Detroit News

Chris McCosky   | The Detroit News Lakeland, Fla. — Tigers manager AJ Hinch loves multi-positional players. He wants as much lineup flexibility as he can get. Still, it’s not every day that your veteran second baseman, a Gold-Glove finalist, comes to you and says he’d like a chance to move around the diamond a little

Jake Seiner  |  Associated Press New York — Major League Baseball has slightly deadened its baseballs amid a years-long surge in home runs. MLB anticipates the changes will be subtle, and a memo to teams last week cites an independent lab that found the new balls will fly 1 to 2 feet shorter on balls hit

Stephen Hawkins  |  Associated Press Elvis is leaving Texas. Veteran infielder Elvis Andrus was traded to the Oakland Athletics on Saturday, just over two months after the Texas Rangers said the only player remaining from their only two World Series appearances would no longer be the starting shortstop after 12 seasons in that role. Texas

Tony Paul   | The Detroit News Detroit — The Tigers got their second baseman — and it’s their old second baseman. Jonathan Schoop is returning to the Tigers on a one-year contract, the team announced Friday night. The deal is worth $4.5 million, according to a source familiar with the ballclub’s decisions. The move was first reported

Associated Press Los Angeles — Trevor Bauer is coming home to pitch for the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers. The reigning NL Cy Young Award winner announced his decision on Friday in a two-minute video posted to his Twitter account. Bauer narrated the piece, which ended with him saying, “This season is about making sure history remembers

Lynn Henning   | The Detroit News Pick your year, and maybe begin with 2002, early in April, when Randy Smith and Phil Garner were fired, clearing the way for Dave Dombrowski to steer the Tigers front office, solo. Or, if one’s stomach can take it, think about that six months and 162 games of Detroit

Jimmy Golen  |  Associated Press Alex Avila finalized a $1.5 million, one-year contract Wednesday with the Washington Nationals, who are expected to use him as the primary backup to starting catcher Yan Gomes. Avila, who turned 34 last week, was a free agent after playing in 2020 for the Minnesota Twins, batting .184 in 49

Tony Paul   | The Detroit News Willard Wayne “Twig” Terwilliger, a Michigan-raised three-sport athlete who went on to a half-century-plus playing and coaching career in professional baseball and won two World Series titles on staff with the Minnesota Twins, died Wednesday. He was 95. Terwilliger died in Weatherford, Texas. He battled dementia and advanced bladder

Greg Beacham  |  Associated Press Anaheim, Caif. — Pitching coach Mickey Callaway has been suspended by the Los Angeles Angels after allegations of inappropriate behavior toward several women who work in sports media. The Angels announced their decision Tuesday, a day after the allegations against the former New York Mets manager appeared in a report by

Tony Paul   | The Detroit News Paul Foytack, a right-handed pitcher who was a mainstay in the Tigers rotation in the 1950s and early 1960s and who might be best known for giving up a home run to Mickey Mantle that is considered the longest in baseball history, has died. Foytack died Jan. 23 at

Ronald Blum AP Baseball Writer  |  Associated Press New York – Major League Baseball players rejected a proposal to delay the start of spring training and the season due to the coronavirus pandemic, vowing Monday night to report under the original schedule. MLB proposed to the players’ association on Friday that the start of spring

Tony Paul   | The Detroit News The 2020 season was tough on so many levels, for so many players, Wilson Ramos included. His playing time was cut, to his surprise, and he slogged through one of the worst offensive seasons of his career. The two were not at all unrelated, he believes. And, oh, there

Jimmy Golen  |  Associated Press Boston — Dustin Pedroia, the undersized and over-achieving second baseman who spurred the Boston Red Sox to a pair of World Series victories with his grit and another, after a knee injury effective ended his career, with his mouth, has retired. Pedroia, 37, was the AL Rookie of the Year in 2007

Dave Campbell  |  Associated Press Minneapolis — Andrelton Simmons picked the Minnesota Twins, eager to play for a balanced team that’s on track to be a contender again in the American League. Adding a seasoned, slick-fielding shortstop like Simmons made the Twins even more well-rounded. The Twins finalized a one-year, $10.5 million contract Sunday with

Ronald Blum  |  Associated Press The St. Louis Cardinals have agreed to acquire All-Star third baseman Nolan Arenado from the Colorado Rockies in a trade needing approvals before it can be finalized, a person familiar with the swap tells the Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity Friday night because the trade had

Lynn Henning  |  Special to The Detroit News For now, life is sweet and sunny. And familiar. Spencer Torkelson lives in a condominium in Scottsdale, Arizona, which his Californian folks bought a few years ago as a means to more comfortably spend weekends at their son’s baseball games at Arizona State University. The condo beats

Chris McCosky   | The Detroit News Detroit — If you were looking for a window into Casey Mize’s character, go back to Sept. 23 at Target Field. It was after his final start of the 2020 season. It went the way most of his six other starts went last year — an encouraging start quickly

Neal Rubin   | The Detroit News Warren — There’s a young man in a batting cage hitting line drives at a 71-year-old 6 yards away, and the 71-year-old doesn’t even flinch. The grown man is Ike Blessitt, who invokes his age often, not as an excuse but as a warning. He has a screen between his body and

John Niyo   | The Detroit News It didn’t come easily, or all that comfortably at first. But eventually, Tarik Skubal got a grip, and then he was able to quickly grasp what it would take to make it last. And as the Tigers’ young pitcher drove away from the Driveline Baseball facility in suburban Seattle

Chris McCosky   | The Detroit News Detroit — He’s taken up yoga. He’s working out just about every day. He’s been throwing since his forearm strain healed back in September. He’s in Lakeland right now, in fact, throwing full bullpens without restriction. He’s cleaned up his mechanics from the ground up. He looks lean and mean