MLB Bullets Is Looking For A New Skipper

Best time of the year. Except for the part about the Cubs being at home.

• Normally I'd don't handle Cubs news in MLB Bullets, but Ken Rosenthal throws a possible name into the hat for Cubs manager: Former Diamondbacks manager A.J. Hinch. Hinch seems to have an excellent baseball mind, although that didn't translate into success in Arizona. In fairness, that team suffered a lot of injuries and had a miserable bullpen. He had never managed at any level before taking on the Diamondbacks job and he seemed to have problems establishing his authority with no previous managerial experience and being younger than a couple of the players at the time.That wouldn't be an issue with the Cubs. His GM Josh Byrnes (who worked under Theo Epstein in Boston) liked the job Hinch did so much that he refused to fire him, so Arizona eventually fired both of them together. Fun fact: Hinch and Albert Almora hold the record for most times being selected to play for Team USA.
• Jon Heyman says Hinch's tenure in Arizona looks a lot better in retrospect, as several young players who went on to success under Kirk Gibson got their start under Hinch.
• One guy who won't be managing the Cubs in Ron Gardenhire, who got a two-year deal from the Twins.
• Neither will Ned Yost, who also got a two-year deal from the Royals. Dodged a bullet there.
• Ron Washington will be back with the Rangers, so my comment that I was 99% sure that Washington would return no matter what happened in game 163 seems smart. Or cowardly, if you noticed I gave myself wiggle room.
• The Mets are bringing back Terry Collins for the next two years. They're also planning to pick up some big contracts, either through trades or free agency, this offseason.
• The Mets having a .500 over the last 100 games this season was the reason Collins kept his job, writes Matt Ehalt.
• The Yankees will make every attempt to bring back Joe Girardi, thus potentially dashing the hopes of many on this site. ESPN New York says the Yankees are "hesitant" to give Girardi permission to talk to the Cubs.
• They may have lost the Wild Card game last night, but John Perrotto says that the Reds have thrived under Dusty Baker's leadership. Of course, he wrote that before last night's game.
• Both Jon Paul Morosi and David Schoenfield agree: the two reasons that the Rays are in the playoffs are named David Price and Evan Longoria.
• Will Leitch says that the playoffs are a "gauntlet of randomness" and that it's not baseball, but rather "baseball-like." On the other hand, when he rhetorically asks if baseball should determine their champion like English soccer, with no playoffs and just the best regular season wins, he demurs because the postseason is just so darn entertaining.
• A one-game wild card playoff? Put Doug Glanville down as a "no" to that idea.
• I wrote two long articles on which team you should cheer for in the playoffs, Emma Span just made this clever flowchart. She wins.
• It sounds like the Braves are going to leave Dan Uggla off of the postseason roster, at least for the first round.
• Terry Francona credits the Indians success this year to having "stayed away from chicken and beer."
• The Tigers intend to play Jhonny Peralta in left field in the playoffs.
• For all the speculation as to who is going to succeed Bud Selig as commissioner, Major League Baseball on Monday named Rob Manfred as Chief Operating Officer, overseeing the game's day-to-day operations. It's not a surprise, but that's about as clear a sign as possible that he's the overwhelming front-runner for the job.
• Ron Washington says that Yu Darvish had a "physical issue" in his last two starts.
• For a "baseball town," the Rangers had several thousand empty seats for Monday night's game.
• Mariners pitching prospect Danny Hultzen will have shoulder surgery.
• The Mariners intend to make a qualifying offer to Kendrys Morales. Matthew Pouliot thinks that's a great idea if he doesn't accept. Except he thinks he'll have to accept, so it's a dumb idea.
• Baseball attendance was the 138th lowest in history this year. I do like that headline.
• Postseason TV rating could be an all-time low this year--but it doesn't matter according to Tom Van Riper of Forbes. Advertisers will still buy time and broadcasters will still pay for the rights.
• The White Sox, the Nationals, the Pirates, the Red Sox and the Rangers could all be in the hunt for Cuban free agent Jose Abreu.
• The Marlins are selling unused tickets for Henderson Alvarez's no-hitter.
• Jeff Passan looks at the sequel to last year's AL MVP debate: Cabrera Versus Trout: The Legend of Curly's Gold. He says that once again, Mike Trout is the AL MVP. He also gives his ballot for the other awards
• Craig Calcaterra takes apart Buster Olney's "Cabrera For MVP" article (Olney's article is behind a paywall, but if you're an ESPN Insider, you can read it here.) and then Olney gets defensive and hits back with a weird non-sequitur. I've read Olney's article, and it can be summed up as 1) There are no rules for who the MVP should be 2) the distinction between "valuable" and "best" is ridiculous 3) Mike Trout is the best player in the AL 4) The BBWAA should issue instructions making point #2 clear and 5) I'm voting for Miguel Cabrera because the BBWAA hasn't changed the rules that don't exist. So yeah, his argument doesn't make sense. Neither does his rejoinder.
• For the first time in over a century, Louisville Slugger is not the number one bat among major leaguers. Maybe. It's hard to count these things as many hitters get bats from more than one company. But in any case, Louisville Slugger has lost its historic edge.
• CBS This Morning did a profile of Pirates farmhand Rinku Singh, the winner of the Indian reality TV show "Million Dollar Arm" and his quest to be the first Indian in the majors. But they managed to do the whole story (which is good) without mentioning Singh spent the whole season on the DL.
• Paul Lukas has a preview of next season's new batting practice jerseys. Not much change for the Cubs, just some red trim around the collar and the bear coming out of the C logo appears to be smaller. But other teams have bigger changes.
• Peter Gammons looks at what's good in the game.
• And finally, I laughed at this. DJ Gallo finds an optimistic quote uttered by one of the Astros after each one of their 51 wins.