Something clever goes up here.
- When last we joined you, it was widely reported that Bud Black had been hired as the new manager of the Nationals. In a shocking turn of event, the Nationals announced that Dusty Baker will be their new manager.
- Bob Nightengale explains how the deal with Black fell apart and calls the Nats a "dysfunctional" team.
- Nats beat writer Barry Svrluga says that this incident shows the Nats in a poor light and is damaging the Nats reputation in the game.
- Thomas Boswell lays the blame firmly on ownership.
- Steve Kettman says that Baker's biggest task as Nats manager will be making a man out of Bryce Harper.
- I link to that last silly piece because there were several writers that took time to point out how silly that sounds. But Chris Cwik sums them up nicely by calling Kettman's piece "insane" and says Harper's personality was not the reason the Nationals didn't win.
- Mike Bates writes that the Nats messed this whole thing up, but they may have bungled their way into hiring the right manager.
- Eddie Matz thinks the same thing.
- Jeff Sullivan argues that Baker is a good manager. I'm sensing a theme here. Sullivan also points out that Baker's reputation as a destroyer of arms is outdated.
- Bud Black will interview for the Dodgers managerial job now.
- Wrapping up the World Series, Grant Brisbee argues that the Royals won with a combination of talent and "devil magic."
- Rob Neyer points out that the Royals have been a very good team for a while now.
- Jonathan Rand says last year's World Series defeat motivated the Royals this season.
- AJ Cassavell argues that the Royals comeback in Game 5 of the ALCS deserves a spot among the greatest postseason comebacks of all time and it was the defining moment for this year's Royals.
- Zachary Levine has several lessons from the Royals. Lesson one: get Lorde to sing a song about Cubs this season.
- Chris Cwik argues that other teams will have trouble recreating the Royals recipe for success.
- The celebrations that broke out in Kansas City Metro were so big that they showed up on weather radar.
- Here's a great new tradition in baseball. The San Francisco Giants bought pizza for the Royals office staff on Monday. The Red Sox had bought them pizza the year before. So the Royals will have to buy the Cubs pizza next year, right?
- Turning to the losers, Mets manager Terry Collins took the blame for the loss in Game Five, saying he let "my heart get in the way of my gut" in leaving Matt Harvey in the game to start the ninth inning.
- Despite that, the Mets and Collins have agreed on a two-year contract extension.
- CJ Nitkowski argues that Collins should never have let a player change his mind like that.
- Nitkowski also points out some questionable defensive positioning in the ninth inning by the Mets in Game Five that may have contributed to the comeback.
- Joe Sheehan thinks Eric Hosmer made the right call breaking for home in the ninth on the grounder to third, saying the odds of a bad throw by Duda were greater than the odds of Hosmer scoring from third with two outs. He also blasts the decision to leave Harvey in the game..
- David Schoenfield looks at other times in postseason history that managers faced a decision whether to leave a player in the game.
- Yoenis Cespedes is not expected to re-sign with the Mets as a free agent.
- Adam Rubin has five questions that face the Mets this offseason.
- Will Leitch has ten lessons learned from the entire postseason.
- The first power rankings for the 2016 season are out and the Cubs are number one.
- Tim Kurkjian gives ten storylines for the offseason.
- Rob Neyer looks at the Fielding Bible Awards.
- Those "patriotic tributes" at the ballpark are paid product placements from the Department of Defense. The leagues deny this, sort of.
- The Blue Jays promoted assistant general manager Tony LaCava to interim GM. I'm not sure this is anything other than title inflation, but we'll see.
- Cardinals fans (and writers) really think it's all about them, don't they?
- And finally, if you want to know why Andrew McCutchen won the Roberto Clemente Award, here's one big reason why. A kid whom McCutchen had visited in a hospital hit a home run in a game and sent McCutchen the autographed home run ball.
And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.