Mack’s Apples – Jhoan Urena, Yoenis Cespedes, Chris Flexen, Baseball in U.K., Dark Secrets

Good morning.

John Sickels on –

        

       17) Jhoan Urena, 1B-3B, Grade C+: Age 23, signed out of Dominican Republic in 2011; switch-hitter with .277/.358/.440 line in High-A/Triple-A, 14 homers, 18 steals, 64 walks, 130 strikeouts; real pop from both sides of the plate showed well in power-difficult Florida State League; good batting eye, strikes out some but looks recovered from injury seasons in ’15 and ’16; problem here is atrocious defense, .891 career fielding percentage at third is unacceptable, .987 at first base isn’t much better; I think he can hit but where do you play him? ETA late 2018; QUESTION MARK: stone glove.

minor league baseball

Fangraphs on Yoenes Cespedes -

        

        Yoenis Cespedes is projected to do much better in 2018 than 2017. In a stroke of sheer coincidence, he is supposed to play more than 81 games this season, too. He posted one of the worst Outs Above Average numbers in all of baseball during his 2017 (-5.2 UZR/150), which might have been a result of his nagging leg trouble -- which itself might have been due to his dislike of water. He's had shoulder and wrist issues this spring, ouchies he has downplayed, although the latter required a cortisone shot. He's been hitting second in the lineup for March games, although I think if you got leg troubles in life you are a much better candidate for the cleanup spot. But I am not the manager. A much more handsome man is.


MLB on Chris Flexen -

         

         New York: Chris Flexen, RHP (No. 9 on Mets' Top 30)

Opening Day 2018: Triple-A Las Vegas

Flexen was rushed to the big leagues from Double-A last year out of need and struggled, posting a 7.88 ERA in 48 innings. He pitched well, albeit briefly, in big league camp this spring and will go down to Triple-A to wait for another chance. There, he can work on trusting his stuff, something he did in the Minors, but not in New York last year. There is some pitching depth in this organization, but Mets fans know exactly how tenuous that can be.

Will Major League Baseball Find Fans in the U.K. ? –

        

         Both the NFL and NBA, said Stainer, have done a good job of importing not just their games but the atmosphere surrounding them. “It’s a different sports experience. It’s a lot more social,” he said. “There is a lot more celebration. It draws in big crowds who are not just there for the sport.”

But these annual sports roadshows aren’t enough to create lifelong fans, said Simon Chadwick, professor of sports enterprise at the University of Salford in Manchester. “Britain has an undiminished appetite for sport, and people here are prepared to spend to consume it,” said Chadwick. “However, it will take more than a couple of games at a swanky venue in London to persuade large numbers of people that baseball is

Why Are Sportswriters Whitewashing Baseball’s Dark Secrets? –

        

         As the gatekeepers of the Hall of Fame, these writers invoke the “character clause,” a practice of moral relativism that too often ignores the blemishes in the game’s history and the failings of baseball legends from years past. Yahoo! Sports columnist Jeff Passan recently gave up his Hall of Fame vote because he believes that Cooperstown has become “a shining beacon of divinity set upon a hill of hypocrisy.” The Hall of Fame is a museum, but too many writers, he argues, treat it as a shrine. It is filled with “racists, wife beaters, drunks, gamblers and purveyors of manifold moral turpitude.”