SAN LUIS - Aunque el núcleo de jugadores de los Cardenales está tomando una apariencia más juvenil, el pelotero con más años en la organización sigue siendo su pilar. Hablamos del puertorriqueño Yadier Molina, quien se alista para ver acción en su 14ta campaña por los Cardenales en el 2017.
Molina ha sido la piedra angular de esta franquicia por años, pero el 2017 trae detalles bien interesantes para el talentoso receptor. Molina está por arrancar el último año garantizado de su contrato, y tanto él como los Cardenales han expresado interés en negociar una potencial extensión.
Para los Cardenales, la parte más complicada de esas negociaciones probablemente será determinar qué tanto estarían dispuestos a invertir en un cátcher que cumplirá 35 años de edad en julio. El ascenso y potencial del joven receptor Carson Kelly viene a complicar aún más la decisión. Y mientras que nadie debate lo valioso que Molina ha sido para esta franquicia desde 2004, la realidad es que el boricua eventualmente experimentará una baja en su desempeño.
Los Cardenales, sin embargo, se sienten optimistas de que dicho declive no llegará esta temporada. Molina viene de un año en el que impuso una marca personal con 142 juegos iniciados detrás del plato, que también representaron la mayor cantidad para cualquier receptor de Grandes Ligas en 2016. Cuando se le preguntó si sería más cauteloso con la carga de trabajo de Molina esta campaña, el manager Mike Matheny pronosticó más de lo mismo.
"Mi deber como timonel es ganar juegos", expresó Matheny el mes pasado. "Y si cuento con un jugador que yo creo nos ayudará a ganar partidos y que yo siento cumplirá con cada llamado, seguramente estará en el lineup".
Molina se ganó el voto de confianza continuo de su capataz tras igualar su durabilidad con una sólida producción ofensiva el año pasado. No sólo el boricua pudo mantenerse sano, sino que Molina surgió como uno de los bates más consistentes de los Cardenales en la segunda mitad. Su promedio de bateo de .365 después del receso por el Juego de Estrellas fue el segundo mejor en las Mayores.
Es más, Molina finalizó la temporada encabezando a todos los cátchers en promedio de bateo (.307), imparables (164) y dobles (38).
"Esa es la meta. Esa es la meta", exclamó Molina acerca de su consistente producción ofensiva. "Para eso trabajas duro en el invierno, cuando entrenas propiamente las cosas se te dan. Ese es mi plan durante la temporada muerta: Trabajar duro y tratar de jugar la mayor cantidad de partidos posibles y mantenerme en salud".
La capacidad de Molina de sacarle el mejor provecho al cuerpo de lanzadores a lo largo de la campaña lo ha convertido en el jugador más indispensable e irremplazable en un equipo de los Cardenales que ha llegado a la postemporada nueve veces desde que Molina debutó en la Gran Carpa. Su continua enseñanza será invaluable especialmente para los brazos jóvenes como los dominicanos Carlos Martínez y Alex Reyes, ambos de quienes se espera lideren la rotación de San Luis por muchos años.
Molina ha dicho que se siente motivado por el hecho de que no pudo ganar su noveno Guante de Oro consecutivo el pasado otoño. El declive de Molina en su porcentaje de corredores atrapados tratando de robarse una base (21% en 2016) fue factor determinante entre los votantes.
Todo esto - el tiempo de juego, su estado contractual y el intento de desafiar el tiempo - coloca a Molina de regreso en el centro de los reflectores mientras se acerca el inicio de los entrenamientos. Y la forma en que Molina responda a cada reto este año podría afectar directamente en el desempeño del equipo.
The time was 1964. The ‘60s revolution hadn’t quite hit, but the rumblings were audible – racial riots burned cities, the expanding war in Vietnam crept into headlines, and Beatlemania swept through the U.S. The nation was still reeling from the shock of a presidential assassination, and the cold war was in full force. Some people longed for simpler times. Nostalgic programs like Bonanza, Gomer Pyle, and The Andy Griffith Show dominated TV ratings, and Mary Poppins set box office records, even as darker movies like Dr. Strangelove gained audiences. Amid all this change, Americans had another place to retreat – the venerable institution of baseball, a symbol of constancy through the madness.
The place was Philadelphia. A Horatio Alger story in reverse, the city had started at the top and steadily worked its way down. It was once the second largest English-speaking city in the world, birthplace of democracy and the federal capital, but Philadelphia gradually lost influence in national affairs. By mid-century, it was a gritty working class metropolis with ethnic tensions and decaying neighborhoods. While many Americans looked to their local baseball teams for pride, unity and escape, Philadelphians were trained to look the other way.
And for good reason: Between 1919 and 1947, the Phillies finished in last place seventeen times, and next-to-last seven more. In ten separate seasons, the Phillies lost more than twice as many games as they won. After a brief reprieve, the team settled back into the cellar in 1958, beginning a stay of four grisly seasons. In the last of these, the team set an all-time record of 23 consecutive defeats, a mark that still stands. Fortunately, Philadelphia had two major league teams for much of that time.
Unfortunately, the other one, the Athletics, was nearly as bad. Imagine how Philadelphia felt when both of its professional baseball teams finished at the bottom of their respective leagues’ standings in 1919, 1920, 1921, 1936, 1938, 1941, 1942, and 1945. The Athletics quietly packed up and left town in 1954, leaving the Phillies with a monopoly. But through the 1963 campaign, that club had never won a championship in eighty-two years of trying.
The 1964 Phillies thus began their season with modest expectations. The city was as surprised as the baseball world when the team seized first place in July and proceeded to amass a sizeable lead. Little known players like Johnny Callison, Richie Allen, Ruben Amaro, and Cookie Rojas became local heroes overnight. Manager Gene Mauch rose to deity status at the age of thirty-eight. By mid-September, the pennant was at hand, and Philadelphia glowed blissfully in anticipation of the rarest of events – a World Series appearance.
Then it all began to unravel. On September 21, the Phillies held a comfortable 6.5-game margin in the standings and faced the second-place Reds. In the sixth inning of a tie game, Cincinnati rookie Hiraldo “Chico” Ruiz inexplicably broke for home from third base with his team’s best hitter at bat. Philadelphia pitcher Art Mahaffey was spooked by the preposterous move, and threw the ball wildly. Ruiz had stolen home, scoring what proved to be the game’s only run.
The next day Ray Kelly of the Evening Bulletin wrote, “It’s one of those things that simply isn’t done. Nobody tries to steal home with a slugging great like Frank Robinson at the plate. Not in the sixth inning of a scoreless game.” He added, “Maybe that’s why Chico Ruiz got away with it.”
Locals didn’t think much of it at the time, but after Cincinnati won the next two games Philly fans began to boo the home team. A sense of doom turned to panic as the Braves came to town and swept four in a row. In seven days, the Phillies had lost seven times and fallen to second place. The city was in shock. The team went to St. Louis and lost three more, completing the most infamous ten-game losing streak in baseball history and cementing the wreckage of a once magical season. The Phillies’ fall was the steepest ever for a first place team so close to the finish line.
Philadelphia struggled to pick up the pieces. Since the Great Depression, nothing had energized the city more than the Phillies’ run, and nothing disappointed a wider cross-section of the population than the season’s ending. The collapse defied analysis, though people tried. Many claimed that Mauch mishandled his starting pitchers late in the season. Some believe that dissension caused the team to disintegrate. Others held the view that Ruiz somehow unleashed a pack of demons that consumed the Phillies and a city that desperately wanted a winner. Analysis of that fall’s events provides little support for any of the three explanations, though the Ruiz gambit has endured in Philadelphia folklore over the decades.
The previously anonymous infielder earned the wrath that fateful night not only of Philadelphia manager Gene Mauch, but also his own boss, Dick Sisler, and several teammates who saw his move as reckless. The next night Mauch hounded Ruiz mercilessly from the opposing dugout, and a Phillies pitcher planted a fastball in his ribs. Ruiz responded with a home run. Even though Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Allen Lewis eerily foreshadowed a link between the stolen base and the Phillies’ demise in the next morning’s paper, the play was largely forgotten just two days later. The Phillies uncovered many ways to lose games later that week, and each catastrophe supplanted the previous one in short-term memory. (Further, a bizarre and long-forgotten detail is that the Phillies actually lost two games on consecutive days by way of a steal of home – the other came at the hands of the Dodgers’ Willie Davis in the wee hours of September 20.) The October post-mortem gave Ruiz a bit part in the drama, but the stolen base provided concise and convenient imagery of an otherwise incomprehensible sequence.
The legend gained traction as the Phillies immediately fell into another dreary epoch. A deep bitterness took hold among jilted townsfolk who, to paraphrase the words of devastated backup catcher Gus Triandos, didn’t need to guzzle the champagne that nearly every other major league city had tasted, but rather just wanted a sip.
Philadelphia fans have since shown their vitriol on numerous occasions. They’ve become known for mercilessly jeering their own players, chasing more than a few promising but imperfect stars out of town in the process. They’ve assaulted opposing players and coaches. They once pelted Santa Claus with snowballs in prime time.
After a blip of sports success in the late-‘70s and early ‘80s, the fans’ frustrations have risen with a steady crescendo of failures. The Phillies have flopped. The hockey Flyers have come close, but stumbled. The basketball ‘76ers have ranged from awful to near-miss, and the football Eagles have consistently tantalized before decomposing. Whenever disaster strikes, local media invoke the legend of Chico Ruiz. In one such occasion, after a postseason Eagles meltdown in January of 2002, Philadelphia Daily News reporter William Bunch put it all in context in an article titled “Lets face it, losing is our forte.” He started with two simple words – “Chico Ruiz,” and wrote that Philadelphia “has now refined the art of defeat the same way we once set standards for locomotives and Stetson hats.” Reflecting on the ’64 debacle in 1996, author Joe Queenan explained a common feeling among Phillies fans: “This was the pivotal event in my life. Nothing good that has ever happened to me since then can make up for the disappointment of that ruined season, and nothing bad that has happened since then can even vaguely compare with the emotional devastation wrought by that monstrous collapse.”
The sense of failure has spread beyond sports. Philadelphia has struggled with ineptitude in other areas, as illustrated by the city’s most prominent modern-day entry into national headlines – a botched 1983 police operation that resulted in the burning of an entire neighborhood. Surrealist filmmaker David Lynch drew his inspiration from his days as a student in Philadelphia, and called it “the sickest, most corrupt, decaying, fear-ridden city imaginable.” That might be a bit strong (after all, the city also has a well of urban riches that make it the envy of many a sprawling American community), but it reflects real and deeply rooted self-image problems. Billboards peppering the city in the ‘70s bore this out, declaring, “Philadelphia isn’t as bad as Philadelphians say it is.”
More than most places, Philadelphia is defined by its history, and the events of 1964 are a bigger part of it than most realize. Four decades later, the city still bears the scars of a September nightmare.
Ironically, Chico Ruiz stole only two bases over the next two seasons and never hit another home run. He played in the major leagues for eight years, amassing a mediocre .240 average. He made the news twice more – first when he allegedly brandished a gun at a teammate during a 1971 clubhouse argument and finally when he died in a 1972 car accident at the age of thirty-three. He achieved immortality in one spontaneous moment, however, and remains better known on the streets of Philadelphia than in his native Cuba. As long as his memory lingers on those streets, a piece of a city will be stuck in 1964.
LOS ÁNGELES -- Julio Teherán y José Quintana, los dos rostros principales de Colombia en la actualidad dentro de las Grandes Ligas, encabezan el plantel con el que este país disputará por primera vez en el Clásico Mundial de Béisbol.
Para el certamen, el manager Luis Felipe Urueta ha echado mano de otros peloteros con experiencia en las mayores e incluso de algunos peloteros venezolanos que tienen raíces en Colombia.
Tanto Teherán como Quintana tuvieron participación en el Juego de Estrellas de las Grandes Ligas, disputado el año pasado en San Diego. Teherán tuvo una foja de 7-10 con los Bravos de Atlanta, en medio de una campaña para el olvido por parte del club.
El derecho de Cartagena tuvo una efectividad de 3.21.
Los Medias Blancas de Chicago, donde milita Quintana, no tuvieron un mucho mejor desempeño. Sin embargo, el zurdo logró una meritoria foja de 13-12, con un promedio de carreras limpias admitidas de 3.20.
Colombia competirá en el Grupo C, que disputará sus encuentros en el Marlins Park de Miami. Debutará el 10 de marzo ante Estados Unidos, antes de medirse a Canadá y al monarca vigente República Dominicana.
Junto a Teherán y Quintana se destacan los hermanos Solano, Jhonatan y Dónovan (Yanquis y Marlins, respectivamente), Ernesto Frieri (Rays), Sugar Ray Marimon, Reynaldo Rodríguez, Karl Lewis Triana y Randy Consuegra.
Entre los peloteros de Venezuela que fueron convocados figuran Alberto Callaspo, William Cuevas, Efraín Contreras, César Jiménez, Guillermo Moscoso, Kendy Batista y Yohan Pino.
Colombia obtuvo su boleto inédito en el clasificatorio de Panamá, donde superó al equipo local, así como a España. Israel es otro debutante en el torneo, en cuya primera fase participan 16 equipos, divididos en cuatro países distintos.
NUEVA YORK -- Jay Bruce sigue con los Mets, lo cual significa que la novena de Queens arrancará los entrenamientos primaverales con un exceso de guardabosques en su roster.
A Bruce se le proyecta como el jardinero derecho de Nueva York. Eso pone en duda la posibilidad de que Michael Conforto tenga cupo en el equipo, ya que el cubano Yoenis Céspedes y Curtis Granderson también se perfilan como guardabosques titulares.
En ese sentido, Juan Lagares representa otra interrogante. Pero pese a que hay tantos jardineros en el roster de los Mets, el dominicano podría ser una de las sorpresas más gratas del equipo en el 2017.
El argumento a favor de Lagares gira alrededor de la oportunidad que tiene ahora mismo. Aun con Bruce, Céspedes, Granderson y posiblemente Conforto en el roster del equipo grande, el quisqueyano prácticamente tiene garantizado tiempo de juego debido a sus números contra lanzadores zurdos.
De por vida, Lagares lleva promedio de .276 contra pitchers zurdos. Por lo tanto, aun cuando no funja como titular, el oriundo de Constanza va a jugar dado que es sin duda el mejor jardinero central del club en cuanto a la defensa se refiere.
A diferencia de Conforto, quien comenzará la temporada en la banca o con Triple-A Las Vegas, Lagares verá bastante acción. Y entre más se destaque, más tiempo de juego recibirá.
Como es el caso de otros jugadores de los Mets, la salud será clave. Lagares llegó a la temporada del 2016 con la misma oportunidad que tiene ahora, pero su actuación se vio afectada por un desgarre parcial en el pulgar izquierdo. En el 2015, una lesión en el codo derecho lo entorpeció. Aun en el 2014, temporada en la que ganó su Guante de Oro en la Liga Nacional, Lagares tampoco estuvo completamente saludable.
No obstante, Lagares tiene apenas 27 años de edad y su contrato con los Mets le garantiza US$20 millones en las próximas tres temporadas. Tomando en cuenta que Granderson es un veterano, Céspedes suele lesionarse y Bruce ha sido inconsistente, un Lagares productivo sería un gran refuerzo para los jardines de Nueva York.
Ahora, ¿podrá Lagares aprovechar la oportunidad? La clave para el dominicano sigue siendo la defensa. Siempre y cuando mantenga su nivel con el guante, solamente necesita rendir al bate de acuerdo con su potencial, quizás siendo agresivo en las bases como los Mets le han aconsejado.
Es posible que Lagares una vez más se vea entorpecido por lesiones y no se haga sentir. Pero también existe una buena posibilidad de que se convierta en un jugador dinámico, capaz de patrullar el jardín central, batear primero contra pitchers zurdos y superar las expectativas. En otras palabras, Lagares podría proveerle servicios a los Mets que los guardabosques establecidos del club no aportan.
To the naked eye 2016 seemed to be a very good year for shortstops in New York, with the glove as well as the bat.
Asdrubal Cabrera was a sure-handed revelation for the Mets, handling the position so impressively that Terry Collins practically mocked the scouts who had warned him Cabrera could no longer play short adequately.
Didi Gregorius, despite a few too many careless errors, played with such electric athleticism and eye-popping arm strength that it was hard to disagree with Yankees GM Brian Cashman, at season’s end, calling him “an exceptional defender.”
And yet the cold, cruel analytics say both of these guys were among the worst defensive shortstops in the majors last season.
According to Baseball Solutions Info, a company that provides statistical data for 25 of the 30 teams in the majors, Cabrera and Gregorius came in at 29th and 31st, respectively, among the 35 shortstops it ranked defensively.
That ranking is based greatly on calculations that had Cabrera at -7 in defensive runs saved, meaning seven below average, and Gregorius at -9.
By comparison, Brandon Crawford had the best DRS number at +20, and Addison Russell was second-best at +19. As dazzling as those guys are with the glove, the disparity between them and the two New York shortstops is rather stunning.
Ben Jedlovec, president of Baseball Info Solutions, explains:
“Not every shortstop who has a great reputation has necessarily held up in the numbers," Jedlovec said by phone recently. “Sometimes the things we’re good at perceiving are only part of the picture.”
Regarding the New York shortstops, Cabrera’s ranking is less surprising, simply because it hasn’t wavered much over the last five years, and it’s primarily the result of a lack of range.
“A good comparison might be Derek Jeter," says Jedlovec. “Cabrera makes the plays on the balls he can get to. His issue is more the balls that he doesn’t get to.”
Gregorius’ season was more puzzling, in that he ranked 10th among shortstops in 2015 with a +5 in defensive runs saved, and a year later fell all the way to 31st.
He had range issues going to his right but also had a tendency to make mistakes, not just the 15 errors but what Baseball Info counted as 28 misplays, which could be anything from failing to handle a throw on a steal or turn a double play, to making a bad decision on a fielder’s choice that didn’t get an out on the lead runner.
It also had Gregorius for 43 of what it calls “good fielding plays," down from 53 in 2015, and 61 in 2013 in Arizona with significantly fewer chances.
“It’s uncommon to see someone drop that far that quickly," said Jedlovec, “but it’s not uncommon for guys to decline, even at a young age. Defense doesn’t improve much once you get to the major-league level. You generally start to lose some athleticism and quickness.”
Such analytics are more and more a part of the game, as today’s GMs seemingly put far more weight on run-prevention than their predecessors. And Baseball Info Solutions plays a major role in, as the company slogan goes, “collecting, interpreting, and disseminating baseball statistics.”
Yet there is still skepticism in the baseball industry about just how completely defensive metrics can be trusted to be accurate.
“Defensive metrics are still a work in progress," Cashman told me earlier this off-season. “I wouldn’t say we’re big on them. I consider Didi an exceptional defender.”
Mets GM Sandy Alderson, meanwhile, says he thinks it’s important to “be informed" of defensive metrics “even if one is not always governed by them," and makes the point that “there is no settled way of measuring defense.”
Regarding his shortstop, Alderson acknowledged that Cabrera “graded poorly in range,” but emphasized that his sure hands were at least as and perhaps more important.
“Positioning can compensate for range," Alderson said by e-mail. “Nothing compensates for poor hands, except for maybe a really good bat!”
The exclamation point had a hint of Alderson’s dry sense of humor, and Cabrera did have a good bat in 2016 to go with those sure hands, so the Mets were more than happy with him.
Still, the metrics measure more than range, and while Jedlovec admits “the numbers don’t explain everything,” he believes they present an accurate picture of how players compare to one another defensively.
Didi Gregorius
(MARK J. TERRILL/AP)
Baseball Info Solutions puts that picture together with video analysis that is broken down into 80 — yes, 80 — different categories for each position on the field, all of it tracked and charted by trained “video scouts," as Jedlovec calls them, at company headquarters in Coplay, Pa.
“We try to be as objective as possible,” Jedlovec said. “We have access to multiple (TV) angles, multiple broadcasts. We can slow it down, replay it. If it takes 10 times to get the hit location and the times exactly right, that’s what we do.
“When a ball is hit we first plot the hit location: the ground ball went to this particular direction, this is where the ball was fielded…we break that down into one-degree slices across the entire field — 90 little slices in all.
“We also time the batted ball, how long it takes to get from Point A to Point B. So we say, ‘okay, for balls that took this long to get from the bat to the glove, and they were hit at this particular angle, with a couple of other variables taken into account, how often was that play made over the course of an entire season?’ So there’s not a lot of subjectivity in that.
“The eyes can very easily see that outstanding throw and the finish to the play, but it’s a lot harder to see the subtle…the slow reaction or slow first step, or the (lack of) range that put him in a bad place in the first place.”
That subtlety factors in primarily to the defensive-runs-saved calculations. But judging good plays and misplays also contribute to the ranking, and Jedlovec admits, “those have a little grey area" despite what he calls “an objective criteria for defining what is a good play vs. a misplay."
On that front, Cabrera was as smooth as he was reliable last season, making only seven errors, where Gregorius had plenty of spectacular plays but didn’t always make the routine play.
Baseball Info’s numbers reflect that observation, recording 28 defensive misplays for Gregorius vs. only 11 for Cabrera. The surprise, though, is that the Mets’ shortstop was credited with more good fielding plays as well, 45-to-43, yet his lack of range kept him from having a significantly higher overall ranking than Gregorius.
On the other hand, Gregorius’ numbers dropped so dramatically, especially his range to his right, that Jedlovec says it could have had something to do with how the Yankees positioned him.
There’s another factor, defensive shifts, which limit the total picture. Jedlovec says his company is working on a new system that will incorporate shifts into their calculations, but until it’s ready the Baseball Info Solutions people discount any play for an infielder that includes a shift.
So, as Jedlovec said earlier, the numbers don’t explain everything. But more and more teams are using them at least as a tool, along with their own traditional scouting, by which to evaluate players.
And such data makes the case that you can’t always believe your own eyes. To what extent, however, remains up for debate.
“Ya no me importa si me llevo a casa a mi novio o a cualquier otro. Con esas horribles barbas, todos los hombres son iguales”… La Pimpi.-
-O-O-O-O-O-
La pregunta de la semana…: David Ortiz es uno de solamente cuatro bigleaguers con 500 jonrones y 200 dobles. ¿Recuerdas quiénes son los otros?
La respuesta….: Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds y Albert Pujols.
Enemigo Tigrero.- Por primera vez en mi vida creo que Carlos Peralta adora a los Tigres de México, que está realmente enamorado del equipo, porque los está vendiendo por dos millones 500 mil dólares. Será lo mejor que le hará a la histórica divisa desde 1997, cuando murió su padre Alejo, quien sí fue inolvidable hombre del beisbol. Carlos es todo lo contrario, odia al beisbol y a los Tigres a tal nivel, que los aceptó como herencia para burlarse de ellos, mandándolos a jugar de manos de un gobernador, hasta Cancún, el sitio más lejano de Ciudad de México por el este. Además, Carlos no asiste a las reuniones de la Liga, ni a los juegos. Mis mejores deseos, Carlitos, son que consigas pronto un buen comprador…. ¡Y chau!…
-o-o-o-
Héteroflexibles…: Son Héterosexuales que algunas veces experimentan”. Héterocuriosos…: Los que se lo pasan buscando cómo por otros mundos”… Dick Secades.-
-o-o-o-o-
Historia de triunfos.- Después del record de los Cachorros, de 108 años sin ganar una Serie Mundial, en la Society For Américan Baseball Research (SABR) nos hemos entusiasmado en la búsqueda de casos similares. Uno muy notable ha sido el de los Atléticos de Philadelphia, quienes poseen una extraña marca hace 62 años. Los Atléticos de Philadelphia (no los de Oakland) son el equipo deportivo profesional que ha ganado más títulos en esa ciudad de Pennsylvania, cinco. Y no juegan allá desde 1954, ¡hace 63 años!. Es bueno advertir que en Philadelphia hay equipos de fútbol americano, fútbol soccer, hockey sobre hielo, basquetbol, voleybol y hasta de metras y yoyo. Además, los Atléticos ganaron tres títulos más de la Liga Americana, pero perdieron las Series Mundiales, en 1905 frente a los Gigantes en cinco juegos, en 1914 con los Bravos de Boston en cuatro fechas y en 1931 fueron vencidos por los Cardenales, igualmente en cuatro chances. Las cinco victorias…: 1910 sobre Cachorros, cinco juegos; 1911 a Gigantes de Nueva York, seis juegos; 1913, Gigantes otra vez, en cinco; 1929, Cachorros en cinco; y 1930 Cardenales en seis. Todos bajo la dirección de Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy (Connie Mack), quien dirigió al equipo durante 50 años, 1901-1950.
–oo-o-o—
“La única manera de mantenerse uno saludable es comiendo lo que no te gusta, tomando lo que detestas y haciendo lo que odias hacer”… Joey Adams.-
NOTA.- Puedes leer todo el archivo reciente de Juan Vené en la Pelota” en internet, si entras en, “el deporte vuelve a unirnos”.
Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto, incluso un lector como tú.
El venezolano Marwin González y los Astros de Houston evitaron el arbitraje salarial, al llegar a un acuerdo por un año y 3.725.000 dólares, informó el miércoles una persona cercana a las negociaciones.
El acuerdo incluye una alternativa del club para renovarlo en 2018 por 5.125.000 dólares, dijo a The Associated Press esa persona, quien solicitó permanecer en el anonimato porque el convenio no se ha anunciado de manera oficial.
Ambas partes intercambiaron propuestas salariales el mes pasado. El primera base solicitó un alza, de 2 millones a 4,2, mientras que el club le ofrecía 3,25 millones.
El salario para 2017 se ubica en un punto intermedio.
González, quien cumplirá 28 años el mes próximo, bateó para .254 el año pasado, e impuso las mejores marcas de su carrera con 13 jonrones y 51 impulsadas. Jugó también como jardinero izquierdo, segunda base, antesalista y campocorto.
El derecho Collin McHugh es el último jugador de Houston que tiene prevista una audiencia de arbitraje.
