Tuesday Bantering: Hendriks, Sugano?

I wonder how long it will be until the top free agents start signing? Spring training is a month and a half away. Will they all sign within a couple of weeks of it starting?

Liam Hendriks toured the new Blue Jays facilities in Dunedin. I don’t know that spring training facilities is a deciding factor with spring training, but I guess it shows they are talking. I’m never a big fan of spending a lot of money on a closer, especially one who is over 30. A four year contact will likely end badly.

But if you are going to sign a closer, signing one with a 40% strikeout rate seems like the move.

Tomoyuki Sugano is expected to tell us where he will be playing baseball in the next couple of days. Thursday is the deadline for him to find a job in North America. He does have a four year contract offer in Japan.

We can use more starting pitching. Shun Yamaguchi didn’t exactly hit the ground running but Sungano is a much better pitcher. I’d love us to sign someone who can get us 6-7 innings a start (I’m hoping that isn’t a thing of the past).

If it was a choice between Trevor Bauer and Sugano? Bauer is the surer thing (but maybe the league will start enforcing rules on using stickum sometime in the future?). Sugano is 31, Bauer turns 30 this month. Sugano would be the cheaper of the two. And Sugano doesn’t have the problematic history/personality. Or at least doesn’t as far as I know.

The Athletic has an interesting story by Brittany Ghiroli about how marijuana testing has wrecked some careers. The quote “I wish I had taken steroids instead”. Testing for it in the minors and not testing for it in the majors seems weird.

“I was made out to be a hard-core drug addict,” said Tucker, who noted several young Marlins players were treated similarly during that time period when he came up in the early 2000s. The Marlins organization has since undergone large-scale changes to ownership and the front office.

“I had to sit through psychologist meetings,” Tucker said. “I was flown to Chicago to meet with a therapist, all because I smoked weed.”

The NHL division names are interesting. Never leave a dollar on the table seems to be the way with sports leagues these days. But I guess, no attendance revenue will be coming in. I’m wondering if there will be fans in the stand next season. With the speed of the vaccine rollout, I have doubts it will get to me before next September.