Mariners Moose Tracks, 3/4/22: George Kirby, Sixto Sánchez, and Bobby Witt, Jr.

Happy Friday folks! Let’s dig into the latest from around baseball.

In Mariners news...

• New Julio just dropped. He has apparently also grown about an inch and a half from his MiLB player page listing of 6’3”.

• Ryan Divish at The Seattle Times wrote a profile on George Kirby. The top pitching prospect apparently has a knuckleball in his repertoire that he may throw one day in the big leagues. I’ve often wondered why we never see regular pitchers have one they throw sparingly just to keep hitters guessing.

Around the league...

• The main negotiators for MLB and the MLBPA met yesterday in a private setting. Beyond this, it’s not really known what was specifically discussed or where they’re planning to go from here.

• We shouldn’t expect to be hearing a lot of details from these negotiations going forward, though. Apparently the owners decided trying to play the media against the players wasn’t working the way they thought it would. (P.S. the meeting discussed in this tweet is the same as the one mentioned in the tweet above. As far as we know, they are not meeting today, Friday March 4)

• Andy Martino at SNY reported that four MLB owners (Angels, Tigers, Diamondbacks, Reds) voted against the most recent CBA proposal from MLB because they thought it was too generous towards the players. Like most of the info we learn from reporters, this is likely a negotiating tactic aiming to scare the players into signing a more league-friendly deal.
• Noah Frank at Baseball Prospectus points out how ridiculous it is that we’re supposed to assume some teams rebuild in perpetuity and thus shouldn’t be expected to spend money. ($)
• Major League Baseball is hoping to make some pretty major changes to the game itself.

• One of the Marlins top young starters might not be back in action as quickly as the team had hoped.

• Dayton Moore says that top Royals prospect Bobby Witt, Jr. will be given a chance to make the Opening Day roster.
• James Wagner at The New York Times wrote about master negotiator Max Scherzer, who is fighting hard for players younger than him despite the fact that he has already secured his own money.