2019 in baseball


Champions

Major League Baseball

Other champions

Major League Baseball

January

  • January 3 – Veteran shortstop Troy Tulowitzki signed a one-year contract with the New York Yankees after missing the entire 2018 season due to bone spurs. The Yankees will pay Tulowitzki the major league minimum salary for 2019, and the contract includes a no-trade clause. For the Yankees, Tulowitzki offered a lost-cost solution to their hole at shortstop, as Didi Gregorius will miss at least the first part of 2019 while he rehabs from Tommy John Surgery.
  • January 11 – The Boston Red Sox and American League MVP Mookie Betts settled on a one-year deal worth $20 million. The salary figure is a record for a player in his second year of arbitration eligibility, with Betts still having one more year of arbitration-eligibility to go. Betts won his arbitration case with the Red Sox a year ago, securing $10.5 million, and will become an unrestricted free agent in 2021.
  • January 15 – Longtime Pittsburgh Pirates broadcaster and former pitcher Steve Blass announced that he would be retiring following the 2019 season, his 60th with the Pirates organization. Blass, 76, was signed as a player in 1960. He spent his entire ten-year career in the majors with the team. His most productive season came 1n 1972, when he posted a 19–8 record with a 2.49 ERA, 12 complete games and five shutouts, while earning an All Star berth and finishing as the runner-up in NL Cy Young voting. In addition, he pitched two complete games victories for the Pirates in Games 3 and 7 of the 1971 World Series triumph over the Baltimore Orioles. Afterwards, Blass joined the team's broadcast crew in 1983. Since 2005, he worked Pirates home games and select road trips, and the 2019 season will be his club-record 34th year as a color analyst for the organization.
  • January 21 – The Cincinnati Reds acquire veteran starting pitcher Sonny Gray from the New York Yankees, which was followed by signing him to a three-year extension of $30,500,000 that includes a $12 million club option for 2023. Reiver Sanmartin, a minor league pitcher, also came to Cincinnati along with prospect second baseman Shed Long winding up in Seattle after being traded by the Yankees. New York also received an undisclosed draft pick.
  • January 22 – For the second consecutive year, the Baseball Writers' Association of America elects four players into the Hall of Fame, including the first player ever selected unanimously, Mariano Rivera, Major League Baseball's all-time saves leader, who was listed on all 425 ballots cast. Rivera is joined by Roy Halladay and Edgar Martínez, both of whom receive 363 votes, and Mike Mussina, who receives 326 votes. Rivera and Halladay are both elected in their first year on the ballot, while Mussina is elected in his sixth year and Martínez in his tenth and last. Halladay, who died in a plane crash in November 2017, also becomes the first player to be elected posthumously by the BBWAA since Roberto Clemente in 1973. Also in his final year of eligibility, Fred McGriff was unable to receive enough votes to be elected in to Cooperstown by the BBWAA.
  • January 26 – The Los Angeles Dodgers signed free agent center fielder A. J. Pollock a four-year, $55 million deal, plus a $10 million player option for a fifth year. If Pollock declines that option, the Dodgers must buy out his fifth year for $5 million.

    February

  • February 8 :
  • * MLB commissioner Rob Manfred indicated at the annual owners' meeting that the league is not open to the introduction of the designated hitter rule to the National League. It emerged recently that MLB and the MLB Players Association were exchanging proposals on a variety of significant potential rules changes before the upcoming season. Some of those, including the introduction of a twenty-second pitch clock and a rule requiring any pitcher that enters a game to face at least three hitters, were set forth by the league.
  • * The Philadelphia Phillies acquired All-Star catcher J. T. Realmuto in a four-player transaction with the Miami Marlins. In exchange, the Marlins received right-handed pitcher Sixto Sánchez, catcher Jorge Alfaro, lefty-handed pitching prospect Will Stewart and international bonus slot money.
  • February 18 – San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy announced that the 2019 season would be his last. Bochy is ranked 11th in all-time managerial wins with 1,926 career victories.
  • February 22 – The San Diego Padres announced the signing of free agent Manny Machado. The 10-year deal will pay Machado $30 million annually through the 2028 season, and contain a six-team no-trade clause. He will play at third base for San Diego.
  • February 26 – The Colorado Rockies and third baseman Nolan Arenado agreed to an eight-year, $260 million contract with an opt-out in three years. A four-time All-Star and six-time Gold Glove Award winner, Arenado will receive the highest annual salary of $32.5 million, surpassing the $31 million of Detroit Tigers designated hitter Miguel Cabrera, and behind the top earner in Major League Baseball, Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Zack Greinke, at $34.4 million, for the largest in MLB history.

    March

  • March 2 – The Philadelphia Phillies reached an agreement to sign free agent outfielder Bryce Harper to a 13-year, $330 million contract. Harper will receive a $10 million salary and a $20 million signing bonus for the upcoming season. He will then be paid $26 million annually from 2020 through 2028 and $22 million annually from 2029 to 2031. In addition, Harper received full no-trade rights and does not possess any opt-out opportunities. It now stands as the largest fully guaranteed contract in the history of North American team sports, surpassing the 10-year, $300 million contract that Manny Machado signed with the San Diego Padres just the previous week, as well as the 13-year, $325 million deal that Giancarlo Stanton signed with the Miami Marlins in 2014. Mexican boxer Canelo Álvarez signed an 11-fight contract worth $365 million in 2018, but the contract is not guaranteed.
  • March 9 – In a 5–2 victory over Virginia Tech in the second game of a doubleheader, Mike Martin became the all-time winningest baseball coach in Florida State history with his 2,000th career win and the first ever coach to reach the 2,000 win mark.
  • March 14 – Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association announced an agreement on significant changes to MLB roster rules that will take effect in 2020. Specifically:
  • * Active rosters, currently limited to 25 players prior to September 1, will increase to 26 players.
  • * The "expanded roster", which takes effect on September 1 of each season, will be reduced from 40 to 28 players. Additionally, all teams will be required to carry 28 active players for regular-season games on or after September 1.
  • * Players will be specifically designated as "pitchers" or "position players" before each season, with this designation being fixed throughout the season. From 2020, only players designated as "pitchers" can pitch in any regular-season or postseason game, with the following exceptions:
  • ** One team is ahead by at least 6 runs when the player assumes a pitching role.
  • ** The game is in extra innings.
  • ** The player assuming the pitching role has qualified as a "two-way player". A player qualifies as such if, in the current or immediately previous season, he has pitched at least 20 MLB innings and played at least 20 games as a position player or designated hitter, with at least three plate appearances in each game counting toward the latter limit. No player in the 2019 MLB season has yet qualified as a "two-way player" under the new rule. The most prominent two-way player in today's game, Shohei Ohtani, cannot qualify in 2019 because he is not pitching while recovering from Tommy John surgery.
  • * A joint MLB/MLBPA committee will make recommendations on limiting the size of pitching staffs that, if approved, will also take effect in 2020. MLB has proposed limiting pitching staffs to 13 through August 31, and 14 from September 1 to the end of the regular season.
  • March 19 – The Los Angeles Angels signed outfielder Mike Trout to a ten-year extension that will pay him $426.5 million through the 2030 season. This represents the largest contract ever in sports history, overtaking boxer Canelo Álvarez, who signed an 11-fight $365 million deal with sports service DAZN in 2018. It is also almost $100 million more than Bryce Harper received on March 2, when he agreed a 13-year, $330 million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies.
  • March 20 – The Seattle Mariners defeated the Oakland Athletics 1–0 in the first game of the 2019 regular season at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan. This was the first of a two-game series that was widely expected to be the finale for Ichiro Suzuki as a player.
  • March 21 – Immediately after the Seattle Mariners' 5–4, 12-inning victory over the Oakland Athletics in the second and final game of their Tokyo series, Ichiro Suzuki goes 0 for 4 as Seattle's right fielder, then leaves after the 8th inning. Ichiro announced his retirement after the game, ending a playing career in both NPB and MLB that spanned 27 seasons.
  • March 23 – The Diablos Rojos del México opened their new Alfredo Harp Helú baseball stadium in Mexico City.