Hello
AD
friends and happy Friday! Apologies for the absence of Moose Tracks yesterday — I was dealing with some technical issues and couldn’t log into my account. Because of that, we’ll recap the last couple of days’ worth of news today. Let’s get to it.
In Mariners news…
- Mike Vorel at The Seattle Times took us behind the scenes for how the Mariners planned the Ichiro number retirement ceremony.
- Pitching analyst Lance Brozdowski zeroed in on George Kirby’s special command tool in his latest article.
- Bradley Woodrum at Baseball Prospectus wrote about Josh Naylor’s breakout baserunning season and the general rise of steals across the sport. ($)
Around the league…
- The Pohlad family made the surprising — and disappointing — announcement that they will retain their majority stake in the Minnesota Twins, after previously saying the team was for sale.
- We’ve passed another milestone on the MLB calendar: prospects called up now will still be rookie eligible next season and thus could award their teams a Prospect Promotion Incentive draft pick. With that, the New York Mets are calling up top pitching prospect Nolan McLean to make his MLB debut on Saturday against your Seattle Mariners.
- The Cubs brought up top slugging outfield prospect Owen Caissie, who went hitless in his debut last night against the Blue Jays.
- Another AL West rival suffered a major injury — outfielder Adolis García hit the shelf due to a sprained ankle.
- Rob Manfred continued his tour around the league by meeting with the Orioles, where he managed to avoid discussing the salary cap.
- The Blue Jays are reportedly expected to sign top Korean pitching prospect Moon Seo-jun to a contract just prior to the KBO’s draft in September.
- MLB Pipeline dropped its midseason ranking of all 30 farm systems, placing the Mariners at No. 3.
- Brian Henry at Royals Review marveled at Salvador Peréz’s ability to defy age-related decline.
- Kiley McDaniel at ESPN released his final edition this season of the top 10 prospects in each organization.
- Neil deMause wonders if the A’s will really follow through with their plans to build a stadium in Las Vegas, providing reasons for doubt despite some “concrete” steps taken by the organization recently.
- Meanwhile in Oakland, Dan Moore at The Ringer told the story of the Oakland Ballers’ effort to keep baseball alive back home, and what the franchise needs to do to keep the good times rolling.
- Guardians outfielder and Oregon State baseball alum Steven Kwan opened up about his road to The Show.
