I wasn’t surprised and I don’t think anyone with any type of football acumen was either when the Green Bay Packers put quarterback Aaron Rodgers on the IR (injured reserve) yesterday. For some reason it was reported as “breaking news”, but I guess that’s how they saw it.
Once the Packers lost to the Carolina Panthers 31-24 on Sunday they where going to need quite a bit of help to get into the playoffs. It all started on Monday night, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers didn’t give the Packers any help as they lost to the Atlanta Falcons 24-21. Once Atlanta racked up that win the Packers where officially eliminated from the playoffs.
Rodgers broke his collarbone back in Week 6 against the Minnesota Vikings. Green Bay was 4-2 after Week 6, but without Rodgers at quarterback they went 3-4 and where hanging onto their playoff lives headed into the game against Carolina.
Once Rodgers was medically cleared you knew that if the Packers had any chance at getting into the playoffs Rodgers would be back under center.
Rodgers did look rusty at times and that should’ve been expected since he had been out since October 15th. Rodgers did throw for 290 yards and 3 touchdowns, but he also threw 3 interceptions which actually matched his season total. Of course in true Rodgers form he had the Packers driving late in the game and you have to wonder if Geronimo Allison doesn’t fumble the football if Rodgers would’ve led the Packers to a game tying touchdown.
Now if you saw the game you could tell that Rodgers wasn’t playing at 100%; so with the playoffs gone for this season it’s much better for the Packers to put him on IR and let him rest and come back at full strength next season.
The Packers will wrap up their season with a Week 16 match up at home against the Vikings and then in Week 17 they go on the road to face the Detroit Lions.
The Los Angeles Dodgers have said that they’d like to get themselves under the leagues luxury tax line and with the trade they made this weekend they took some big steps in doing that.
The Dodgers sent left handed pitcher Scott Kazmir, right handed pitcher Brandon McCarthy, utility man Charlie Culberson and 1st baseman Adrian Gonzalez along with $4.5 million dollars to the Atlanta Braves for outfielder and former Dodger Matt Kemp.
The deal appears to be pretty much money motivated and it seems that the Dodgers accomplished what they wanted to do. According to Ken Rosenthal the trade will get the Dodgers below the $197MM luxury tax threshold for the 2018 season.
This will allow the Dodgers to reset the escalating luxury tax penalties, which seems to have been a significant objective for the club this offseason. The money owed to Kemp is spread out across the 2018-2019 seasons, while Gonzalez, Kazmir and McCarthy all have just one year remaining on their contracts.
Now the most interesting name going to Atlanta was Gonzalez as he really didn’t have a position there as Freddie Freeman has 1st base locked down for the Braves. Atlanta cleared that situation up very quickly as they designated Gonzalez for assignment making him a free agent.
Injuries limited Gonzalez to just 71 games last season. He hit just .242 with 3 home runs. Gonzalez will turn 36 in May, but has made it clear that he’d like to continue his baseball career. Gonzalez has drawn some early interest from the New York Mets, but there appear to be other teams that would be interested in him if he’s healthy. Gonzalez is a career .288 hitter with 311 home runs and 1176 RBI’s. Gonzalez has always been able to drive runs in. He’s had over 100 RBI’s in seven different seasons. He’s also had 90 or more RBI’s in three other seasons.
Do you have a team you’d like to see Gonzalez sign with?
It seems like the Baltimore Orioles just can’t catch a break heading into the 2018 season.
With the Orioles caught up in what there going to do with Manny Machado. Should they trade him before he reaches free agency or will they keep him for the upcoming season?
Now with all of that going on for them there are reports that their closer Zach Britton has suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon during offseason workouts. Britton is expected to be sidelined for at least six months, meaning the best-case scenario will be a return over the summer.
Britton was preparing and hoping for a healthy 2018 campaign after dealing with arm issues last season. Now Britton will need to rehabilitate this unexpected injury before building back up into pitching form.
Baltimore has toyed with the idea of trading Britton ever since last summer, when the club nearly did just that. The idea was to cash in the former ace closer to address other needs namely a still-glaring need for starting pitching. Of course, the club was also reluctant to part with a pitcher that had been one of the game’s most dominant relievers in 2015 and 2016.
Britton is in his final season of arbitration with the Orioles and is due to make a little over $12 million dollars for 2018. At this point you have to wonder if the Orioles will just let Britton go as there’s very little chance that he’d be back in time to become a trade piece and there’s very little chance the Orioles would resign him once he reaches free agency. Instead of sitting on an injured Britton the Orioles could take the money that would’ve been dedicated to him and use it to try and fill some of their other needs.
The Orioles appear to be in a very tough spot. The New York Yankees seem to have a lot of top quality prospects in their farm system and they just added Giancarlo Stanton. They Boston Red Sox are also in the Orioles division and while they’ve just brought Mitch Moreland back there’s been a lot of talk about them being the front runners for free agent J.D. Martinez. Will the Orioles be able to compete with the Yankees and the Red Sox along with the Tampa Bay Rays and the Toronto Blue Jays in the A.L. East?
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