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posty

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Posts posted by posty

  1. Posted

    https://www.mlb.com/news/jesus-montero-dies-at-age-35

    Jesús Montero, a one-time top prospect for the Yankees who played five seasons in the Majors, died this weekend at age 35, the Yankees announced on Sunday. Montero was reportedly involved in a motorbike crash earlier this month in which he sustained major internal injuries.

    Montero was ranked the No. 1 Yankees prospect and No. 9 overall prospect by MLB Pipeline in 2011. After posting an .814 OPS and starting 87 games at catcher that season for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Montero was promoted to the Yankees in September.

    Initially, the 21-year-old Montero lived up to the hype, batting .328/.406/.590 in the final month of the 2011 season and looking like a potential middle-of-the-order fixture for the Yankees for years to come.

    The Yankees, however pulled off a stunning trade with the Mariners prior to the 2012 season, sending Montero and pitcher Héctor Noesí to Seattle for pitchers Jose Campos and Michael Pineda.

    Montero hit 15 home runs in 2012 but appeared in just 73 big league games after that because of injuries and a suspension for violating MLB's performance-enhancing drug policy, finishing his big league career in 2015. He had stints in the Blue Jays and Orioles organizations but did not appear in the Majors for those clubs. He most recently played winter ball in Venezuela in 2020-21.

    Montero was signed by the Yankees as an international free agent for $1.6 million and eventually became what many believed was a can't-miss prospect. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said Montero "may well be the best player I've ever traded" following the deal with Seattle.

    Montero finished his career with a .253 average and 28 home runs in 226 games.

  7. Posted

    Latest On Tigers, Tarik Skubal

    https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/10/latest-on-tigers-tarik-skubal.html

    October 17th: Evan Petzold of The Detroit Free Press reports that Detroit’s offer after 2024 was for four years and less than $100MM.

    October 16th: The Tigers are now down to their final season of control over the American League’s best pitcher. Tarik Skubal is entering his last year of arbitration and trending towards the largest pitching contract in history if he stays healthy.

    Jon Heyman of The New York Post wrote this evening that Skubal could seek a deal of at least $400MM. Heyman reports that Detroit’s extension offer last offseason was shy of the $170MM which Garrett Crochet received from the Red Sox in April. Heyman specifies that the Tigers’ offer came before Crochet’s extension.

    Much will be made of the more than $200MM gap between those two numbers, but that doesn’t consider the timing of Detroit’s offer. The front office certainly wouldn’t be under any illusions now that a sub-$200MM proposal would be close. Their previous offer came when Skubal was two years from free agency and before the Crochet precedent.

    It wasn’t clear last offseason that Crochet would command as strong a deal as he did. That contract was nearly $50MM above the previous top extension for a pitcher with between four and five years of service time (Jacob deGrom’s $120.5MM deal with the Mets from 2019). The Red Sox certainly don’t have any regrets after Crochet’s dominant ’25 season, but that deal pushed the extension market dramatically forward. While it’s not clear precisely what Detroit had offered, it’s safe to presume it was north of the deGrom extension and would have been a record within his service class before the Crochet signing.

    Skubal bet on himself and is in position to truly cash in as a result. He’s going to win his second consecutive AL Cy Young Award after posting a 2.21 ERA with 241 strikeouts across 31 starts. He is two and a half seasons removed from the flexor surgery that ended his 2022 campaign. Most importantly, he’s now 12 months away from the open market.

    Yoshinobu Yamamoto received the largest guarantee for a pitcher in MLB history when he signed with the Dodgers for $325MM. That was in large part due to his unusual circumstances coming over from Japan. He was an established ace in NPB and widely viewed as one of the two best pitchers (alongside Paul Skenes) who had yet to pitch in MLB at the time. Yamamoto came over before his age-25 season — earlier than any MLB ace could accrue the necessary six years of service time to hit free agency. He commanded a 12-year deal that was three years longer than any other pitching contract.

    Among domestic free agent pitchers, Gerrit Cole has the record on his nine-year, $324MM contract with the Yankees. Cole had yet to win a Cy Young but was coming off two straight top five finishes. He hit the market at age 29, while Skubal is on track to become a free agent at 30. Cole’s deal is six years old, so there’ll surely be an adjustment for inflation.

    Cole’s $36MM average annual value was a record for a pitcher at the time. It’s now down to sixth — not including the Shohei Ohtani deal — on an annual basis. Late-career aces Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and Zack Wheeler have each reached or topped $42MM on two- or three-year contracts. deGrom received $37MM annually on his five-year deal with Texas, while Blake Snell is making $36.4MM per season from the Dodgers (albeit with deferrals that drop the net present AAV to the $31-32MM range).

    Those are all free agent precedents. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects Skubal for a $17.8MM salary in his last arbitration year. Detroit wouldn’t get much of a discount on an extension, but a long-term deal this offseason would come with the risk that he suffers an injury next year.

    The Tigers have signed two contracts above $200MM: Prince Fielder’s free agent deal and Miguel Cabrera’s franchise-high $248MM extension. They’re each more than a decade old and came under the ownership tenure of the late Mike Ilitich. Since his son Christopher Ilitch took control of the organization in 2017, they’ve signed one nine-figure deal — the $140MM Javier Baez addition. Detroit has a relatively clean long-term payroll outlook aside from Baez’s $24MM salaries over the next two seasons. Jack Flaherty has a $20MM player option for 2026, while Colt Keith is signed for $4-5MM for the next four years.

    There’s enough payroll space that it’s conceivable the Tigers could make a competitive extension offer to Skubal. If talks don’t gain traction, they’d need to decide whether to hold him for a final season or entertain trade possibilities. Detroit is coming off consecutive playoff berths and spent most of the ’25 season in control of the AL Central. It’s difficult to envision the Tigers being legitimate contenders in 2026 if they were to trade Skubal, even if they built a return around controllable big league talent. There’s a strong argument for simply holding Skubal in the hope that he carries them to a deep postseason run and making a qualifying offer next winter. If they struggle in the first half, he’d be a marquee deadline trade chip.

    The alternative this offseason would be to follow the respective Red Sox, Padres and Astros precedents with Mookie Betts, Juan Soto and Kyle Tucker. Those teams all traded their superstar before his final season of arbitration. That went terribly for Boston. San Diego did very well on the Soto return and has won at least 90 games in each of the past two seasons. The jury is still out on Houston’s trade of Tucker. They got a strong three-player return but came up shy of the postseason this year. Those teams were all navigating short-term payroll restrictions from ownership that shouldn’t be an issue for Detroit with how little money they have on the books.

    President of baseball operations Scott Harris gave a non-answer when asked about Skubal’s future during the Tigers’ end-of-season presser on Monday. “I can’t comment on our players being traded … so I’m going to respond by not actually commenting on it,” Harris said. “Tarik is a Tiger. I hope he wins the Cy Young for the second consecutive year. He’s an incredible pitcher and we’re lucky to have him.”

  10. Posted

    https://www.tmz.com/2025/10/16/kiss-guitarist-ace-frehley-dead/

    Ace Frehley, the original lead guitarist for KISS, is dead ... TMZ has confirmed.

    The legendary musician died Thursday after being hospitalized, and placed on life support ... with the family coming to the difficult decision to turn off his ventilator.

    We broke the story ... Ace suffered a brain bleed after taking a nasty fall in studio a couple of weeks ago.

    Ace was a founding member of KISS ... joining forces with Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley and Peter Criss. He shredded guitar with the band from 1973 to 1982 ... but left the group amid substance abuse issues and creative differences.

    He tried his hand at a solo career ... founding the band Frehley's Comet -- a play on "Spaceman," his KISS handle. The group played together from 1984 to 1988 then broke up ... and Ace later rejoined KISS for its 1996 reunion tour and remained with them until 2002.

    Ace helped KISS create a ton of hits ... including "Detroit Rock City," "I Was Made for Lovin' You," and "Rock and Roll All Nite."

    His solo career might best be remembered for his covers of the songs "Back in the New York Groove" and "Into the Night." In 2014, Ace and the rest of his KISS brothers were inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame.

    He's the first original member of KISS to die.

    Ace was 74.

    RIP

  15. Posted

    https://www.ktsm.com/local/el-paso-news/utep-study-shows-nfl-officiating-favors-kansas-city-chiefs/

    EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — During the past eight or nine years, many football fans have wondered: Is the NFL favoring the Kansas City Chiefs? Why do Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs always seem to get bailed out with a penatly flag against the other team?

    No, you are not being paranoid or a delusional. Actually, science and research suggest you might be on to something.

    Research done by a team at UTEP presents evidence that the Chiefs have benefited from slanted officiating from 2015 to 2023, a time that coincided with their rise as one of the NFL’s most marketable franchises.

    Published in the journal Financial Review, the study provides “one of the clearest empirical looks at how financial pressures can influence real-time rule enforcement,” the UTEP research team said.

    “Our findings suggest that when the league’s financial health is at stake, rule enforcement may subtly shift to protect market appeal,” said Spencer Barnes Ph.D., assistant professor of finance in UTEP’s Woody L. Hunt College of Business and the lead author of the study. “The fact that postseason penalties consistently favored one franchise, while similar dynasties showed no such pattern, points to the powerful role of financial incentives in shaping supposedly neutral decisions.”

    The study shows that during the playoffs, which the research team identified as the NFL’s most commercially valuable period, penalties against opposing defenses of the Chiefs’ offense were significantly more likely to result in first downs, cover more yardage and fall into subjective categories such as roughing the passer or pass interference.

    Importantly, these effects were absent from the Tom Brady–era New England Patriots and other recent Super Bowl contenders, suggesting the phenomenon is unique to Kansas City’s emergence as a television ratings powerhouse, the study found.

    This, Spencer said, may be the result of financial pressures on the league stemming from the sharp decline in TV viewership and ratings during 2015–2017 seasons, just before Mahomes became the Chiefs’ starting quarterback. Those seasons were marked by controversy over racial issues, most notably San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeing during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racism.

    The implications extend beyond football, the research team says. The study draws parallels to financial markets, corporate governance and regulatory agencies, where dominant players may enjoy advantages not because of explicit corruption, but because institutions under pressure adapt to preserve stability and revenue.

    “This research not only deepens our understanding of sports governance, but also illustrates a larger societal concern: When financial pressure weighs heavily, impartiality can erode,” said John Hadjimarcou, Ph.D., dean of UTEP’s Woody L. Hunt College of Business. “Spencer’s work demonstrates the power of academic inquiry to reveal hidden dynamics that affect fairness, competition and trust in institutions.”

  20. Posted

    As long as the Dodgers don’t make it, I am fine with either AL team…. I guess the Mariners are more supported over the Jays due to never making the World Series…

  24. Posted

    https://www.tmz.com/2025/10/10/john-lodge-dead-moody-blues/

    John Lodge, the legendary bassist and singer from The Moody Blues, has died.

    The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer's family announced the news in a lengthy Facebook statement Friday ... saying his death was unexpected but he "peacefully slipped away surrounded by his loved ones and the sounds of The Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly."

    His cause of his death was not disclosed.

    Lodge joined The Moody Blues in 1966, right before they skyrocketed with the hit album "Days of Future Passed" ... and stuck around through their chart-topping run in the '60s, '70s and beyond.

    The icon was behind hits like "Ride My See-Saw" and "Isn’t Life Strange." He stayed with the band until 2018.

    Lodge was 82.

    RIP

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