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Cardinals Extend Kolten Wong
Jen Rainwater (Featured BBBA Writer/Owner – www.bbstmlb.com) Follow @OakAsSockGrl
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In an offseason where the St. Louis Cardinals tried to sell their city to every free agent out there – including outfielder Jason Heyward.
Heyward spurned the Cardinals, who acquired him before the 2015 season from the Atlanta Braves.
The team and its players immediately began talking the team, the city and the fans up to Heyward in hopes that the soon to be free agent would want to re-sign with the team.
In the end Heyward decided to take less money to go to the Chicago Cubs. A lot of MLB free agents did the same this year including super utility man Ben Zobrist and most recently outfielder Dexter Fowler.
Perhaps it’s the Cubs’ young talented core and their good chance to finally win a World Series or two after a century-long drought. Perhaps it is that they like manager Joe Maddon‘s style.
Mending Ties With Cuba Begins With Baseball
Angel Franco – New York Times
Jen Rainwater (Featured BBBA Writer/Owner – www.bbstmlb.com) Follow @OakAsSockGrl
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The Tampa Bay Rays and even President Obama will be in Cuba later this month while the Rays take on the Cuban National team. Something of this magnitude that has not occurred in almost 20 years, when the Baltimore Orioles played an exciting two-games series there in 1999. And even then President Clinton was not in attendance.
It is believed by many that the love and passion that the two countries share for the game of baseball will help bring them together. In part of a statement issued by MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred he shared this sentiment saying that during this time of historic change,
“We appreciate the constructive role afforded by our shared passion for the game, and we look forward to experiencing Cuba’s storied baseball tradition and the passion of its many loyal fans.”
The Rays will fly into Cuba on March 20, hold an exhibition clinic on the 21st and play the Cuban National Team at Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana on the 22nd before returning home to the United States.
A’s Constant Competitive Ambition Is Admirable
Jen Rainwater (Featured Baseball Writer/Owner – www.bbstmlb.com) Follow @OakAsSockGrl
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Alright, you may have to bear with me a little bit here, as I am not 100% sure how I want to present this except to say this is what I say about the A’s A LOT of the time and ESPN’s Buster Olney said it in his “Insiders Only” piece on Saturday called,
“The Athletics drive to contend is admirable in today’s times.“
It IS admirable and using both Olney’s statistics and my own, I intend to show you exactly why their drive to contend has not only been successful but beyond that, that most team’s in their situation would not or choose not to try to compete. Instead they tank and have a long stretch of terrible years – only to reemerge with a lot of high draft picks who are ready for the big leagues.
It reminded me a lot of a similar piece that I wrote for Today’s Knuckleball that talked about how the A’s had their own unique way of “rebuilding.” It went on to explore how they’ve been able to maintain a high level of competitiveness despite having one of the league’s lowest payrolls and having to be creative in creating platoons that will put up similar numbers to those exhibited by the big name free agents that they cannot afford.
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Mark Ellis And Mark Kotsay Together Again At A’s camp
Ellis, still a fan favorite to this day, came up with the team as a rookie in 2002 and was a big part of the Athletics 2002 20-game win streak, which set an AL record. He was the A’s second baseman from 2002 until 2011 when he was traded to the Colorado Rockies. During his tenure with Oakland, Ellis hit .266/.331/.337. He was most impressive on defense however and he has been brought in to work with the middle infielders. Photo courtesy of GETTY IMAGES
Jen Rainwater (Featured Baseball Writer/Owner – www.bbstmlb.com) Follow @OakAsSockGrl
Follow The MLB Reports On Twitter Follow @mlbreports
This is exciting news! My favorite Marks are back together again, for spring training at least, and that is good enough for me because it means I will likely be able to catch a glimpse or two or more of both Mark Kotsay the A’s new bench coach and Mark Ellis who will be a guest instructor for the team during the spring.
Ellis and Kotsay’s careers with the Athletics overlapped from 2004 (although Ellis was injured for the entire season) to 2007.
They were part of the team that defeated the Minnesota Twins in the American League Division Series in 2006, taking the A’s to the American League Championship Series against the Detroit Tigers.
They lost of course as almost everyone knows the A’s can’t seem to get past the Tigers in the postseason. Yet that 2006 team broke the curse of the first round and took the A’s farther than they had been in the postseason since 1992.
3 Lessons We Learned During The First Week Of MLB Spring Training
Jen Rainwater (Featured Baseball Writer/Owner – www.bbstmlb.com) Follow @OakAsSockGrl
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With one week of spring training in the books, here are the top three things we learned.
It’s’ the beginning of a new season. Spring Training began as pitchers and catchers reported late last week and position players started to arrive early on this week.
Of course there are going to be at least a few interesting situations that will go down in this first week or two of Spring Training.
It happens every year beginning with almost every player declaring “I’m in the best shape of my life” to there being so many new faces on some of the teams that the players literally need to meet one another for the first time.
That was the case for the Oakland Athletics last year after many offseason trades and it appears to be the case in Seattle this season with the Mariners.
New GM Jerry Dipoto turned over more than 40% of the Mariners roster in hopes to improve the team enough that they can compete in what is going to be a very competitive race to win the AL West or at least slide in as one of the two AL Wild Card teams.
MLB Reports 
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