Guardians News and Notes - It's Opening Day!

And we’re underway....

We did it friends! We made it to another Opening Day!

But where do you even watch the games? There is some good news in the eleventh hour for everyone who has yet to “cut the cord.” Armstrong and MCTV have struck a deal to carry the new Guardians TV. Spectrum has struck a “temporary” deal. Armstrong will be on the same channel as last year according to cleveland.com and Spectrum will air on 306 and 1306 for the viewing area.

For those of you with Cox, channel 80 is reportedly airing games from last season and has the Guardians TV logo listed on the guide, but there has been no official word that a deal has been reached. DIRECTV is still working with MLB to add the channel in time for first pitch. Once a deal is reached DIRECTV users can find the games on channel 662 for satellite and streaming users. Channel 736/1736 for U-Verse users.

From reports of those who are more in tuned with the situation, a lot of the deals will be coming down to the final hour before viewers know for certain that they are able to watch the Cleveland Guardians. As a reminder the negotiations have been primarily between the cable companies and MLB. So we can’t pin this one entirely on the Dolans.

It looks like the cable deal won’t be the only thing coming down to the wire. At the time of writing the 26th man has still not been named. All signs are pointing towards Johnathan Rodriguez getting the nod at this point, though nothing has been officially stated.

MLB has released a report on the Automated Ball-Strike System that was utilized in some of the Spring Training games. A couple of stats that are worth highlighting; 52.2% of challenged calls were overturned. Use of the system only added around 13.8 seconds to the game per challenge.

TJ Stats (on BlueSky and Twitter) did a round up of the top performers of Spring Training. Joey Cantillo’s Changeup netted him 2nd on the Highest Whiff% by Pitch list with 61.5 Whiff%. Paul Sewald rounded the top 10 of the same list at 53.3 Whiff% with his Sweeper. Former Guardian Nick Sandlin placed 3rd with 59.3 Whiff% on his Slider. The Best Whiff% list for hitters was topped by none other than Steven Kwan (7.4%). Jhonkensy Noel (5th - 117.1 mph) and Gabriel Arias (10th - 116.0 mph) both made it to the Max Exit Velocity list.

For those who missed it, Carlos Baerga and Cleveland Sports Icon Gabb Goudy joined BIGPLAY Sports Network with a new show: The Carlos Baerga Show. The show can be found on YouTube here. Yesterday’s episode featured the legendary Kenny Lofton.

Happy Opening Day! Here’s to whatever journey this team takes us down.

Around the League (and more):

The Rockies appear to be replacing Nolan Jones with Mickey Moniak.

The Marlins picked up Tyler Phillips from the Phillies.

Tennessee softball pitcher Karlyn Pickens is the proud owner of the fastest pitch in college softball history.