SnakeBytes, 11/22: Vote for Melvin! [Or not...]

Team news

[Phoenix Business Journal] Maricopa County: Chase Field sale dead - Stadium Real Estate Partners II notified Maricopa County Monday afternoon that it was terminating its letter of intent to buy the ballpark for $60 million. Milwaukee attorney Martin Greenberg, a partner and representative of the stadium group, said his group had problems coming to terms with even meeting with the D-backs about the potential ballpark sale. In a letter to the county, Greenberg said the D-backs wanted to see the stadium group’s business plan and finances before meeting. [Not a great surprise here, as shoewizard noted in his Fanpost]

[Inside the 'Zona] Were We Too Optimistic in 2016? - So how did all of last season’s potential dissipate into thin air? It’s a recognition of the baseline just being too low and understanding that the unpredictable will happen. There will be a key injury or two. If Patrick Corbin rebounds, who’s to say that someone else won’t collapse? [I dunno, I would have thought a simple "Yes" would have sufficed...]

[MLB.com] Top 10 Arizona Fall League breakout prospects - Jared Miller, LHP, D-backs: Perhaps no prospect raised his profile more than the 6-foot-7 lefty reliever and he was recently added to Arizona's Top 30 as a result (when a replacement was needed due to Tyler Wagner's departure). Using a deadly fastball-slider/cutter combination, Miller threw 18 1/3 shutout innings, allowing just six hits and four walks while striking out 30.

[BaseballAmerica] 2016 Rule 5 Draft Preview - Couple of our players are noted as potentially being chosen, including RHP Drew Muren: Muren was a two-way player in college who tried to make it to the big leagues as a hitter, but he flamed out in Double-A. After spending two years in indy ball as a hitter, the Diamondbacks took a chance on his arm, moved him to the mound and saw him make it to Triple-A briefly in his first pro season as a pitcher. Muren’s stuff has helped make up for lost time. He sits in the mid-to-high 90s and touched 100 mph this year.

And, elsewhere...

[CBSSports.com] Here are the 34 players on the 2017 baseball Hall of Fame ballot - Manny Ramirez, Vladimir Guerrero, and Ivan Rodriguez are among the first time eligible players this year, while Fred McGriff, Tim Raines and Lee Smith are all in their final year of eligibility. There's one player with a D-back connection added, in Melvin Mora, who'll join Curt Schilling on the ballot. We'll be releasing the ballot for the 2017 entrants to the SnakePit Hall of Fame, later in the day.

[AP] Brett Cecil, Cardinals finalize $30.5 million, 4-year deal - The Cardinals filled the biggest void in their bullpen Monday with Brett Cecil, the only left-handed reliever that piqued their interest on the free-agent market. Cecil was introduced at Busch Stadium after finalizing a $30.5 million, four-year contract. The four-year deal for the 30-year-old Cecil gained attention, but Mozeliak said he was comfortable with the length of the contract because of the interest he was generating. [This is a man with precisely 11 career saves. I think the market for relievers this winter will be expensive...]

[For The Win] 7 relatively simple ways to make Major League Baseball better - By getting rid of the draft entirely, the league could govern teams’ amateur acquisitions by allotting each club a single bonus pool dependent on its place in the standings the prior year — with last-place teams getting the biggest pools, as a nod toward competitive balance. That system would not only give agency to all amateur players in determining which organization they join, but as a byproduct, eliminate or at least improve a handful of other concerns facing MLB. [The rest is a mix of sensible and insane. YMMV as to which is which!]