Offishial news, 12/20/23: Xavier Edwards' arm strength; new livestream capabilities

Here's what you should know with 99 days to go until Marlins Opening Day...

• Tuesday's winter ball notes: In the Dominican Republic, Troy Johnston made his LIDOM debut...sort of. The game was postponed due to rain in the middle of the third inning (before he could even take an at-bat). It was Johnston's first time playing right field in a professional game since May 2021 when he was with Low-A Jupiter.

• Elsewhere around baseball, Andrew McCutchen (1/$5M) re-signed with the Pirates. It will be McCutchen's 16th season in the majors and 11th in Pittsburgh.

• Xavier Edwards tells the
  that he's been working out as a shortstop and outfielder this offseason. He admits that his arm strength hasn't been the same over the last two years following a shoulder injury and he's focusing on restoring that.

• Evan Drellich of The Athletic reports that the Marlins are one of five teams whose digital broadcast rights are carried by Diamond Sports (in addition to local television rights). Amazon is in talks to invest in Diamond, potentially with the goal of streaming games for those teams while Diamond's Bally Sports affiliates face an uncertain future.

• On Locked On Marlins, Peter Pratt and Shaun Barrett discuss a hypothetical
  for Luis Arraez. I consider Arraez a high-priority extension candidate as well, but wouldn't budge far above $100M for him.

• With 25 BBWAA ballots entered into Ryan Thibodaux's Hall of Fame tracker, former Marlin Gary Sheffield has received 76.0% of the vote (needs 75.0% for election). I'll continue updating his status in Offishial News as more ballots come in.

• Join us tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET for a new edition of Fish On First LIVE on YouTube/Twitter/Instagram. You read that right: we now have a way to stream through Instagram Live. Also, for the first time since 2022, we can read and feature comments submitted by you through Twitter.

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Photo by Danis Sosa/Fish On First