Wednesday Newsletter time: When Kyle Cody is healthy again, Texas Rangers owe him a look
The right-hander, who underwent shoulder surgery Sept. 30, has power stuff that has been effective in the majors
Things are happening at the Texas Rangers’ spring home in Arizona, even though the MLB lockout is keeping players on the 40-man roster away from the Surprise Recreation Campus.
Minor-league players, mostly pitchers and catchers, have convened there. One of them is right-hander Kyle Cody, who lives in the area, but he’s not throwing with the others.
Cody was one of the few significant injuries on the big-league club in 2021. What was initially diagnosed as a bone bruise in May turned into labral debridement surgery Sept. 30.
He won’t begin a throwing program until sometime in March, at which time the pitchers he competed with last spring will be competing for big-league roster spots without him.
Where does that leave Cody in the future plans? He has a place. He throws hard, has quality off-speed pitches and can work multiple innings. And he’s already gotten Tommy John surgery out of the way in 2018.
So there’s that.
After a nice debut in 2020, he struggled in spring training and made Opening Day roster as a reliever. Maybe it was the injury causing the issues. Maybe he should have been at Triple A Round Rock starting.
The Rangers need to find out. They owe it to Cody and themselves.
Players extend bird
The meeting Tuesday between the owners and players designed to move toward a new collective bargaining agreement instead turned into another childish display that further increased the likelihood that spring training will be delayed.
The players weren’t happy last week with the owners’ low-ball figure of $10 million for a bonus pool for pre-arbitration players. The union had proposed $105 million.
So, the union came back with a lower figure … of $100 million. In essence, the players simply flipped off the owners.
What they also did was waste everyone’s time while also putting in jeopardy the trickle-down effect a shortened spring could have on the players’ health and the regular-season product.
(A shortened spring would also put a dent in the economies of the cities that play host to spring training and rely on tourism dollars to help pay the bills. But screw them, right?)
The owners are expected to counter the union’s proposal later this week. They are apparently OK losing out on what revenue spring training generates for them. They don’t begin paying player salaries until Opening Day.
So, don’t expect much, except more time wasting away.
Yu the Entertainer
Yu Darvish might be long gone from his Rangers days, which ended with him being traded to the Dodgers at the 2017 trade deadline, but he’s still a good follow on Twitter for tweets like the ones he has been putting out of late.
Now with his fourth team, the San Diego Padres, Darvish is ramping up for spring training, whenever it might occur. He has placed a camera behind the plate or on his catcher’s mask or somewhere close enough to get an up-close look at how his pitches are moving.
As memory serves, Darvish throws 21 different pitches. Maybe he’ll get around to showing all of them.
How about this? One a day until the lockout ends.
He might not have anything left for the regular season at this rate.
Doggy video!
Me, once the lockout comes to an end and there’s more stuff to write. Enjoy. See you Thursday.