Didi joins Girardi w/Phils

Joe Girardi in Philadelphia now has a SS he is very familiar with.

After the Yanks wouldn’t offer Didi the QO of $17.8 MM, Didi has gone to Philly to join Girardi at a one year deal of $14MM.

Maybe the Yanks can throw that Didi $$ to Cole.

But the Yanks might have been hoping Didi would come back at less than $17.8 MM. He did not.

Didi only signed a 1 yr deal, so he is hoping that a good 2020 re-establishes his value after a 2019 that did see 16 HR, 61 RBI in only 1/2 a season, but a .238 batting average as well as a significant amount of time missed.

It may be safe to say that Didi, in his short term with the Yankees, may be the 3rd best SS in Yankees history behind Derek Jeter and Phil Rizzuto. Who would you say would be better? Dent? Crosetti? Kubek? Koenig? I would put Didi #3, above all but Derek and the Scooter.

 

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Named to the All-MLB team: D.J. LeMahieu 1st team and Aroldis Chapman 2nd team.

Miller, Simmons make HOF. Munson, Mattingly and John come up short.

It would have been nice to see two or even three Yankee captains entering the HOF on the same day but it won’t happen.

Thurman Munson and Don Mattingly were not elected to the HOF yesterday by a committee, so neither will be joining Derek Jeter (expected to get in, perhaps unanimously, by the writers) and Tommy John was not elected either.

Elected were Marvin Miller and Ted Simmons.

Miller, who died in 2012 at the age of 95, was a union leader who fought for players rights, such as free agency and against the reserve clause and as a result, player’s salaries skyrocketed.

Simmons, a switch-hitting C, played for St. Louis 1968-1980, Milwaukee 1981-1985, and Atlanta 1986-1988. He helped the Brewers win the 1982 AL Pennant. He got MVP consideration 7x, finished in the top 10 3x, and was an 8x All Star. His 162 g. average was .285-16-92 with an OPS+ of 118. He hit .186-3-8 in 17 postseason games. He had 2472 hits and 248 HR.

2020 HOF ballot out, headlined by Jeter.

Derek Jeter headllines the 2020 HOF ballot, and the question is, will he go in unanimously as did his long-time teammate, Mariano Rivera?

Fromthe NY Post:

Ballots must be mailed by Dec. 31, and results will be announced Jan. 21.

Anyone elected will be inducted July 26 along with any selections by the Hall’s modern era committee (Tommy John, Don Mattingly and Thurman Munson are among those under consideration there), which meets and votes at San Diego on Dec. 8.

The ballot: (ex-Yankees, even briefly, in bold) Bobby Abreu, Josh Beckett, Heath Bell, Barry Bonds, Eric Chávez, Roger Clemens, Adam Dunn, Chone Figgins, Rafael Furcal, Jason Giambi, Todd Helton, Raúl Ibañez, Derek Jeter, Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent, Paul Konerko, Cliff Lee, Carlos Peña, Brad Penny, Andy Pettitte, J.J. Putz, Manny Ramírez, Brian Roberts, Scott Rolen, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield, Alfonso Soriano, Sammy Sosa, José Valverde, Omar Vizquel, Billy Wagner, Larry Walker.

It’s too early to really track now, but if you want to start tracking, say a month from now, here is a site you can check up on:

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=F2E5D8FC5199DFAF!17003&ithint=file,xlsx&authkey=!ALD8BEbKmTajwcI

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MLB is said to be eliminating and realigning some minor league teams, and Staten Island could be eliminated as part of the process. Some 40+ teams are involved in this 2021 realignment.

 

 

D.J. 4, Gleyber 17th in MVP vote.

Mike Trout of the Angels won his 3rd MVP—narrowly— over Alex Bregman of Houston. Trout got 17 of the 30 first place votes, Bregman the other 13.

Trout is the second youngest ever to win 3 MVP awards. The youngest being Stan Musial.

In the last eight years, Trout has 3 MVP awards, four runnerups and a fourth-place finish. If he retired NOW, he’d be in the HOF.  So close to 7 MVP Awards already.

He is tied for most in AL history. Barry Bonds won 7******** in the NL. (Asterisks necessary).

The Yankees’ D.J. LeMahieu finished 4th in the voting. Gleyber Torres finished 17th.

In the NL, Cody Bellinger won with 19 first place votes to 10 for defending MVP Chistian Yelich and one for Anthony Rendon of Washington.

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Will Smith became an early free agent signing, going to Atlanta from SF for 3 yrs. $39MM.

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Taking the Q.O. and NOT becoming free agents: Jake Odirizzi of the Twins and Jose Abreu of the White Sox.

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Thoughts on Mgr of Year; CYA winners announced, and Houston’s scandal.

Another blog makes a good point. It may be that a Yankees manager may NEVER be selected Mgr. of the Year because of several reasons. One being the expectations that the Yanks are supposed to be good because of who they are and their financial resources. So if they do well, it was because they were EXPECTED to do well. The manager only did what he was expected to do.

But that wasn’t really the case this year. Yes, the Yanks were expected to do well, but with the team they EXPECTED to have, not a team ravaged by injuries. Severino and Stanton missed almost the whole year each.  Betances and Montgomery the same. Didi two and a half months, Andujar all but a handful of games,  Hicks over half the year and so on and so on. Still, the Yanks won 103 games and the AL East. Still, Boone didn’t get MOY despite managing a M*A*S*H* unit to that victory total.

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It is looking more and more like Didi won’t be back. We’ll see, but in reading the tea leaves and insider commentary…

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This Houston cheating scandal with the cameras, video cheating, etc. has added another s to the Astros name on various sites. You can guess where that s is going…

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The CYA was announced. In the NL, Jacob DeGrom repeats as the Cy Young Award winner, getting 29 of the 30 first place votes.

It is amazing the lack of support DeGrom gets. Take a look at the win totals in these past two CYA winning seasons.

2018 10-9, 1.70, led majors in ERA.
2019 11-8, 2.43. Led NL in strikeouts.

21 wins COMBINED. The Mets are wasting his starts.

In the AL, teammates Justin Verlander & Gerrit Cole were neck and neck with Verlander winning his second CYA. He previously won the CYA in 2011 (and MVP that year too). In addition to two CYA, Verlander also has been the runnerup three times.

Verlander got 17 first place votes and 171 points to Cole’s 13 first place votes and 159 points.

Verlander 21-6, 2.58. Led majors in wins, starts and IP. Struck out 300.
Cole 20-5, 2.50. Led AL in ERA. Led majors with 326 strikeouts.

You could have flipped a coin between the two.

As for Cole, it’s expected the free agent won’t sign until the new year.

 

Boone runnerup for Mgr. of Yr.

In a close vote, Aaron Boone came up second for the Manager of the Year Award.

Both he and Rocco Baldelli of the Twins got 13 first place votes, but Baldelli got 13 2nd place votes to Boone’s 9 and won the points count, 106-96.

In the NL, Mike Shildt of St. Louis won despite getting 10 first place votes to Craig Counsell of Milwaukee’s 13. Shildt got 95 points overall to Counsell’s 88.

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Gabe Kapler has landed on his feet. Fired this offseason after two seasons as Phillies’ manager, he was hired as the new Giants manager. Former Yankee coach, and current Houston coach, Joe Espada, was in the running.

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Lastly, from MLB.com:

The Astros released a statement on Tuesday afternoon saying they were beginning an investigation, in cooperation with Major League Baseball, after a story in The Athletic (subscription required) accused the club of stealing signs electronically in 2017, the year they won the World Series.

Cashman runnerup for Exec. of Yr.

From ESPN

Tampa Bay Rays general manager Erik Neander has been voted Major League Baseball’s Executive of the Year.

Yankees’ GM Brian Cashman finished second in the voting.