Mariners Moose Tracks, 11/8/20: Robbie Ray, Ariel Miranda, Connor Phillips and Sam Carlson, new mammals!

Brrrrrr! I don’t know what things are like where you are, but here in Seattle it feels like we catapulted from early fall into deep winter like, overnight. I had to scrape actual ice off my car and let it warm up forever when leaving a friend’s house the other day. Pour yourself the hot beverage of your choice and cozy up to these links:

In Mariners news:

• The Mariners eked out a win over the Royals in fall development play. Taylor Trammell keeps hitting, and Sam Carlson and Connor Phillips racked up the strikeouts.

If you’re wondering why there’s no Julio Rodríguez listed in the box scores these days, it’s because he’s already left to go join the Leones del Escogido to play winter ball in the Dominican Republic. He’ll join fellow Mariner Luis Liberato, who had a game-winning single in a pre-season game the other day. Top prospect Wander Franco will also be with Escogido for a while, making them one of the must-watch teams in LIDOM this year.

• Per Ryan Divish, the Mariners won’t be over-burdening their young starters with heavy innings loads after the shutdown, although Dipoto wouldn’t commit to definitively bringing in another starter, only saying they’re “open to it.” In related news, if anyone has an updated version of the “sure, Jan” .gif with “sure, Jerry,” well, I’d sure like to see it.

Around the league:

• The stove officially flipped on yesterday with the first free-agency signing of the off-season. LHP Robbie Ray is headed to Toronto on a one-year, $8M deal. This is good news because: a) that’s a not-insignificant amount of money for Ray, who FanGraphs had crowd-sourced for a two-year deal at $8.7M/per; b) hopefully that increases the likelihood of a Taijuan Walker reunion in Seattle.
• Peter Abrams at the Boston Globe takes a look at who the rebuilding Red Sox might target in free agency.
• The Yankees are the first team to announce how they’re restructuring their minor-league affiliates. They’re moving their Double-A squad from Trenton to Somerset, formerly home of the Somerset Patriots, an indy-ball team. I’m bummed to see the Trenton Thunder go; I visited that ballpark a few times and they did a great job, specifically with their “Yings and Wings” promo. (Yuengling: an underrated great American beer, discuss in the comments.)
• In news that surprises no one, MLB didn’t do much PED testing this year.
• Around the global league: former Mariner Ariel Miranda has been pitching for the CTBC Brothers in the Taiwan Series (the World Series of the CPBL). After pitching the Brothers to a win with a complete game in the first game of the series, he took the mound again to start a winner-take-all Game Seven last night. The game is still going on as I type this, but go Ariel!

Kate’s pick:

NEW ANIMALS? NEW ANIMALS.

This thing is like a mash-up of Mogwai, a Pokémon, Stitch, and part of a sexy bunny costume, and knowing Australia that thing probably will open its mouth to reveal rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth, but still, NEW ANIMALS, GUYS!