MLB Roundup 1/24: ESPN has a new Sunday Night Baseball crew

ESPN announces new Sunday Night Baseball crew

When Aaron Boone took over as the Yankee’s new manager, we knew that ESPN would be doing something new with their Sunday Night Baseball crew. As it turns out, they’re sticking with a three-person booth but only one of the three will be a familiar face for them. Jessica Mendoza will be coming back, and she’ll be joined by Alex Rodriguez and Matt Vasgersian. The latter will handle play-by-play duties. Honestly, there aren’t many broadcasts that I like, and that includes the current NESN booth for the most part. They are fine, but part of the booth’s job is to get people into the game that won’t necessarily always watch. Unless I’m recapping a game, I pretty much always put sporting events on mute and listen to music or podcasts. That being said, as far as national booths go this doesn’t seem too bad. Mendoza catches a lot of flack, and I don’t think she’s perfect, but you can get a lot of interesting information from her and she is natural in the booth. If we’re being honest I’m not terribly familiar with Vasgersian as a play-by-play guy, but I’ve always liked him on MLB Network’s Hot Stove show. He’s not the most knowledgeable baseball mind, but I’ll take entertainment from my play-by-play guy over baseball genius. Finally, there’s A-Rod. Look, I hate player A-Rod as much as any Red Sox fan. There’s a part of me that still gets fire in my stomach whenever I see him. That being said, he was really good in the FOX studio during the postseason, and I can easily see that translating to the booth. I’ll still mute them when the Red Sox aren’t playing, but this trio could be a lot worse.

• The Brewers continue to try and make a big splash, and have reportedly made a serious offer to the Marlins to acquire Christian Yelich. It’s an interesting possibility for Milwaukee as they’re already loaded with outfielders, but none are as good or as young as Yelich. They recognize the exciting youth they have on the roster and realize it’s time for them to go all-out for contention.
• Glen Perkins has retired from baseball after struggling to come back from injury. This is really sad, as once upon a time he was one of the most interesting young relievers in the game. Injuries totally derailed his career and it’s easy to understand not wanting to go through a third straight summer of rehab. He’s smart and charismatic enough to land a job somewhere in baseball.
• A couple of Astros minor leaguers, Jon Singleton and Dean Deetz, have been suspended for failing drug tests. Singleton, a former top prospect who Houston signed to an extension before he played in the majors, failed for the third time and faces a 100-game suspension. The presumption is that he failed for weed. On the one hand, I see the point that it’s hard to feel bad for him since this is the third time it’s happened and you have to take responsibility for yourself. At the same time, it’s weed. It’s ridiculous that the league is still testing for this and is another example of the lack of representation for players not on 40-man rosters.