News emerges that the Tampa Bay Rays have settled on a site in Ybor City, FL, one of Tampa, FL’s most historic neighborhoods, as the location for a new ballpark to replace the inadequate Tropicana Field. However, the team will fail to obtain the necessary authorizations and financing before construction starts, and the project will fall through within a few months.
2018 – The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame announces its 2018 class, comprised of P Pedro Martinez, who starred for the Montreal Expos in the 1990s, OF Lloyd Moseby, formerly of the Toronto Blue Jays in the 1980s, and Historian William Humber.
OF Mookie Betts of the Red Sox wins the first salary arbitration filing to be decided this off-season and will earn $10.5 million, a significant raise over his previous salary of $950,000. He will still be a huge bargain, as he will win the MVP Award and lead the Sox to a World Series title.
The Cleveland Indians announce that they will stop using the image of “Chief Wahoo” on their uniforms starting in 2019. The caricatural Indian mascot, deemed offensive by most Native Americans and by many others, has been used by the team since 1947, but has drawn increasing criticism in the last two decades, prompting Commissioner Rob Manfred to formally ask the team to phase it out.
Anger over the slow pace of free agent signings is boiling over. Today, Agent Scott Boras accuses the current system of threatening the sport’s integrity, as many teams have seemingly decided not to attempt being competitive. Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto adds that certain team would rather “win the top draft pick [in the amateur draft] than the World Series”. A day earlier, Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen vented that players should consider going on strike even though a new collective bargaining agreement was just signed. The reason for this frustration is that a month before the opening of spring training, 130 free agents remain unsigned, including some of the highest-profile players on the market.
2018 – The Brewers swing two big deals in one day, first signing free agent CF Lorenzo Cain for five years and $80 million, and then acquiring RF Christian Yelich from the Marlins for four prospects: OFs Lewis Brinson and Monte Harrison, IF Isan Diaz and P Jordan Yamamoto.
2018 – Four players are elected to the Hall of Fame by the BBWAA: 3B Chipper Jones and 1B Jim Thome both make it on their first attempt, while P Trevor Hoffman and OF Vladimir Guerrero, who had both missed induction by a handful of votes in 2017, make it over the 75% threshold this time.
2018 – The Giants sign veteran free agent OF Austin Jackson to a two-year deal worth $6 million. While second-tier free agents like Jackson have been able to find homes, an unusually large number of front-line ones remain unsigned at this late stage of the off-season.
On january 19 2018 The results from the autopsy of Roy Halladay, who died on November 7th in the crash of the single-passenger plane he was piloting, indicate that the former pitcher died from blunt force trauma, with drowning as a contributing factor, but also that his body contained traces of morphine and other drugs….
The Blue Jays obtain OF Randal Grichuk from the Cardinals in return for Ps Conner Greene and Dominic Leone.
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