Snake Bytes, 12/28: At the (almost) closing of the year

Team news

[MLB] Baseball in the Bahamas on the rise - Jazz Chisholm, who signed with the D-backs for $200,000 three days after Fox, is the club's No. 3 ranked prospect and was named the organization's Minor League Player of the Year in 2018.... He combined to hit .272 with 25 home runs and 70 RBIs at Class A Kane County and High A Visalia. He had 19 hits in 43 at-bats in 10 games for the Salt River Rafters in the Arizona Fall League, where he roomed with Fox. "I'm definitely going to be the next big leaguer from the Bahamas," Chisholm, 20, said. "No question."

[The Athletic] The art of balance: How four Diamondbacks pitchers found more success in 2018 - Robbie Ray [is] the lone returner from the list, but the changes he made were downright spectacular. Ray almost completely ditched his sinker in 2018 – a move that has felt frankly overdue. He’d backed off of it in a big way in 2017, but took it a step further last season. The pitch is one he’s never been able to control, largely because it moves so much. That means he has struggled to throw it for strikes and when it did catch the strike zone, it often caught way too much of it. From 2015 through 2016, Ray threw the pitch nearly 20 percent of the time. More than a third of them were called balls and batters hit .322 and slugged .475 against the pitch. It’s no wonder he reduced the pitch’s usage in 2017 and all but eliminated it in 2018.

[The Runner Sports] Changes To The 2019 Diamondbacks' Starting Staff - Who will be on the starting pitching staff for the Arizona Diamondbacks when the 2019 season begins? We all know that the Diamondbacks are in a time of transition. Players are leaving via free agency or trade and others are not being offered contracts. Matt Koch, who started 14 games last year, could and should get a look at as a starter during Spring Training again. However, he might be better suited to the position of long reliever. Should that happen, there would be two starter spots open. The Diamondbacks have a few guys on their 40-man roster they can consider.

[Sports360AZ] DBacks Future Location, Whiz, Herm and Cardinals... - Are the Arizona Diamondbacks looking to the South in their stadium search? The answer from my understanding is “Yes”. Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park(formerly Firebird Raceway) is exploring moving further down 1-10 and the Diamondbacks new stadium would be built at the existing 600 acre track location just south of the soon to be completed San Tan 202 Freeway extension by Gila River Casino. Yes, the 101-202 Loop on the NE corner in Tempe could still be an option. Both locations would be great for the Valley, not so much for downtown Phoenix. Stay tuned…

[stltoday.com] Exploring an extension for Goldy - The Post-Dispatch has reported that a five-year extension would look something like five-years, $150 million. There was also a report that Goldschmidt was seeking a six-year deal. These two reports can coexist. A six-year deal would include this year and give him a bump from his $15.5 million salary and thus add to the total value of the deal. [Obviously, only loosely connected to team news, but it does give us some insight into what Goldschmidt was looking for in the extension he didn’t get from the team. With that sixth year, we’d probably have been looking at something around six years, $175 million, to cover 2019-2014. So, the questions is...]

And, elsewhere...

Any of them interesting?

[ESPN] What we'd bet MLB in 2018 will be remembered for forever - It is with some humility that we embark on the quest to identify that one thing from the 2018 baseball season our great-great-grandchildren will know about. We use as our guide The Definitive Guide to What Gets Remembered, our survey of the past century's most resilient baseball, from Merkle's Boner to Mays' catch to the Mitchell report. That guide gives us the seven categories of not-forgotten things past to organize our search.

[MLB] Each team's biggest 1st-round regret of the decade - Stryker Trahan, C/OF, D-backs, 2012 (No. 26 overall), Taken out of the Louisiana high school ranks, Trahan had the combination of power from the left side and a strong arm behind the plate. It never came together for him, even with moves to the outfield to help give him the chance to get his bat going. He never made it past Class A Advanced, was released by the D-backs in March 2017 and hasn't played since.

[Washington Post] In baseball, mental coaches were once seen as for the ‘weak-minded.’ Now they’re essential. - Paul Goldschmidt, who owns the eighth-highest OPS in baseball over the last three seasons, said he began using a mental coach regularly four years ago, too. “Everything you do has a mental aspect,” Goldschmidt said. “ . . . We’re always training physically. Running, lifting, hitting, all that. We know the mental part of the game is just as important, so to not train in that way, to me, didn’t make sense.”

[FanGraphs] The Possible Legal Issue with MLB’s Cuba Deal - The FCB is an arm of the Cuban government, and has even been run by Fidel Castro‘s son, who served as its vice president. This agreement means that MLB, an American business entity, would be paying money to an unofficial arm of the Cuban government. Because of the United States’ trade embargo, which remains in effect, it’s questionable at best whether this arrangement will survive legal scrutiny.