Mariners Moose Tracks, 11/22/16: Dipoto’s Strategy, International Draft, and Olympic Doping

Hello folks. Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of Mariners Moose Tracks. In small Mariners transaction news yesterday, the M’s inked right-hander Lindsey Caughel to a deal. The 26-year-old comes by way of the Sioux City Explorers of the American Association, an independent league.

In 2016 Caughel was named the American Association pitcher of the year, which is pretty neat. The learning curve is likely to be steep for Caughel, who has not pitched above High-A in the minors. He will report to Mariners spring training though, so the team is giving him a chance to show he’s made improvements outside of affiliated ball. It’s another pitcher to add to the pile, and the M’s could always use more of those.

Now, onto the rest of the day’s news.

In Mariners news...

• David Schoenfeld has a piece on ESPN about how Jerry Dipoto is hoping to make the team stronger through a series of smaller offseason moves.
• Nick Stellini at Fangraphs shows his love for Kyle Seager in his latest piece.

Around the league...

• Matt Eddy at Baseball America takes a look at this offseason’s crop of minor league free agents.
• A group of Rangers prospects are under investigation for reported sexual harassment of a teammate through hazing.
• Lone Star Ball gives its take on the Andrew Cashner signing for the Rangers.
• It seems like an international draft is going to be mighty hard to get in motion.
• Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs found the dumbest home run of 2016.
• The Blue Jays have offered a four-year, $80M contract to Edwin Encarnacion. Let the overspending begin.

Anders’ picks...

• Big earthquakes have been going off worldwide, the latest of which was a 6.9 magnitude quake in Japan yesterday.
• A whole host of doping tests conducted on Olympic athletes from 2008 and 2012 have re-written a lot of results from those contests.