Mariners Moose Tracks, 12/26/19: Edwin Encarnacíon, Matt Moore, and Yuki Yanigata

Photo by Brace Hemmelgarn/Minnesota Twins/Getty Images

A deal a day keeps the doctor away.

I will take a signing and/or trade a day from now until Spring Training. This would not break my heart. None of it, recently, has involved the Mariners, sadly.

In Mariners news...

• Seattle’s 6th round pick in 2019, Michael Limoncelli, is still recovering from Tommy John surgery that made him uncertain if he would even be drafted. That didn’t stop him from providing a surprising bit of piece of mind for his mom yesterday.

Learn more about Limoncelli from his interview with LL here:

Around the league...

• Former Mariners DH and 1B Edwin Encarnacíon has successfully landed with an AL club who needs him, joining a slew of moves to spur contention by the White Sox.

• If the rumored extension talks for Luis Robert come through, the South Siders could have an impressive lineup.

• Steven Goldman at Baseball Prospectus ($) compares the eerie similarities in the complaints and arguments by baseball’s ownership and commissioner between this winter and 50 years ago, when Curt Flood filed his historic letter.
• Alex Chamberlain of FanGraphs did some nifty work with Statcast data, putting their own spin on it to create a semblance of park factors with the data.
• Per Jim Allen, Softbank Hawks star OF Yuki Yanigata has effectively shut the door on what was once a possible impact MLB career. After an injury narrowly kept him from qualifying for free agency, he’s signed a lengthy extension with the Hawks.
• Allen announced a few other intriguing Japanese baseball tidbits: the hiring of NPB’s first female scout, Emi Inui, as well as the Softbank Hawks signing of LHP Matt Moore.
• Moore will make a decent sum in his incentive-laden contract:

• RHP Ayumu Ishikawa of the Lotte Marines also expressed a desire to explore being posted to the MLB, as the 31 year old is coming off a solid season with a 3.64 ERA in 118.2 IP. His fastball tops out around 90-91, but he gets significant movement on both his four-seam and two-seam offerings, and works in a screwball and cutter consistently that have helped him run reverse splits for much of his career.

John’s pick...

• I cannot get over Carmelo Anthony being on the Trail Blazers, and that it is not actually going terribly.