Mariners Moose Tracks, 12/23/16: The Quiet, Comebacks, and Encarnacion Signs

Happy Friday everyone! Movement has been pretty slow recently. No huge rumors on the Mariners trade front and not many major deals around baseball besides the two that arrived yesterday (more below).

It seems like #TraderJerry has conditioned us as fans to expect rumors and moves at a much higher frequency than is normal. So when we get a prolonged break from news, it seems odd to us. Imagine being a fan of a team like the Reds, who I feel like we haven’t heard much of anything from this winter.

Unfortunately, things are likely to quiet down in the next couple of weeks due to the holidays. With Dipoto though, who knows. Hopefully the front office will give fans something to discuss in the coming days and weeks.

Now let’s see what other teams have been up to lately.

In Mariners news...

• Check out this neat feature on new M’s reliever Micah Owings.
• Edgar Martinez has been getting a lot of love from the new voters.

Around the league...

• Jonny Gomes is planning a comeback to the majors after a brief stint in Japan in 2016.
• Could Manny Ramirez be coming back to the bigs too? I highly doubt it’ll happen, but his wife hinted at the possibility.
• Apparently the Rays were very close to acquiring Hanley Ramirez and Jon Lester more than a decade ago.
• Craig Edwards at Fangraphs wonders what we could expect from Mike Trout in a career year. Spoiler alert: he’d be pretty good.
• The Pirates have re-upped with starter Ivan Nova on a three-year deal. Jeff Sullivan loves the move for the Pirates, suggesting they got Nova on the cheap.
• American Legion Baseball in Minnesota is requiring its players to stand for the national anthem before games.
• The Indians have agreed to a three-year deal with slugger Edwin Encarnacion in what could surely be a steal for Cleveland.

Anders’ picks...

• The NFL is developing a spring league for veteran free agents to play in during the offseason in order to get on teams’ radars. Given that football isn’t a popular sport worldwide, this will probably serve as the sport’s version of baseball’s winter leagues.
• For some reason I just remembered this beauty.