By Josh:

The passing of Jose Fernandez has come as a great shock and a huge blow to the baseball community. Teammates, coaches, competitors, and fans have all been at a loss for words after the news broke yesterday.

I too have just been in a little bit of a daze.  I never met Jose, never watched him play in person, but he was a part of the baseball community/family. Baseball brings strangers together, and when a talented player, and by all accounts amazing person, dies way to young it affects the entire baseball family.

Read the rest of What happens to the Marlins now via 9 Inning Know It All.

Ian Anderson is 6’3″ 170′ 18-year-old out of Shenendehowa High School in Rexford, New York. He was selected third overall by the Braves in the 2016 MLB Draft. He has a hard fastball with growing offspeed pitches. He currently can throw 90-94 with a potential to add more velocity. He has a big gap between the speed in his off-speed pitches and has room to create two pitches out of his curveball. He has some red flags regarding injury potential and needs to clean up his mechanics and generate more energy up the chain in his lower half. He has lightning quick arm speed that helps compensate at the moment. When fully matured and refined he could be a real ace.

Ian Anderson’s Scouting Report

Reports are pouring in that Miami Marlins star pitcher Jose Fernandez has sadly died in a tragic boating accident.

Details are sparse at this point but the death has been confirmed by multiple sources. Baseball has lost one of its youngest and brightest stars.

The 24-year-old right-handed native of Cuba (later came to the United States) came to the Marlins as a first-round draft choice in 2011 out of high school. He made the majors just two years later, and despite undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2014, came back as good as ever.

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The Winter League helps players work on their weaknesses, their game plan and do so facing more advanced levels of competition. It also has the obvious benefit of helping stay in shape. For many these factors assist them to get to spring training with a more distinct advantage over those that stick to the gym and home based development work. The competitive level in these league don’t allow managers to treat this tournament as development leagues since they are there to win, we have seen times with four different managers in a season including switching managers in Playoffs, even in Finals!

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The Boston Red Sox have put their fans in a glass case of emotions this year. The time is quickly counting down on the illustrious career of beloved slugger David Ortiz. Additionally, even though they are currently in first place in the American League East, the team is still fighting for their playoff spot with their finger nails, as a veritable pack of hopefuls nip at their heels. That being said, no matter what happens the rest of the way there are a number of positives that will come out of the 2016 campaign and can be applied to the future.

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Dear Vin Scully,

Congratulations on your upcoming retirement. You are the greatest. Your voice, your stories, your knowledge and love of the game is unmatched by anyone in the history of baseball.

I didn’t grow up a Dodgers fan, but yet I still loved listening to you. Never before had I heard someone know so much about every player, including the guy at the end of the bench on the visiting team.  You connected fans to the game and the players in a way that I didn’t think was possible.

Read the rest of A Letter To Vin Scully via 9 Inning Know It All

If you are looking for a website that has truly been a success story, the mlbreports.com is the right place.

Operating with its 1st post in January of 2011, this little place on the web has counted over 5600 Posts and 2,500, 000+ views. 

Since Sept of 2012, the site has done over 2 million views itself.

2016 has the site on pace to do almost 800, 000 views. 

mlbreports.com has an awesome google search engine presence – with being on page #1 of most of its main target categories.

The Facebook Fan Page also has 1.7K likes, and 400 subscribed email readers.

We are willing to sell the domain, all archives, the Facebook Page, and potentially our Twitter Account (which also has 14.2 K followers).  There is a tier system of buying the basic domain (which comes with the FB Page), and then add-on the archived posts (4.2 posts – as Sully Baseball Daily Podcasts are not part of the package at all in any sale.), (the mlbreports.wordpress.com account) and finally the twitter account.

I want only serious inquiries on this if you are interested.

Please send a note.

Chuck Booth

MLB Reports Majority Owner

Ivan Nova’s trade to the Pittsburgh Pirates at this year’s deadline failed to attract many headlines among the deluge of significant deals completed on the 1^st of August. Yet Nova’s performances since arriving in Pittsburgh have brought an under the radar trade firmly into the spotlight. Whilst the Pirates’ playoffs hopes look to have been muted, sitting 6 games back of the 2^nd NL wildcard spot, Nova’s performances lend hope to a possible revival of fortunes in 2017. In 7 starts in a Pirates uniform Nova has posted an impressive 5-0 record with a 3.00 ERA, 3.02 FIP and average gamescore (v2) of 62.

Compare that to Nova’s first half of the season in New York as a starter (Nova made 6 relief appearances between April 6^th and May 1st) and the apparent improvement since the trade is drastic:

During the second half of the season Nova ranks 14^th in the Majors in ERA, 42^nd in FIP and 40^th in WAR, trailing only Jameson Taillon for the Pirates in the last two categories.

Please click on over to Off The Bench to continue reading about How the Pirates Made Ivan Nova Better.