymborski has one thing that could go wrong for every projected playoff team. Unsurpringly for the Cubs, it’s starting pitching.
• Bradford Doolittle categorizes every team by both how much they improved over the winter and how many moves they made.
• Matt Snyder ranks the top starting pitchers in the game as to how close they are to being an “ace.”
• Returning to the WBC, Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh says there’s “no beef” between him and teammate Randy Arozarena.
• Maybe. But finally, Patrick Dubuque went and got Jane Austen to write about the incident between Raleigh and Arozarena. Never knew Jane was a baseball fan, but it’s good to see her writing again 209 years after she died. Other great writers would use that as an excuse.

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