MLB Trade Rumors and News: Braves and Astros both on the verge of World Series berths
Photo by Harry How/Getty ImagesEddie Rosario has powered the Braves to within one win of the World Series. The MLB Daily Dish is a daily feature we’re running here at MLBDD that rounds up roster-impacting news, rumors, and analysis. Have feedback or ha…
Eddie Rosario has powered the Braves to within one win of the World Series.
The MLB Daily Dish is a daily feature we’re running here at MLBDD that rounds up roster-impacting news, rumors, and analysis. Have feedback or have something that should be shared? Hit us up at @mlbdailydish on Twitter or @MLBDailyDish on Instagram.
- The league championship series are reaching a fever pitch. The Braves, thanks in no small part to Eddie Rosario hitting two homers and nearly completely a cycle, demolished the Dodgers by the score of 9-2 to push their NLCS series lead to 3-1. Meanwhile, over in the American League, Framber Valdez pitched a gem for the Astros as Houston annihilated the Red Sox by the score of 9-1 as they, too, find themselves within one win of a World Series appearance.
- The New York Yankees have seemingly made a habit in recent seasons of performing well in the regular season, but being unable to finish the job in the postseason. While some Yankee fans wish that the organization would move on from manager Aaron Boone as a result, the organization does not feel the same way as they gave Boone an extension through at least 2024.
- Starting in the 2022 season, all 30 teams will now be required to provide housing to all minor league players, ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan reports. Last month team owners held a vote on the subject that passed unanimously. The intricacies are still being worked out on if teams will be giving players stipends for housing or if they will provide it directly. Considering the conditions that an overwhelming amount of minor leaguers have been subject to, this is a welcome improvement to the quality of their lives.
- If the Astros progress to the World Series, they may be without ace Lance McCullers Jr. The 28-year old was diagnosed with a flexor pronator muscle strain, tweets Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle. He’ll remain out for the National League Championship series, and any starts beyond that are still hazy. However, it is somewhat of a silver lining for the Astros, because McCullers hasn’t been ruled out entirely, and if the team does make it to the World Series he has a bit of a buffer to heal. No structural damage was found in his elbow.
- The Rays have a solid future ahead of them as a team, but there’s always room for improvement.
- The Cardinals have parted ways with manager Mike Schildt. There’s no word yet on who they may get to replace the skipper, but with this new round of reaping falling upon MLB managers, it’s only a matter of time.
- Speaking of the culling, the Yankees did some leg work of their own, firing a large chunk of their coaching staff. New York decided not to renew the contracts of third base coach Phil Nevin, hitting coach Marcus Thames, and assistant hitting coach P.J. Pilittere, reports Lindsey Adler of The Athletic. It’ll be interesting to see how Aaron Boone will cooperate with the new staff bestowed upon him—and if he’ll get his own walking papers next season.
- Freddie Freeman hit a tiebreaking homer off Brewers closer Josh Hader in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s NLDS Game 4, lifting Atlanta over Milwaukee 5-4 and sending the Braves to their second straight NLCS.
- While Gavin Sheets homered to give the White Sox an early 1-0 lead in Tuesday’s ALDS Game 4, the Astros ended up coasting to victory, beating Chicago 10-1 to advance to the ALCS for an incredible fifth straight season.
- Kiké Hernández hit a walk-off sacrifice fly on Monday night, lifting the Red Sox to a 6-5 victory as they became the first team this year to advance to a League Championship Series. While Boston reached the ALCS relatively quickly, their series victory over the 100-win Rays wasn’t an easy one, and they won their final two games in walk-off fashion.
- This time of year, managers begin to be picked off one by one from their clubs. One that seems to always be on the hot seat is Phillies skipper Joe Girardi. At this point in time, he’s contracted through 2022, a fact that baseball president of operations admitted to The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Scott Lauber. But beyond that, is there a long-term future for Joe in Philadelphia?
- There were rumors swirling at the end of the season that the Padres were going to be making some pretty major changes to their coaching staff including at manager. Those rumors proved to be correct as the Padres relieved Jayce Tingler of his managerial duties, although it sounds like they would like to keep him in the organization in some capacity.
- Last Tuesday’s edition of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry wasn’t much of a contest, as the Red Sox took a 2-0 lead in the first inning and never trailed again, beating the Bronx Bombers 6-2 in the AL Wild Card game to advance to the ALDS. They’ll face yet another AL East rival, going up against the Rays in the five-game series.
- Need a primer on the teams competing for a World Series title this October? Check out our Andersen Pickard’s playoff preview.
- New Rockies GM Bill Schmidt got down to business on Tuesday, signing first baseman C.J. Cron — whose 2021 campaign was the most productive by a Rockies first baseman since Todd Helton was in his prime — to a two-year, $14.5 million extension and right-handed starter Antonio Senzatela to a new five-year, $50.5 million deal with a $14 million club option for 2027. While these moves won’t necessarily make the Rockies better in 2022, they at least should help prevent them from taking a step backward this offseason like they’ve done over the last few years.
- The Nationals took on an interesting reclamation project back in July when they acquired infielder Alcides Escobar and gave him his first major league opportunity since 2018. They were impressed enough by the 34-year-old’s performance to bring him back into the fold for 2022 on Tuesday.
- Clayton Kershaw avoided UCL damage but will not return this postseason. With the 33-year-old set to hit free agency at season’s end, it’s possible that he may have thrown his last pitch for the Dodgers after 14 seasons in blue and white.
- The rumored shake up of the Mets coaching staff got started in a hurry last week as the Mets relieved Luis Rojas of his position as manager. The Mets are simply declining his option for the 2022 season and it sounds like the organization is interested in him staying with them in another role.
- The Giants have successfully overcome virtually every obstacle that’s been thrown their way this season, but they’ll now have to overcome another big one, as their hottest hitter, Brandon Belt, will potentially miss all of the postseason with a fractured thumb.
- After just four starts with the Padres, veteran starter Jake Arrieta was designated for assignment. This could be the end for the 2015 NL Cy Young winner, who rejoined the Cubsprior to this season but was released by Chicago after posting a 6.88 ERA. He joined San Diego last month in hopes of helping an injury-plagued rotation, but he threw for a 10.95 ERA as the Padres more or less fell out of playoff contention with a late-season meltdown.
- MLB is requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for all non-playing personnel this postseason.
- While we saw a unique situation with the All-Star Game moved out of Atlanta this season, generally the venue for the ASG is set well in advance and it stays that way. The league announced that Seattle will be be host of the 2023 All-Star Game
- The Royals became the latest MLB organization to adopt a more modern front office structure, promoting longtime GM Dayton Moore to president of baseball operations while elevating assistant GM JJ Picollo to general manager. While Moore will still oversee day-to-day operations, this move will give Picollo, who has drawn interest from other clubs in recent offseasons, more authority and keeps him in Kansas City for the long term.
- Dodgers right-hander Trevor Bauer will remain on administrative leave through rest of season. The real issue that remains is that this is a paid administrative leave. The police and MLB are still working on their own investigations, and it’s very possible that Bauer could face criminal charges. Bauer has not thrown a pitcher in a major league game since June 28th of this year.
- While it was known that Yankees’ reliever Zack Britton had been dealing with elbow issues that were going to require surgery, there was some optimism that he could avoid major surgery and the subsequent recovery period up until recently. Unfortunately for Britton and the Yankees, he was unable to dodge that bullet as he underwent UCL reconstructive surgery that ended his 2021 season and will keep him out for most of 2022 as well.
- Given the team’s recent run of success with very limited payroll, a lot of teams have expressed interest in the availability of Rays’ VP and GM Erik Neander to help run their own teams. Those teams were unable to pry him away and now it looks like he will be with Tampa for the foreseeable future, as Neander received a promotion to president of baseball operations.
Government
Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study
Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study
Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
People with inadequate…
Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.
A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.
Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels
Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.
In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.
According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.
But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.
“When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”
The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.
“It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”
The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.
1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID
COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.
Uncategorized
February Employment Situation
By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…
By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert
The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.
Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.
Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.
The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.
The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.
Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.
As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.
Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.
The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.
unemployment pandemic unemploymentSpread & Containment
Another beloved brewery files Chapter 11 bankruptcy
The beer industry has been devastated by covid, changing tastes, and maybe fallout from the Bud Light scandal.
Before the covid pandemic, craft beer was having a moment. Most cities had multiple breweries and taprooms with some having so many that people put together the brewery version of a pub crawl.
It was a period where beer snobbery ruled the day and it was not uncommon to hear bar patrons discuss the makeup of the beer the beer they were drinking. This boom period always seemed destined for failure, or at least a retraction as many markets seemed to have more craft breweries than they could support.
Related: Fast-food chain closes more stores after Chapter 11 bankruptcy
The pandemic, however, hastened that downfall. Many of these local and regional craft breweries counted on in-person sales to drive their business.
And while many had local and regional distribution, selling through a third party comes with much lower margins. Direct sales drove their business and the pandemic forced many breweries to shut down their taprooms during the period where social distancing rules were in effect.
During those months the breweries still had rent and employees to pay while little money was coming in. That led to a number of popular beermakers including San Francisco's nationally-known Anchor Brewing as well as many regional favorites including Chicago’s Metropolitan Brewing, New Jersey’s Flying Fish, Denver’s Joyride Brewing, Tampa’s Zydeco Brew Werks, and Cleveland’s Terrestrial Brewing filing bankruptcy.
Some of these brands hope to survive, but others, including Anchor Brewing, fell into Chapter 7 liquidation. Now, another domino has fallen as a popular regional brewery has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Covid is not the only reason for brewery bankruptcies
While covid deserves some of the blame for brewery failures, it's not the only reason why so many have filed for bankruptcy protection. Overall beer sales have fallen driven by younger people embracing non-alcoholic cocktails, and the rise in popularity of non-beer alcoholic offerings,
Beer sales have fallen to their lowest levels since 1999 and some industry analysts
"Sales declined by more than 5% in the first nine months of the year, dragged down not only by the backlash and boycotts against Anheuser-Busch-owned Bud Light but the changing habits of younger drinkers," according to data from Beer Marketer’s Insights published by the New York Post.
Bud Light parent Anheuser Busch InBev (BUD) faced massive boycotts after it partnered with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney. It was a very small partnership but it led to a right-wing backlash spurred on by Kid Rock, who posted a video on social media where he chastised the company before shooting up cases of Bud Light with an automatic weapon.
Another brewery files Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Gizmo Brew Works, which does business under the name Roth Brewing Company LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 8. In its filing, the company checked the box that indicates that its debts are less than $7.5 million and it chooses to proceed under Subchapter V of Chapter 11.
"Both small business and subchapter V cases are treated differently than a traditional chapter 11 case primarily due to accelerated deadlines and the speed with which the plan is confirmed," USCourts.gov explained.
Roth Brewing/Gizmo Brew Works shared that it has 50-99 creditors and assets $100,000 and $500,000. The filing noted that the company does expect to have funds available for unsecured creditors.
The popular brewery operates three taprooms and sells its beer to go at those locations.
"Join us at Gizmo Brew Works Craft Brewery and Taprooms located in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Find us for entertainment, live music, food trucks, beer specials, and most importantly, great-tasting craft beer by Gizmo Brew Works," the company shared on its website.
The company estimates that it has between $1 and $10 million in liabilities (a broad range as the bankruptcy form does not provide a space to be more specific).
Gizmo Brew Works/Roth Brewing did not share a reorganization or funding plan in its bankruptcy filing. An email request for comment sent through the company's contact page was not immediately returned.
bankruptcy pandemic social distancing
-
Uncategorized2 weeks ago
All Of The Elements Are In Place For An Economic Crisis Of Staggering Proportions
-
Uncategorized1 month ago
Cathie Wood sells a major tech stock (again)
-
Uncategorized3 weeks ago
California Counties Could Be Forced To Pay $300 Million To Cover COVID-Era Program
-
Uncategorized2 weeks ago
Apparel Retailer Express Moving Toward Bankruptcy
-
Uncategorized3 weeks ago
Industrial Production Decreased 0.1% in January
-
International1 day ago
Walmart launches clever answer to Target’s new membership program
-
Uncategorized3 weeks ago
RFK Jr: The Wuhan Cover-Up & The Rise Of The Biowarfare-Industrial Complex
-
Uncategorized3 weeks ago
GOP Efforts To Shore Up Election Security In Swing States Face Challenges