Frank White and the Royals are having an ugly breakup

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Frank White played his entire 18-season career for the Royals, spent years after that coaching and broadcasting their games, and has a statue in front of Kauffman Stadium.

Yet last month the team fired White as their part-time television announcer and yesterday he took a new job on the independent league Kansas City T-Bones’ coaching staff, revealing a few more details about his ouster from the Royals.

White told Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star that he’ll never come back to the organization:

I’m just glad I’m not there anymore. I’m healthier. My blood pressure is stable. I’m laughing a lot more, I’m having more fun. This is good. This is good for me. It’s hard to go to work when the people there don’t see you as an asset, or someone who can help make the team better. When you’re the guy everybody messes with. When there’s nobody there to say, “This is Frank White, this is what he’s done for us, don’t mess with him.”

White, who the Royals paid around $300,000 last year, told Mellinger that owner David Glass fired him because of critical comments he made that supposedly did “irrevocable damage” to the team. And in fairness to the Royals according to Mellinger they got reports from other teams that White was badmouthing them privately.

Whatever the case, it sounds like the 40-year relationship is going to be very difficult to repair. Or as White put it: “I’ll tell you the most disappointing thing in this. Nobody stood up for me. Even when I was making sense to them, or thought I was making sense, nobody stood up for me. Nobody.”

Astros star Altuve has surgery on broken thumb, a WBC injury

Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports
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Houston Astros star Jose Altuve had surgery Wednesday on his broken right thumb, an injury that occurred in the World Baseball Classic and will significantly delay the second baseman’s 2023 debut.

The Astros announced that the 32-year-old Altuve had the procedure done in Houston and will stay there to begin his rehabilitation, with only one week left in spring training. The Astros will fly there on Sunday following their final Grapefruit League game in Florida, before playing a pair of exhibitions against their Triple-A team, the Sugar Land Space Cowboys, in Texas.

Altuve was hit by a pitch on Saturday while playing for Venezuela in the WBC. He might not be ready to return to the lineup until at least late May. The eight-time All-Star and 2017 American League MVP batted .300 with 103 runs, 28 homers and 18 steals for the World Series champion Astros last season. Mauricio Dubón and David Hensley are the leading candidates to fill in for Altuve at second base.

Altuve isn’t the only Major League Baseball star who was hurt in WBC play, of course. Mets closer Edwin Díaz will miss the 2023 season because of a torn patellar tendon in his right knee as the freak result of an on-field celebration following a WBC win by the Puerto Rico national team.

BROWN DOWN

The Astros also scratched right-hander Hunter Brown from his scheduled start Wednesday against the Mets in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

Manager Dusty Baker told reporters that Brown, who is ranked by MLB as the organization’s top prospect and competing for the last spot in the rotation, has discomfort in his lower back.

NOT QUITE READY

The New York Mets sent catcher Francisco Álvarez to Triple-A Syracuse, quashing for now the possibility of putting the prized 21-year-old on the opening day roster.

Álvarez, who made his major league debut with the Mets near the end of last season, had just three hits in 28 at-bats in Grapefruit League exhibition games. Ranked by MLB as the third-best prospect in baseball, Álvarez batted .260 with 27 homers and 78 RBIs in a combined 112 minor league games in 2022 at Double-A and Triple-A.

The Mets have newcomer Omar Narváez, a 2021 All-Star with the Milwaukee Brewers, as their primary catcher with Tomás Nido likely to play mostly against left-handed pitchers.

Speaking of the Mets, Díaz turned 29 on Wednesday – a rather subdued milestone for the right-hander considering his situation. Diaz nonetheless posted in Spanish an upbeat message on his Twitter account, thanking God for another year of life and describing his health as good and his outlook as positive in this initial stage of the roughly eight-month rehabilitation process.