Morning Briefing: LeBron James Secures Minority Stake In Fenway Sports Group

Good morning, Mets fans, and happy St. Patrick’s Day!

LeBron James is now a minority owner of the Boston Red Sox after secure a stake in John Henry’s Fenway Sports Group, according to the Boston Globe‘s Michael Silverman. The conglomerate owns the Red Sox, Fenway Park, the New England Sports Network, a racing team and Liverpool FC, which LeBron already owned a small stake in.

James became a minority owner along with his business partner Maverick Carter. They’re the first black partners in the history of Fenway Sports Group (which has been around for 20 years), according to Silverman’s report.

It hasn’t been disclosed how many shares of Fenway Sports Group LeBron and Carter were able to secure, but James can add “part owner of the Boston Red Sox” to his business résumé.

Now let’s get into the morning briefing.

Latest Mets News

The Mets beat the Astros 8-3 on Tuesday with four dominant innings from Jacob deGrom and home runs from Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor and Dominic Smith. Read the recap of the game here.

After the game, the Mets announced they optioned Sam McWilliams and Khalil Lee to Triple-A, trimming the spring training roster to 51.

The team revealed the coaching staff for all of its minor league teams as well as their “Complex” teams, which seem to be a grouping of minor-league players and teams that aren’t affiliated with a league. Brothers Ender and Endy Chavez will be the bench coaches of those teams, as Michael Mayer points out. Phil Regan also returns as a pitching development advisor.

The Mets also revealed the cover to their 2021 media guide.

Here’s the cover of the Mets 2021 media guide. pic.twitter.com/WXucGcXlS8

— Mike Mayer (@mikemayer22) March 16, 2021

Joe Lemire of SportTechie detailed an outline for the Mets (and other teams) to follow to bring them to the level of the Dodgers when it comes to analytics and technology.

Latest MLB News

The Washington Nationals are allowed to have up to 5,000 fans (around 12.5% capacity) on opening day, according to the Washington Post‘s Jesse Dougherty. The Mets start the year in Washington, so they’ll likely be playing in front of fans.

The contract details on Maikel Franco‘s major league deal with the Baltimore Orioles were revealed Tuesday. Jon Heyman says he’ll have an $800,000 base salary with $200,000 of incentives.

Billy Hamilton signed a minor league deal with the Chicago White Sox, according to The Athletic‘s James Fegan.

Latest on MMO

John Flanigan was active on the site yesterday taking a look at Francisco Lindor revealing contract extension talks have begun with the Mets, Miguel Castro‘s potential role in the bullpen, and Pete Alonso being locked in already for the upcoming season.

Flanigan also provided updates from Luis Rojas on the roster as it start to near Opening Day as well as Carlos Carrasco‘s status.

MMO Digital

During spring training, Wednesdays are ‘Division Day’ on the Locked On Podcast Network, where rival shows get together for crossover specials. On today’s episode of Locked On Mets, host Ryan Finkelstein is joined by Josh Neighbors, host of Locked On Nationals to talk about how these two teams stack up atop the NL East.

In part one of this two-part conversation, Ryan and Josh talk about the Mets offseason and how their starting pitching stacks up to the other teams in the NL East. They also discuss the Mets potent lineup and whether the Nationals have enough to compete against them.