A company called Baden Sports has released a new style of bat that ditches the traditional knob end. The handle is similar to that of an axe and it forces players to hold and swing it differently than a traditional ash bat. The design has received provisional approval from Major League Baseball but it does not have “full approval” which would allow players to use the bats in regular season games.
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Yusei Kikuchi may end up being a Japenese baseball pioneer. The 18-year-old lefty could become the first Japanese player to make the jump directly from high school to Major League Baseball.
Up to this point, no Japanese ballplayers have forgone pro baseball in Japan for the United States. Most of them are drafted into the Nippon Professional Baseball league and have to wait as long as nine years for free agency. Junichi Tazawa was the first player from Japan to ask not to be drafted by the NPB. He ended up playing in the Japanese corporate league until he was signed by the Boston Red Sox.
It’s an extremely interesting case because it could change the way major league teams view Japanese prospects. If they are able to persuade these kids to skip the NPB draft, they can sign them at substantially lower rates since they don’t have to pay the club team to negotiate with the player. Clearly, signing younger players presents more risk for MLB teams — but they can save a ton of money and develop the players in their farm system.
Yusei Kikuchi has a fastball clocked between 94 and 96 and is expected to make a decision by the end of October. The six-footer generated a ton of interest after striking out 32 batters in 25 innings during a Japanese high school regional tournament. He’s being courted by teams including the Red Sox, Dodgers, Giants, Rangers, Yankees, Mets, Indians, and Mariners. It’s reported that many people around him are suggesting that he stay in Japan. If he does make the jump to America, it’s likely he will start in the low minors.
Tags: baseball, boston red sox, cleveland indians, japan, los angeles dodgers, MLB, new york mets, new york yankees, nippon professional baseball, san francisco giants, seattle mariners, texas rangers, yusei kikuchi
I’m a huge Carl Crawford fan. That guy has all of the tools to be a megastar. I actually like him slightly less after hearing him give smoe dense interviews — but I won’t get into that now. You know who else likes Carl Crawford? The answer is: Ken Griffey Jr. The Seattle slugger has included Crawford in a select group of players that will wear his signature shoe. Crawford’s version of the shoe, dubbed the Swingman, will say CC13 on the side. Along with Crawford, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Braun, Adam Jones, and Orlando Hudson will wear their own version of the Swingman. Congratulations to Ryan Braun on being the token white guy in the group. You can see a version of the Ken Griffey Jr. Swingman here and you can see the Jackie Robinson edition here. The Jackie Robinson ones are effing awesome.
Tags: adam jones, baseball, carl crawford, jackie robinson, jimmy rollins, ken griffey jr, MLB, nike, orlando hudson, ryan braun, seattle mariners, swingman, tampa bay raysYou could call him tough, stubborn, stupid, or crazy. I think he’s probably stubbornly stupid. Adrian Beltre recently declared that he would not wear a cup upon his return to the diamond. If you didn’t know, Beltre is shelved with a testicle injury caused by a baseball. He’s a third baseman and the position is known for receiving many hard hit balls. Coincidentally, Adrian Beltre is also known for his hard hit balls.
Via Seattle Times:
Tags: adrian beltre, baseball, cup, MLB, seattle mariners, testicleSEATTLE — Adrian Beltre doesn’t have a firm answer for the question everyone wants answered: Will he wear a cup in the future?
“I might be lying if I said (I would),” the Seattle Mariners third baseman said on Monday. “I tried it before, it’s uncomfortable, I hate it and if it happens every 11 years of my career I’ll probably take my chances.”
Beltre took batting practice and did some light fielding before Seattle opened a 10-game homestand. Beltre is on the disabled list after suffering a severely bruised testicle on Aug. 12 against Chicago when a drive by Alexi Ramirez caught Beltre in the groin area.
Beltre saw a doctor on Monday and is improving, but there is still swelling in his groin area. For now, Beltre says he’ll wear a cup to protect the swelling, but a return to the field is still unknown.
Adrian Beltre doesn’t wear a cup. That came back to… bite him when a ground ball crushed his testicles. There’s internal bleeding and he may need surgery to repair the injury. Apparently, he played through the injury when it occurred and scored the winning run in the game. The Mariners just put Beltre on the DL when this article was written. Tough break.
Via Seattle Times:
Tags: adrian beltre, baseball, disabled list, injuries, MLB, seattle mariners, testicle4:30 p.m.: This is no laughing matter, despite the jokes that will inevitably fly after news of this breaks. It turns out that Mariners third baseman Adrian Beltre injured his testicle last night after a groundball took a bad hop and hit him in the groin area. No, he does not wear a protective cup.
There was some tearing of the testicle and apparently is some internal bleeding in there. The team is going to wait a bit to see whether he requires surgery. If the surgery was to take place, he would need a month’s recovery time. If there’s no surgery, he’d need about 10 days to two weeks.
Josh Wilson has been activated for now. We’re still waiting to see how severe Jack Wilson’s hamstring injury is. There’s a Grade 1 tear in that, but the team is still deliberating whether or not to keep him active. We should know before gametime, but he’s going to miss at least a few days.
Back to Beltre, he was hurt on a hard grounder that kicked off to his right in the eighth inning.
“It hurt pretty bad,” he said. “It was hurting me pretty much the whole game after that.”
Told that some were suggesting he was brave for staying in the game, he quipped:
“I don’t know about brave. Maybe stupid.”
Beltre has an appointment with a surgeon tomorrow to discuss whether he needs an operation.
“It’s a shame,” Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik told me moments ago. “You hate to see something like this happen, but your first thoughts have to be about the player. You want him to make a complete recovery.”
By the way, the Mariners had not yet put Beltre through waivers. So, it’s not like they could have traded him yesterday, before all of this happened.
Had the team been double-digits back in the wild-card race, Beltre may have been put on waivers by now in hopes he’d clear and a deal could be made. But the team has been playing winning baseball since the Jarrod Washburn deal and the idea now — as with Russell Branyan — is to keep the team as is in hopes of a strong finish.
Nothing wrong with that.
Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu said the Beltre situation is indefinite and that “he’ll be out for who knows what right now.”
Wakamatsu said Beltre, who stayed in the game long after hurting himself, could feel pain when he dove back into third base after getting on in extra innings. He also felt it when he applied the tag on Scott Podsednik during a 10th inning pickoff at third.
Oh yeah, he also scored the winning run. Guy’s a gamer.
“If it’s a major surgery, it could be at least a month or maybe more,” Wakamatsu said. “So, yeah, there’s a chance of that. Right now, they said there’s some coagulation of it right now. So, it’s healing already. It’s just a matter of whethewr they’re going to have to go in and fix it surgically.”
The surgeon who is supposed to look at Beltre is in surgery at the moment. The team is expecting to hear from him shortly. Wakamatsu mentioned that this type of surgery needs to be done within 72 hours of the initial injury, so the waiting around won’t happen for much longer.
By the way, Zduriencik confirmed the story Larry Stone and I told you about in the last blog post, how Mariners executive Jim Na has resigned and that western crosschecker scout Ron Tostenson will not have his contract renewed. Also, that special assignment/amateur scout Tom Davis will be reassigned.
In Na’s case, “he just had other things that he wanted to pursue,” Zduriencik said. “He also mentioned wanting to coach his daughter’s softball team and wanting time to do that.”
Na was the team’s director of baseball administration.
With the trade deadline fast approaching, the New York Yankees are reportedly putting in calls around the league about available starting pitching. According to a FOX Sports report, Seattle Mariners lefty Jarrod Washburn is officially available. If reports are true that the Yankees are looking for another quality starter due to the injury to Chien-Ming Wang and Joba Chamberlain’s innings limit, then they should seriously consider Washburn who is having his best year having gone 8-6 with a 2.71 ERA to date.
One potential perk for Washburn may be fans mistaking him for Kiefer Sutherland on the streets of NYC
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Tags: cliff lee, MLB, NY Yankees, roy halladay, seattle mariners, trade deadline, trade rumors
