With a big winter storm blanketing much of the continental United States over this past weekend, we’re at a bit of a lull, at least until all the social media truck day posts begin their trickle-turned-deluge in short order. That same storm continues to have “does my house have power” implications for folks around the country, and that’s why I’m doing News and Links this morning (well, actually, last night). Hello.
Anyway, onto Braves news. In that lull, we had ESPN’s top prospect list come out yesterday,
compiled by onetime Braves staffer Kiley McDaniel. That list featured Cam Caminiti and JR Ritchie, both of whom have appeared on other publication lists, but also gave some love to Didier Fuentes. I have no real skin in the prospect ranking game, but I have thought it interesting in retrospect that Eric Longenhagen at FanGraphs was generally higher on Fuentes than other publications, and that’s continued to bear itself out as Fuentes hasn’t appeared on these various offseason Top 100 lists, but Caminiti has.
More Braves-related-ish news:
Without a lot of actual Braves stuff going on, I thought it amusing that there were a bunch of briefly-if-at-all Braves arms that have been aflutter on the waiver wire.
- The Mariners DFAed Jackson Kowar. You may remember Kowar as the guy the Braves got in exchange for Kyle Wright. He then went to the Mariners that same offseason in the Jarred Kelenic deal, but hit the shelf with Tommy John Surgery. He made it back to the majors with Seattle in 2025 and pitched 17 innings, but had some pretty bad peripherals and finished with -0.2 fWAR.
- Patrick Weigel signed a minor league deal with the Rockies. Once an exciting prospect, the Braves sent him to the Brewers in the Orlando Arcia deal. Weigel only has a handful of MLB appearances for his career, and none since 2021, but is still toiling away in the minors and has a better chance of seeing an MLB mound with Colorado than with any other club, probably.
- The Angels made a waiver claim on Osvaldo Bido. Bido is now on his fifth team of the offseason; the Braves claimed him from the Athletics but then DFAed him when they needed a roster spot for Ha-Seong Kim following the latter signing.
Separately, San Diego Studio revealed the cover art for the next MLB: The Show game, featuring Aaron Judge (again). I won’t mince words: this might be the worst box art I’ve ever seen. Not necessarily from an aesthetic standpoint, though yes, that too. It’s more that the design and content is, to put it lightly, abhorrent. Not only does it look clipped together like it was made in the PowerPoint that came with Microsoft Office 95, but if you actually look at the cover, it doesn’t make any sense. “Team USA” and “WBC” are somehow both “features” along with “high school” and “college,” which blows up the idea of progression. And then you have the progression going from left to right on the top, yet the middle “row” features “MVP” before “MLB.” I guess no one really cares about covers any more due to digital delivery of games these days, but yeesh.
And, with the World Baseball Classic looming, it’s time once again for “MLB wants you to care about the WBC, but not that much, so don’t get any silly ideas.“ Turns out that for some reason (read: MLB), whether a player plays in the WBC is somewhat related to interfacing with everyone’s favorite domestic institution: the insurance market. Read for yourself:
All World Baseball Classic participants on MLB 40-man rosters are evaluated by an insurer who was agreed upon by MLB and the players union. As the Los Angeles Times noted in 2023, if the insurer finds a player to be uninsurable due to their injury history, the player’s contract would not be guaranteed for any missed time due to injuries sustained during the WBC unless a team specifically agrees to do so.
Hey kids, get excited about your favorite players representing their homelands in a baseball tournament that’s more fun than Spring Training… but wait, not you, fans of [insert player here] that an insurer has deemed “uninsurable.” Double yeesh. How hard would it be for MLB to just guarantee the contracts? Does MLB even want the WBC to be a thing? (Also, if you didn’t read the article, a lot of the hold up on roster announcements is players waiting for clearance from the insurer that they’re indeed insurable and good to play. So. Much. Fun.)
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed me complaining at you for multiple paragraphs at 8:30 am ET. I won’t do it again, unless someone else’s power goes out.
