Morning Mound Visit: Manfred says the quiet part out loud

R.J. Anderson | CBS Sports: When it comes to saying the quiet part out loud, Rob Manfred is already in midseason form. On the Dan Patrick Show, Manfred said, “The reality is we weren’t going to play more than 60 games no matter how the negotiations with the players went.” The implication that he meant they weren’t going to play 60 games after negotiations went into late June is fairly clear, but again, MLB dragged its feet with negotiations. That time ran out to play more than 60 games is on MLB.

Dan Szymborski | FanGraphs: There’s never going to be a point in this season where we get to stop saying “small sample size.” In small samples, players can perform Herculean tasks and put up video game numbers. That means certain rate stat records are in jeopardy of being broken including Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA record. Dan Syzmborski booted up ZiPS to calculate the probability of someone breaking the record and possibly getting stuck with an asterisk.

Russell Carleton | Baseball Prospectus $: Opening Day is about three weeks away, and that should feel more exciting. Yes, there will be baseball, but it will come at the expense of player (and coach and umpire and support staff) safety. Those that take the field will be doing so willingly, but just how much risk are they putting themselves under?