Rise and Phight: 5/3/2022

Zach Eflin heads to arbitration soon, rather distant from what the team is offering. It’s an interesting wrinkle this year, thanks to the lockout. Some arbitration cases will go well into the season, something that I wonder if it distracts the player. They could be in the midst of a slump, then have to go into a meeting to hear a team tell a neutral observer why they don’t deserve to get paid a certain amount of money. With pitchers, I’ll bet the timing of the hearings is going to be key. You’d like to think that teams won’t use a start that maybe wasn’t the best against the player, but it’s all business. We’ll have to wait and see.

On to the links.

Phillies news:

• With the deadline for tightening the roster belts come and gone, two lefties found themselves headed back to Lehigh Valley.
• Some different news and notes about the team from Matt Gelb ($) before he goes on a personal leave. Hopefully everything is fine with Matt.
• This Phillies team may not be the fastest, but they are one of the smartest baserunning teams around.

MLB news:

• Buck Showalter (1 game) and Yoan Lopez (3 games) were suspended for throwing at Kyle Schwarber Sunday night.
• Speaking of the Mets, they designated Robinson Cano (and the ~$37 million still owed him) for assignment yesterday.
• This was interesting: a deeper dive into the evaluation process umpires have to go through and what it means for the future.
• MLB teams use a lot of pitchers. Is the new 13 pitchers only rule going to help or hurt the game?