Tribe items
The changeup is a pitch almost every team encourages its pitchers to throw, because it behaves differently than other off-speed pitches and provides a change of pace from the fastball in terms of velocity. Not every pitcher throws it well though. Trevor Bauer had one of the least successful changeups in baseball in 2014. Eno Sarris from FanGraphs argues that Bauer is among the pitchers who should ditch the changeup.
Jordan Bastian answers reader questions. Among his responses: He shoots down that James Shields rumor a few were trying to push last week, he says the Indians can certainly win 90+ games but would take the under on that total if he had to choose right now, and he says he doesn't believe we'll see Francisco Lindor in Cleveland until August at the soonest.
Around MLB (but mostly Washington)
The Nationals signed Max Scherzer, giving them six good starting pitchers. They might be willing just to ride that depth, but they're also very open"to trading Stephen Strasburg. Strasburg has two seasons left before free agency, and would have tremendous value in a deal, because he's only going to cost something like $19-20 million (total) for the next two years. Jeff Sullivan examines his value.
Speaking of Scherzer, his deal is officially for 7 years, $210 million, but will actually pay out that $210 million over 14 years. That lowers the present-day value of the deal quite a bit, as Dave Cameron explains. (It's still a massive amount of money though.)
In other Nationals news, the team has reportedly already been told it will host the 2018 All-Star Game.
The Cubs traded third baseman Luis Valbuena and pitcher Dan Straily to the Astros for outfielder Dexter Fowler. The Cubs have super-prospect Kris Bryant almost ready to take over third base, and like Fowler's ability to get on base at the top of the order.