Things are still pretty quiet as we wait for the free agent signing period to start.
Just to let Al know that I'm accepting the $15.3 million qualifying offer. So no free agency for me.
- The Dodgers have hired Athletics Assistant GM Farhan Zaidi as their new General Manager. Just to be clear, this makes him the Jed to team president Andrew Friedman's Theo.
- The winners of the 2014 Rawlings Gold Glove Awards were announced. They also announced the finalists for the various BBWAA awards, but that's just a silly excuse for off-season programming for the MLB Network. It's not like they're going to vote again for the finalists.
- Mark Simon breaks down the Gold Glove winners.
- They announced ten candidates for the "Golden Era" ballot for the Hall of Fame. In this case, they're actually going to be voting on the ten candidates. In any case, Jay Jaffe has an in-depth look at the cases for all ten candidates in part one and part two.
- David Schoenfield thinks only one of the ten are worthy of induction. I happen to agree with his choice. (He does say he's wavering on another candidate.)
- The Twins announced Paul Molitor as their new manager, and Molitor refused to buy everyone a round of drinks, thus violating a baseball tradition that stretched back for 24 hours. Richard Justice thinks Molitor is the right man for the Twins job. Of course he does.
- The Indians signed manager Terry Francona to a two-year extension.
- CJ Nitkowski looks at the problems that great ballplayers have when they become managers.
- Mark Newman puts together a team made out of the current managers. Unsurprisingly, there is a surplus of catchers and a lack of pitching. Robin Ventura and his one career inning on the mound gets to be the closer.
- The deadline passed for making a qualifying offer to impending free agents. Anthony Castrovince looks at each of them and offers his opinion on who should accept and who should decline. No one has accepted a QO in previous seasons.
- CJ Nitkowski has some issues with the qualifying offer system.
- The Yankees are saying they won't go after any of the big-ticket free agents and will try to keep their own players instead. Do we believe them? They've said stuff like this before and didn't mean it.
- The Cardinals plan to go after Andrew Miller in free agency.
- Rob Neyer warns the Royals not to stand pat this offseason.
- Neyer also looks at the problems the Giants face going into the offseason.
- The Rockies are likely to try to trade Carlos Gonzalez this winter. David Schoenfield looks at where CarGo might end up.
- The Phillies want to trade Ryan Howard. As Craig Calcaterra says "Good luck with that!"
- The Phillies are looking to unload a lot of veterans. Ken Rosenthal writes that Marlon Byrd is drawing the most interest so far.
- Drew Fairservice points out the weakness in the market for "one-dimensional" players who don't play defense.
- Jake Peavy would like to be part of a "package deal" with Jon Lester. No word on what Lester thinks of that.
- The Angels signed Cuban infielder Roberto Baldoquin for an $8 million bonus. Because Baldoquin is subject to the international "bonus pool," the Angels will be limited in their international bonuses for the next two years.
- The Twins are interested in bringing back Torii Hunter.
- Tony Blengino looks at the World Series winners and asks "How good were the Giants this year?"
- Craig Calcaterra looks at the reasons behind increasing parity in baseball. Expansion's not one of them.
- The Diamondbacks are close to signing a new TV deal.
- The Twins are dropping the pinstripes from their home uniforms.
- David Bell is the Cardinals new bench coach.
- Eno Sarris has a list of ten smart things ballplayers said this season. Two are by Sam Fuld, which I'm sure is noted on his Wikipedia page already.
- Grantland has a profile of incoming MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. They compare him to Tom Hagen, which explains why Frank McCourt woke up with a horse's head in his bed one morning.
- Will Leitch ranks the fanbases of all 30 teams on how "tortured" they are. You don't have to think twice about who is number one. His top three are all in the NL Central.
- And finally, the bottom of ninth inning of the 2014 World Series on NES "RBI Baseball." This was done first and best with the sixth game of the 1986 World Series, but it's cool to see it again and the Gregor Blanco miscue in 8-bits.