MLB Bullets Manages To Be Handsome

Dear Santa: All I want for Christmas is Joe Maddon's black snakeskin jacket. I've included a picture here so you know what I'm talking about. You can get better views of it elsewhere, but this is the best picture we had. And if my readers want to chip in to get it for me, that would be fine too.

• I'm not going to bring you every story on the Winter Meetings because I think we (which includes all of you through your comments) have been doing a good enough job as it goes along. But the big story is the trade of Shelby Miller and Gabe Speier to the Diamondbacks for Dansby Swanson, Ender Inciarte, Aaron Blair and the Grand Canyon. (Where they are going to fit that in Georgia, I don't know. Might have to trade the Okefenokee Swamp to make room.) Marc Normandin writes that the Diamondbacks are "all-in" with this move.
• There are a lot of articles arguing that this trade was a massive overpay on the part of the D-Backs. Jeff Sullivan has one of the better thought-out pieces on the Braves heist.
• Cliff Corcoran breaks down all the players in the deal and thinks this move is the turning point in the Braves rebuilding efforts. Which are all of about five months old at this point.
• Ken Rosenthal writes that the Diamondbacks know what people inside and outside the game are saying about the trade and he explains why the D-Backs don't care what you think.
• David Brown doesn't talk about what Arizona gave up, but does argue that this move make the D-Backs a contender for 2016.
• Mike Oz calls the trade of Swanson, this summer's number one draft pick, unprecedented because it is unprecedented.
• The other big news is the trade that sent closer Aroldis Chapman to the Dodgers: the trade that didn't happen when a domestic violence incident from October surfaced. You can read the whole police report at that link.
• Jon Paul Morosi tries to figure out where Chapman, the Reds and MLB go from here in the uncharted territory of MLB's new domestic violence procedures. And lots of people want to know "What did the Reds know and when did they know it?"
• MLB has started an investigation.
• Ken Rosenthal writes that it isn't clear that MLB has enough evidence to take action against Chapman. But it isn't clear that they don't, either.
• Tim Brown explains that MLB's imperfect domestic violence policy leads to a cloudy future for all involved.
• Reports out of Los Angeles are that current Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen has been "crushed" by the Dodgers attempts to acquire Chapman.
• Bob Nightengale talked to team executives and says that Chapman is now a "toxic asset" that few if any team wants to touch at the moment.
• But that won't stop former Reds and current Nationals manager Dusty Baker from diving right in and defending Chapman, although Baker later backed off that defense somewhat while admitting he hadn't even read the description of the incident.
• David Schoenfield says Baker's comments show how much work baseball and America as a whole have to do to deal with the problem of domestic violence.
• Jamal Collier tries to fix the Dodgers as a "GM for a Day."
• Joe Torre says that MLB is working with the union on a policy to protect middle infielders from slides at second base.
• Jayson Stark talks to executives to try to predict when the remaining big name free agents will sign.
• Grant Brisbee tries to predict where Johnny Cueto will sign. He really has no idea so he just says "The Twins."
• For any team interested in signing Jason Heyward with the intent to move him to center field (I wonder what team might consider doing that?), August Fagerstrom says that by all indications, Heyward should be able to handle center field with ease.
• Andrew Simon tries to create a pennant-winning caliber ballclub with a salary cap of $30 million.
• The day that Dan Shaughnessy gets inducted into Cooperstown is the day that sportswriting died. Oh wait. Boston's biggest hack just got baseball's biggest honor for writing. I'm sure Theo Epstein will be there, as he once quit as the Red Sox GM over something Shaughnessy wrote.
• Braves executives are defending their traffic plans (or lack thereof) for their new stadium.
• A neat visual presentation of all of Baseball America's Top 100 Prospects lists.
• The Mariners have hired Amanda Hopkins as a scout. The daughter of a long-time scout and the sister of a minor leaguer, Hopkins will be the first full-time female baseball scout since the 1950s.
• A standoff over who loves Australia more in the Australian Baseball League was finally settled by a foul ball.
• Royals manager Ned Yost is having the last laugh over his critics.
• And finally, the highlight of sportswriting every year in the Winter Meetings is here. Craig Calcaterra has released his annual list of the Most Handsome Managers in Baseball. And for the first time in the three-year history of the list, Tigers manager Brad Ausmus has been dethroned. I think Calcaterra made up the list before the snakeskin jacket made an appearance, so I demand a recount.

And tomorrow will be a better day than yesterday, Buster.