Sports Time Radio

Out of the four major sports it has to be Major League Baseball that has the worst off season. There is very little activity and it makes things very boring to check on everyday. To be fair there are signings almost everyday, but it’s players that the average fan hasn’t heard of. Finally at the end of the week we got some movement involving players fans would know.

The big move this past week saw the Washington Nationals send two minor league pitchers to the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for 1st baseman Josh Bell.

Humorously I saw a lot of people taking shots at Bell for his 2020 season and while he did hit just .226 he’s not the only player to have what can only be described as an odd 2020 season. When I’m looking at player I don’t even count the 2020 season even if they had what would be looked at as a good year. I’d rather base things on a full season; so you look at 2019 and Bell had a breakout year. Bell had 37 home runs to go along with 37 doubles, 116 RBI’s and he hit .277. I’m sure that’s the player the Nationals are hoping they’re getting.

Bell fills a big hole for the Nationals at 1st base. Howie Kendrick just announced his retirement after 15 seasons and it was unclear if Ryan Zimmerman would try to play again; so this locks down the 1st base position and it gives the Nationals a solid switch hitter to put in their line up behind Juan Soto. Plus they didn’t give up a ton to get a player that who doesn’t reach free agency until after the 2023 season.

In return for Bell Pittsburgh gets Eddy Yean a 19 year old right handed pitcher who went 2-3 with a 3.50 ERA in 10 starts combined in Rookie League and low Class A in 2019. The Pirates also received 26 year old right hander Wil Crowne. Crowne made his first appearance in the major leagues last season. He appeared in 3 games covering 8 1/3rd innings. Crowne went 0-2 with an 11.88 ERA. Crowne had been a starter in the minors; so maybe the Pirates will look at him as a possible piece of their rotation.

How do you think both teams made out in this deal?

The Los Angeles Dodgers add a power arm to their bullpen, but it’s unclear if he’ll be available to pitch for them next season.

The Dodgers signed Tommy Kahnle to a two year deal. It’s been reported that the deal will pay Kahnle $4.75 million dollars over the two seasons with a chance to earn $750,000 in incentives. The deal is structured to pay Kahnle $750,000 in 2021, but his salary jumps to $3.45 million dollars for the 2022 season. Obviously this makes good financial sense for the Dodgers since it’s unclear if Kahnle will be able to pitch at all in 2021.

Kahnle is a power arm who has had some control issues in his career, but those seem to be getting better as he matures as a pitcher. In 2019 Kahnle struck out 88 batters in 61 1/3rd innings. The only question right now is will he be the same pitcher once he returns from Tommy John surgery.

The Texas Rangers have been one of if not the most active team so far this off season and they made another move this morning.

It’s being reported that the Rangers have signed Japanese pitcher Kohei Arihara to a two year deal. The Rangers paid a posting fee of $1.24 million dollars and Arihara contact will pay him $6.2 million dollars over the two years.

Arihara is 28 years old and has pitched for 6 seasons for the Nippon Ham Fighters in the Japanese League. Over those 6 seasons Arihara has appeared in 140 games covering 882 innings. For his career he’s 61-53 with a 3.65 ERA and 12 career complete games. Arihara also has 2 saves in his career.

While Arihara isn’t known for having overpowering stuff; he throws in the low 90’s. He’ll use his fastball along with his curveball and change up to keep hitters off balance. Arihara is known as a strike thrower and it’s also been said that he has seven variations of pitches that he’ll use.

After the Lance Lynn trade the Rangers appear to be looking for some help in the starting rotation; so you’d think that Arihara will get every chance to take one of those rotation spots.

It was nice to finally see some actual major league players either get dealt or get signed, but it would be nice if there was a little more movement in the off season market for baseball. How do you feel about baseball’s off season? More importantly if you do think it’s too slow moving; how would you try and fix it?

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