MLB Bullets Will Interview For The Job

Happy World Series Day! Oh yeah, I forgot. It's the Red Sox and the Cardinals. I guess we can just suffer our way through the holiday season again this year. Charlie Brown really should have been a Cubs fan, not a Giants fan. Although the Giants never won anything during his comic strip life, either.

• As you've probably heard by now, since the news broke just a couple hours after the last MLB Bullets, Tigers manager Jim Leyland has resigned after leading the team for the past eight seasons. His resignation was voluntary as the 69 year-old Leyland felt it was time to step down.
• Ken Rosenthal says despite getting yelled at by Leyland at least once, he really likes the gruff but lovable guy.
• Danny Knobler says that Leyland revived the moribund franchise and led them back to glory, but he no longer had the same fire inside of him and that's how he knew it was time to go.
• David Brown remembers the best moments of Jim Leyland's managerial career, complete with videos.
• David Schoenfield thinks that Leyland is a "borderline" hall of famer. The knocks against him is his mediocre winning percentage at .506 and only the one World Series title with the Marlins.
• Matt Crossman thinks Leyland was not only one of a kind, he was "the cryingest, curmudgeoniest, confoundingest man in the game."
• Trivia time (answer at the bottom), the retirements of Leyland and Davey Johnson mean the last two managers whose career started in the 1980s are gone. Which current major league manager got his first job the longest time ago? And with the retirements of Leyland and Dusty Baker's firing, which active manager has managed the most games?) (hint: they're not the same person.) Try not to just look it up.
• Who will replace Leyland in Detroit? Here are some candidates.
• One person it won't be is Diamondbacks manager (or former Tigers and Michigan State legend) Kirk Gibson, who says he has no interest in leaving Arizona.
• Dusty Baker wants the job, however. Or any managerial job, really.
• One job that Baker might be perfect for may become available soon, however. Don Mattingly's option year for 2014 vested when the team made the NLCS, but the Dodgers have made no attempt to re-sign him to an extension. Mattingly is not sure he wants to manage the team as a lame duck. The Dodgers have also made no public statement about even wanting Mattingly to return.
• Just to make Mattingly feel less welcome in Chavez Ravine, the Dodgers fired bench coach Trey Hillman and advance scout Wade Taylor. Both were considered Mattingly's closest friends and most trusted advisors on the team.
• Mattingly wants the Dodgers to either commit to him long-term or let him go. So far, the Dodgers are unwilling to do either.
• After a highly awkward press conference, Dylan Hernandez thinks the Dodgers need to end the uncertainty around Mattingly now, one way or the other.
• As does Ken Rosenthal.
• Bill Plaschke thinks both sides need to compromise for the sake of the children, Yasiel Puig, the team. He says both sides need each other. I'm not actually sure that's true. Especially on the Dodgers side of the equation.
• One team who knows who their new manager will be is the Reds, who promoted pitching coach Bryan Price to the manager's job.
• Chad Dotson thinks Price's hiring is a positive thing for the Reds. He also notes that former manager Dusty Baker didn't hire Price, nor was Price ever one of "Dusty's guys." But he also gives the Reds strong pitching staff a sense of continuity.
• Aaron Gleeman wonders if Price's hiring means Aroldis Chapman is destined for the rotation. Price was a big advocate of Chapman making the move, whereas Baker preferred to use him as a reliever.
• Paul White of USA Today gives a summary of the current state of the managerial openings.
• Cal Ripken Jr. is unlikely to be the next Nationals manager, or even get an interview, all the scuttlebutt to the contrary.
• Tim Lincecum signed a new two-year, $35 million dollar contract with the Giants, avoiding free agency.
• Cliff Corcoran absolutely cannot understand why the Giants would offer that deal to Lincecum. The Giants cold have just made him a $14.1 million qualifying offer, which would likely beat what he could get on the open market. Because Lincecum has been the worst starting pitcher in baseball the past two seasons among those with enough innings to qualify for the ERA title.
• Rob Neyer says that the Giants made a $35 million gamble on sabermetrics, which say that Lincecum isn't as bad as all of his other stats say he was the past two seasons. This is odd for two reasons. One, the Giants have never been a team that paid much attention to sabermetric analysis. And two, Rob Neyer is someone who pays a lot of attention to sabermetrics and he wouldn't offer Lincecum that contract, no matter what those numbers say.
• I guess we've got to discuss that World Series now. We've put it off long enough. At least it's the Red Sox and not the White Sox in the American League. Craig Calcaterra lists four storylines for this year's Series that we're likely to get sick of real soon. How about just it's the Cardinals and Red Sox?
• Everyone has their predictions. Jonathan Bernhardt sizes up the series and says: Sox in six.
• Tom Verducci says the key to the series is the Cardinals' pitch counts. The fewer pitches the Red Sox hitters see, the better it is for St. Louis. Conversely, high pitch counts mean trouble for the Cards. So you mean I've got to cheer for even longer games?
• Boston mayor Thomas Menino wants the Red Sox to win the "World Series Cup."
• Bobby Valentine has no hard feelings towards Boston and definitely wants the Red Sox to win.
• Two years after Albert Pujols left the Cardinals, the team hasn't missed a beat.
• Bernie Miklasz says the Cardinals do things the "right way" and that the Cardinals backlash says something sad about society where the team like the Cardinals are seen as "abnormal" and are resented and hated.
• As usual, Cardinals fans are clueless. The backlash isn't against the Cardinals team that I, as a Cubs fan, actually appreciate. People who aren't Cubs fans can appreciate the Cards even more. It's against cluess Cardinal fans like Miklasz who can't praise the Cardinals without insulting every other team in the league and their fans. Cubs fans might, but America doesn't hate the Cardinals, Bernie. We hate you. And they still don't get it.
• Matthew Kory ranks the top ten all-time postseason hitters. Carlos Beltran comes in at number one, and he's going to play in his first World Series game today.
• The Dodgers have finally come to an agreement with Cuban free agent infielder Alexander Guerrero. It's for four years, $28 million. The Dodgers have been connected with Guerrero for months.
• Jorge Arangure Jr. explains why the market for Cuban baseball players has exploded the past couple of seasons.
• Jon Heyman says the deal means the Dodgers aren't likely to pursue Robinson Cano, but he lists ten other teams that might. The Cubs are on that list, although he does say they're one of the less likely of the ten teams. I'd agree with that. The Cubs have a tiny chance of signing Cano.
• The Royals are looking to deal Billy Butler.
• The Phillies have traditionally been one of the most "anti-sabermetric" teams, but they've finally decided to hire a statistical analyst. Of course, it's one thing to hire one and it's another thing to listen to one.
• The Phillies are close to signing a new television deal, which should allow them to spend big this off-season.
• Astrodome preservationists have really awful taste. I think that goes without saying if they want to preserve the Astrodome.
• More updates from the Alex Rodriguez arbitration circus.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Benjamin Zeman gives five reasons we should be cheering for ARod. (h/t Staple Gunner)
• Finally, you can carve Vin Scully's face into a pumpkin, if you so desire.