MLB News and Rumors

Can Chris Davis make it 5 for 5 tonight?
When Chris Davis hit a grand slam Friday evening at Camden Yards, he became one of only four major league baseball players to ever hit four home runs in their first four games of the season. He joins the likes of Willie Mays, Nelson Cruz, and Mark McGwire as the only players to accomplish that feat.
Davis is off to a ridiculously hot start to this season and has been one of the keys that have lead to Baltimore’s 3-1 start. 4 games in, Davis is batting .600 going 9-15 with 4 home runs and 16 RBIs.
If you think Crush Davis’ start to this season is just a fluke, think again. Sure he will not be able to go yard every night, but if you go back to last year, he now has hit 11 home runs in the last 11 regular season games.
Baltimore’s clean up hitter has a chance to make history tonight as he can become the only player to ever hit 5 home runs in the first 5 games of the season as the O’s host the Twins at 7:05. I don’t want to put the jinx on hi…

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Mariano Rivera’s career has been special, to say the least. So with Rivera’s farewell tour expected to kick off soon, it’s a good time to reflect on just how impressive he’s been since becoming the Yankees’ closer.
Rivera, who enters the 2013 season as baseball’s all-time saves leader with 608, has been awesome during the regular season, and even better in the postseason. He has five World Series titles to his his credit, and he’s been a huge part of all of them.
Joe Torre, who managed Rivera for four of his World Series titles, recently joked that the closer “basically made my career,” and described him as a “security blanket.”
“He is the greatest ever,” Torre said, according to the New York Daily New. “It certainly isn’t a knock at the other guys, but he did it in New York, the biggest fishbowl in the world and in the postseason where everybody gets a chance to scrutinize. He responded.”
It’s hard — OK, it’s impossible — to argue Rivera’s greatness, but there have b

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Yankees fans across the globe have been debating on how the 2013 rotation will go. Last night, most of you read my predictions on how it will go; but there was one key factor in our organization that I left out, and his name is David Phelps. 
Phelps, 25, pitched off and on in the big leagues during the 2012 season for the Yankees. Going 4-4 with a 3.37 ERA was spectacular. But if you read my predictions on the rotation, you will notice that there is not much leeway room to shoe Phelps in. If it was up to me, Phelps would work in the pen throughout the season and be designated as a reliever. His ability to consistently start games really pressures me to give him a chance, but in my opinion i feel he would be more successful working out of the pen. The only way I could see management starting him again is if one of our existing rotation pitchers (Sabathia, Kuroda, Pettitte, Hughes, Nova) either gets hurt or starts to lose control on the mound during multiple outings. 
Overall, David P…

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On Thursday afternoon, the Mets announced the signing of LHP Aaron Laffey to  a minor-league deal.
Laffey pitched last year in Toronto and made 22 appearances (16 starts) while going 4-6 with a 4.56 ERA.
The Mets are hoping that Laffey can resurrect his once promising career and become a formidable force out of the pen. Perhaps if he has a solid enough spring, he can be a candidate for the rotation and at least have the chance to become the Mets’ long man.
In 148 games with the Indians, Mariners, Yankees and Blue Jays  (65 starts), Laffey has gone 25-29 with a career 4.38 ERA and 1.50 WHIP. In 474.1 innings, Laffey has only struck out 233 batters. Laffey’s problems over the years is that he’s proven to be too hittable, as he has a career .284 BAA.
The Mets, after being burned by overspending on the likes of Frank Francisco and Jon Rauch and-with the power of hindsight -making a bad trade to acquire the services or Ramon Ramirez last year, wanted to make sure their bullpen acquisitio…

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R.A. Dickey wrote his own farewell message to Mets fans which was published him in the Daily News this evening. Here is his letter to Mets fans in its entirety: A little over a year ago I was knocking around book titles with my publisher when we finally found a keeper. The minute I heard the words, “Wherever I Wind Up,” I liked the cadence of them. I liked the mystery of them. Most of all, I liked the way they captured the essence of my nomadic pitching life — which has now taken another completely unforeseen turn. I never expected to be writing a farewell “holiday card” to Mets fans. I never expected to be doing anything but celebrating the joy of the season with my wife and kids and looking toward to the spring, and the start of my fourth season with an organization that gave me maybe the greatest gift an athlete can get: A chance. A chance for a fresh start. A chance to prove that maybe I could be somebody on a big league mound, an authentic and trustworthy pitcher, not just a re…

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Josh Hamilton was introduced by the Angels on Saturday, two days after it was reported that he agreed to a five-year, $ 125 million deal with his new team. While the Rangers were disappointed that Hamilton decided to sign with the rival Angels without giving them a chance to match the contract offer, Hamilton’s wife is using a dating analogy to add some perspective to the situation. According to Hamilton’s wife, Katie, Texas’ big mistake was that they let her husband flirt with other teams. “My take was, we were with them for five years,” Katie Hamilton said at her husband’s introductory press conference Saturday, via CBS Sports. “If you’re going to date somebody and they’re going to be your man or your woman, you make it official pretty quick that you want to be with them. “The fact that they let us date other teams … Josh said he’d let them have first choice. But they let us date others and give our hearts away.” Said Josh: “She said they should have put a ring on it,” which is

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The Phillies have a hole at third base, and Michael Young is a man without a position in Texas. These two problems look to be coalescing into a trade between the Rangers and Phillies, where Texas would ship Young to Philadelphia in order to give him the chance to have a regular gig again, and they’d receive a little bit of salary relief in the process. The Rangers would still be on the hook for $ 10 million of the $ 16 million he’s due in 2013, a natural response to the fact that Young was Major League Baseball’s worst regular player in 2012, but they’d free up a roster spot, save a bit of money, and give one of the franchise’s most popular players a chance to keep his career going in a new city. From that perspective, the deal makes a world of sense for Texas.
But, despite Young’s dismal 2012 season, I like this deal for the Phillies as well. As I noted on ESPN Insider yesterday, there’s a decent list of recent performers who have apparently fallen apart in their mid-30s, only …

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INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Once again, the Arizona Diamondbacks are trying to trade right fielder Justin Upton.

Maybe the third time will be a charm.

The Diamondbacks discussed moving Upton at the 2010 general managers’ meetings and also before the July 31 non-waiver deadline last season.

Ken Kendrick, the team’s managing general partner, told a Phoenix radio station in October that Upton was “highly likely” to return.

Major-league sources, however, say the team is again engaged in active discussions about Upton, and one estimates the chances of him playing elsewhere next season are “80-20.”

The Diamondbacks need a shortstop, and Upton possibly could bring them a player such as the Rangers’ Elvis Andrus.

Upton, 25, is signed for 9.75 million next season, 14.25 million in 2014 and 14.5 million in 2015.

His no-trade list last season consisted of four teams: the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs.

The list has since changed, a source said.

W

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