Triple Play Podcast: James Shields, Arbitration, Rangers

Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

This week on the Triple Play Podcast, Reese, Matt, and I discuss a few relatively interesting stories around baseball. We kick things off with the extension given to Wade Miley by the Red Sox, which buys out all 3 years of arbitration and still allows him to enter the free agent market after the 2017 season.

We also talked about the Rangers signing Nate Schierholtz and Ryan Ludwick to minor league deals, which could form a solid platoon in left field. Their previous left field situation was decidedly not pretty, so this could help them creep back toward contention.

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From there, we spent plenty of time on the then-speculative topic of James Shields signing with the Padres. He agreed to a four-year, $75 million contract with San Diego, which is a deal all three of us really, really liked. Shields provides a huge boost to the rotation, and could help offset some of their defensive deficiencies. They should be right in the thick of the NL West race, along with the Dodgers.

The Padres now have the kind of rotation depth many teams would kill to have, and they only had to surrender their top draft pick in 2015. They still have three big-time prospects, and are in a good position for the future with a general manager who seems to have a solid plan in place.

On the Royals, we broke down the major news topics from last week, most notably the minor league deal handed out to Mike Bianucci. Exciting stuff, indeed. We also talked about the “Forever Royal” marketing campaign, as well as each of the deals struck with players to avoid arbitration. Danny Duffy, Lorenzo Cain, and even Mike Moustakas all have reasonable salaries for next year, even if the latter has accomplished far less than the former two players.

Feel free to listen to the podcast with the player above, or at this link. To get in contact with the show, send us an email at KCTriplePlay@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter here:

Aaron Reese
Matt Vernon
Hunter Samuels

Thanks for listening!

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