The Los Angeles Dodgers fire Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani's long-time interpreter. Mizuhara was accused by Ohtani's attorneys of engaging in a “massive theft” of Ohtani's funds to place bets with an illegal bookmaker, according to the LA Times.

Hey all,

Baseball season is almost upon us! For those of you who were around last year, you'll recall that @cerevant@fanaticus.social and I ported over the redball baseball bot to Lemmy and subsequently created a bot for each team.

While that was a lot of fun to work on, not many people interacted in the gameday threads. This year, I am considering scaling back the game bots to an on-demand basis (although you're certainly welcome to create your own!). For those communities that want a baseball bot for your team, let me know in this post and I'll set it up. If you want to run your own and want some help with that, I can help you with that too. Let me know your thoughts! I am open to suggestions.

If you found your home team's community is without a mod, let me know and I'll turn over the keys. I'm really excited for this year's season and am hoping we get a lot more participation and posting from all you lurkers!

Big shout out to @runwaylights@lemmy.world for keeping us going through the offseason! Offseason MVP right there!

... contingent on Glasnow signing an extension with L.A., which is expected, sources tell ESPN.

Just catching up on off-season news here.

The New York Yankees today announced that they have acquired three-time All-Star and four-time Silver Slugger Award winner OF Juan Soto and two-time Gold Glove winner OF Trent Grisham from the San Diego Padres in exchange for RHP Michael King, C Kyle Higashioka, RHP Jhony Brito, RHP Randy Vásquez and RHP Drew Thorpe.

How does it feel?

For the first time since 2019, the sport’s collective batting average has risen year over year, improving from .243 last season to .248 heading into Wednesday’s games. The number of errors has fallen to the lowest tally per game in recorded history, 0.51, part of a gradual decline dating back to the 1970s. The league-wide fielding percentage, .986, is also an all-time high.

“Everything’s a hit,” Angels pitcher Patrick Sandoval said. “I have a little conspiracy about it: That they are telling the scorers to be more lenient with the hits so they can be like, ‘Oh, the new rules work. You have more hits.’”