A friend last night was extolling the virtues of air fryers, which I’d already been getting reaaaaally close to getting anyway, and it tipped me over the edge. So I hunted around on Amazon this morning, and I see a big discount on this Ninja one that is also a combo toaster (so I can just leave it out and save the counter space, right?). Honestly, the first thing I want to try is just some leftover fries from a fast food place and see if you can actually crisp ’em back up. That’s like the whole thing, right? #ad
I was thinking back to the Cubs’ roster moves of this past week, adding three pitchers to the 40-man – Michael Arias, Porter Hodge, and Bailey Horn – while non-tendering three others, in Codi Heuer, Ethan Roberts, and Brandon Hughes. I don’t think there’s any kind of one-to-one relationship there, since each one of those six moves had its own individualized explanation. But I do think you probably don’t want your 40-man to get TOO out of balance in terms of pitching versus position players (right now it’s 20 pitchers, 17 position players).
I do think, though, that it’s possible there WINDS UP being a little correlation between the moves. That is to say, it’s not impossible to imagine Hodge, a converted righty reliever who was showing substantial swing-and-miss at Double-A, is on the big league bullpen radar in 2024 as an up-down guy (a spot that might’ve otherwise gone to a healthy Roberts, for example). It’s also not impossible to imagine Horn becoming a quality late-inning lefty in the bullpen (a spot that might’ve otherwise gone to a healthy Hughes). Arias is much harder to imagine reaching the big leagues in 2024, but of course that would be possible if he winds up converted to relief at some point during the season. We’ve seen it before. (I personally hope he isn’t converted any time soon, because he’s got the pitches to start – just needs to work on the stamina.)
On Horn, specifically, I think it’s interesting how he wound up relatively unnoticed on the prospect radar outside of Cubs nerd circles, but wound up a guy the Cubs knew they had to protect from the Rule 5. I think he slipped on my radar a bit because, despite knowing he would have to go on the 40-man anyway, and despite being in pretty desperate need for a lefty reliever (heck, any healthy relievers) for most of the second half, Horn never got a look in the big league bullpen. It made me question how the Cubs viewed his future – but obviously they answered that question this past week.
One more on Horn: here’s hoping he follows his development trajectory so far. In 2021, he was dominant in Low-A, and thus got a taste of High-A, where his performance was mixed. In 2022, he was quite dominant in a return to High-A, and thus got a taste of Double-A, where his performance was mixed. In 2023, he was STUPIDLY dominant in a return to Double-A, and thus got a taste of Triple-A, where his performance was mixed (4.58 ERA, 4.38 FIP, 24.9% K, 12.2% BB, 0.85 HR/9). If he tracks, that would mean he makes Triple-A look like a kiddy league in 2024, while getting his first taste of the big leagues. Obviously you’d love him to break out in the big leagues immediately, but hey, if it takes a taste in 2024 for him to become a dominant big league reliever in 2025 …
“MLB has no plans to implement an electronic strike zone in 2024, but likely will tinker with the pitch clock and limit mound visits. They also are discussing the potential of increasing the number of batters a reliever must face from three to four or five, with one executive saying he’d like to make it mandatory for starters to pitch at least five innings.”
The smaller rules changes seem fine to me, but those two give me much more mixed feelings (it doesn’t sound like these two are under consideration in quite the same way). I do agree that having starting pitchers go back to the thing where they’re doing deeper starts on the regular is probably a desirable goal, but mandating five innings minimum seems like a recipe for a variety of disasters, from long-term injury concerns to games where there is an absolute implosion in the third inning and it just never stops (which becomes pretty un-entertaining at a certain point).
As for the minimum batter rule for relievers, I certainly like the three-batter minimum rule at the moment, and I don’t know that I really see a reason to extend it further. Someone would have to give me a good reason on that one, because I’m not sure what it is.
Within a FIVE-MINUTE SPAN, multiple reports dropped all communicating more or less the same thing: the Yankees and Padres have hit a wall in their long-reported and long-active Juan Soto trade talks. The trio of reports: https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/1730714790102806825 https://twitter.com/martinonyc/status/1730715967234179146 https://twitter.com/martinonyc/status/1730716683709419917 https://twitter.com/TheAthletic/status/1730716395976151309...
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