Morning Mound Visit: Giants sign Scott Kazmir to minor league deal

Brady Klopfer | McCovey Chronicles: Find someone who loves you as much as Farhan Zaidi loves taking a chance on Scott Kazmir. The Giants signed the lefty to a minor league deal on Tuesday, and he’ll make just $600,000 if he makes the big league team. That’s a big ‘if,’ however. Kazmir hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2016.

Patrick Dubuque | Baseball Prospectus $: Kevin Mather is no longer with the Seattle Mariners and he’s almost certainly out of Major League Baseball for good. Another Kevin Mather is just going to take his place. From the executive perspective, Mather’s mistake wasn’t doing the things he admitted to, it was that he admitted to them.

RJ McDaniel | FanGraphs: The Northwest League is gone, replaced by the High-A West Division which features some but not all of the members of the old NWL. The names of the surviving teams are mostly the same, and parent clubs have only slightly changed, but something has still been lost.