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Wednesday Morning Links: Pre-Arbitration, Spring Numbers, Phillips' Delusion, CBA Changes, and the Lightning Round Returns

By Andrew Bryzgornia

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Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports

The weather is finally warming up! Enjoy a picture of me on my spring break.

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It's almost like Florida out here!

  • Manny Machado and Mike Trout are both disappointed with their respective salaries for 2014 ($519,000 and $510,000, respectively). Yes, they're both making about 15 times as much as I do in a single year, but they also should realize that this is how the pre-arbitration salaries work. Don't worry guys, you'll hit your paydays soon. Besides, you have company as Oakland A's third baseman Josh Donaldson will make only $500,000 after hitting .301/.384/.499 with 24 HR and accumulating 7.7 fWAR.
  • You've likely heard that spring training numbers don't mean much. As of a few days ago, Giants closer Sergio Romo had a 33.00 ERA through 4 games, despite carrying a 2.27 ERA throughout his career. So what gives? Is he hurt? Has he suddenly lost his mojo? No, it turns out he's just refusing to throw his best pitch, his slider. (Heads up, a video immediately starts playing within the article when you click on the link.)
  • Brandon Phillips has been a solid second baseman for the Cincinnati Reds for years now, but it's clear that he's starting to decline. However, Phillips doesn't believe it, and has stopped talking to the Cincinnati media because he feels like they're refusing to acknowledge he had a wrist injury last year. While most in the media might just let him be, John Fay of cincinnati.com calls out Phillips, citing evidence from the past year of how often his wrist injury was mentioned.
  • With players like Stephen Drew, Ervin Santana, Kendrys Morales, and others having trouble finding new contracts this year, there's been some rumblings that the Collective Bargaining Agreement needs to be changed. These players were given a qualifying offer, meaning their signing meant the cost of a draft pick, but many teams have refused to hand out their picks in exchange for these players. However, the CBA is not likely to be reopened now just to benefit a handful of players. Besides, the old system of Type A free agents didn't work out for everyone either, and I'm not sure there's an easy solution that would fairly benefit all sides.
And finally, the return of baseball games means the return of the Lightning Round, where I find the GIFs, videos, tweets, and other important things that just didn't warrant a written paragraph.

  1. Father of the Year goes to this man that let his kid roll away in a wagon while he chased a ground-rule double.
  2. Curtis Granderson is doing... something to distract the first baseman here.
  3. NotGraphs has now ranked the most handsome players in MLB and I discovered that my fiancee has a thing for Chase Utley.
  4. The 6'7" Kameron Loe and 5'11" Tim Lincecum swapped uniforms earlier this week. While Lincecum looks just fine in Loe's gear, the opposite is true when we see Loe in Lincecum's pants.
  5. The Marlins made a stink when the Red Sox sent Jackie Bradley, Jr. as their only projected starter to a game between the two teams. Sox owner John Henry fired back with a pretty nice burn of the Marlins.

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