Mariners Moose Tracks, 7/27/17: Sonny Gray, Pat Neshek, and Adrian Beltre

Good morning everyone! Today the M’s are off, which is probably the way things should be after the Mariners got mauled by a Chris Sale bear yesterday. It takes some extra time to recuperate from that. Hopefully these links can help you do just that.

In Mariners news...

• Ken Rosenthal addressed the Mariners/Sonny Gray rumors. While I completely disagree with his conclusion that the M’s are “bound to crash,” there’s some interesting stuff and a couple of funny quotes in there.
• I connected with an old podcast buddy of mine — Josh Iverson — at Athletics Nation. We pretended to be the GM’s of our respective teams in Gray trade discussions. As you might have guessed, I didn’t get very far as Jerry Dipoto. The Mariners just don’t have what it takes to make a deal work.

In Mariners minors news...

• Evan Marshall started his rehab with Arkansas, and he struggled a bit.

• Justin De Fratus had a nice start with the Travelers, though. I’m still surprised he’s so far down the minor league ladder, considering he was trying to crack the MLB roster in 2016. But he’s been...not great for Arkansas this year.

Around the league...

• The Rockies made a trade with the Phillies to acquire reliever Pat Neshek for a trio of prospects.
• Eno Sarris at Fangraphs talks about the analytics behind deadline deals with some pretty cool graphics to go along with it.
• The Baltimore Orioles are in an odd position. They could either buy, stand pat, or sell and any path would be understandable.
• Adrian Beltre was ejected from a game yesterday for attempting to move the on-deck circle.

• Odubel Herrera is an odd dude. He flipped his bat on a fly out, and then later in the game got benched for failing to hustle.
• As if the Yankees couldn’t get any more annoying, they’re “making progress” on a trade for Sonny Gray and Yonder Alonso. Maybe I should have offered more in my mock trade.
• Yu Darvish’s no-trade list was revealed yesterday. The Mariners aren’t included on it!
• Next year’s All-Star Game logo was displayed for the first time. The contest will take place at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C.
• Oh good! The Astros are going to get better! Dallas Keuchel is set to return to the rotation for the first time in around two months on Friday.
• Jeff Samardzija probably won’t waive his no-trade clause. Pitching continues to get more and more expensive in this year’s market.

Anders’ picks...

• What?! This is wild.