MLB Bullets reaches a verdict

I’m sure everyone is in a terrific mood today.

By the way, I think I’m running out of “Judge” puns.

• The Yankees have won the last two games of the American League Championship Series and outfielder Aaron Judge has homered in both of them. Ian O’Connor writes that Judge has officially entered the pantheon of Yankees October gods.
• Tom Verducci marvels at Judge and compares him to Derek Jeter, thinking that Judge is the “future of baseball.”
• Ben Lindbergh looks at how Judge made some adjustments to go from a postseason goat to a postseason hero, all in the same season.
• Mark Feinsand thinks it is a sign of Judge’s maturity that he was able to evolve into the player he is today.
• Mike Lupica has his appreciation of Judge as well.
• Everything didn’t go great for Judge in game 4. In fact, he was involved in one of the strangest plays you’ll ever see, thanks to a bad read on a fly ball by Judge and replay review. Grant Brisbee has all the detail, if you haven’t seen it yet.
• Jeff Sullivan doesn’t want to talk about Aaron Judge. Instead, he marvels at the Todd Frazier three-run home run of game three. Sullivan thinks there is no way that should have been a home run from Frazier’s swing, but that Frazier managed to muscle it out anyway and that there was nothing cheap about it.
• The Yankees Twitter account pretty much burned the Red Sox account after they bragged about the anniversary of game four of the 2004 ALCS.
• Despite losing the past two games of the ALCS, Richard Justice thinks that the two Astros ace pitchers means Houston is still in good shape to make the World Series.
• Jorge L. Ortiz thinks that all the momentum is with New York and that all the pressure is on the Astros right now.
• Like the Cubs, the Astros bullpen hasn’t been covering themselves in glory this postseason.
• Mike Oz thinks the Astros lost game four by pulling starter Lance McCullers Jr. too early.
• Astros manager A.J. Hinch tells other managers to never read Twitter. Probably good advice for all of us.
• Travis Sawchik thinks baseball needs more teams like the Astros who actually put the ball in play.
• If you remember game 2 of the ALCS, the Carlos Correa home run and the little kid who caught the ball, you may want to know that there was a tragic backstory to the kid who caught the home run. Basically, the family, who are from the Austin area, were at the game to temporarily get away from the grief of losing the boy’s older brother in an ATV accident last month.
• Neil Paine explains how this year’s Dodgers may be different from all the Dodgers teams that have disappointed in the playoffs over the past few decades.
• Jay Jaffe has some thoughts on how the Dodgers broke to a 3-0 lead in the National League Championship Series. Oh yeah, you’re going to want to read that. (eye roll)
• Sam Miller wonders when managers will learn not to save their best reliever for a save situation that may never come?
• David Schoenfield sums up what he thinks we should have learned from the playoffs so far.
• This should probably be a separate article and it probably will be eventually, but we’re a little busy around here at the moment. Tracy Ringolsby writes that there is a “growing consensus” to expand to 32 teams with franchises in Montreal and Portland. He also details “one proposal” which would bring back Bud Selig’s old “radical realignment” proposal that would eliminate the leagues and put all the teams in four geographic divisions.
• Craig Calcaterra thinks the whole thing is a trial balloon that is unlikely to come to fruition, but he offers his thoughts on the plan anyway. I’m all for adding Montreal to the National League and Portland to the AL, but I’m not good with anything else in the proposal.
• Fired Tigers manager Brad Ausmus has no interest in taking the Mets job, which shows he may be a smarter manager than I’ve given him credit for. He would like the Red Sox job. Also, Robin Ventura has shown little interest in the Queens position, writes Jon Heyman.
• Steven Goldman argues that in the larger scheme of things, managers don’t really matter all that much.
• The Twins have hired longtime Baseball America editor John Manuel for their scouting department. As Manuel wrote, the irony of this is that it was “first reported by Jon Heyman.” He got scooped on his own story.
• Peter Gammons makes the plea for teams to extend the netting and to make fan safety their top priority.
• I can’t say I really understand this (nor am I interested in it enough to put the work into figuring it out), but Carl Aridas uses a technique designed to figure the price of Wall Street options to estimate baseball salaries. You might find this stuff fascinating though.
• The taxpayers of Las Vegas are getting ripped off as the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau has agreed to pay $80 million over the next 20 years for the naming rights to Cashman Field. As the article notes, for $4 million a year, they could probably buy the naming rights to all 15 other stadiums in the Pacific Coast League. There are major league stadiums that don’t get $4 million a year for naming rights. The article notes that this is probably an underhanded scheme to pay for a new stadium for the 51s while claiming that the team is paying for it themselves. I suppose the only saving grace is that compared to what the city is giving the Raiders, they should consider themselves fortunate to only get fleeced for $80 million. (h/t Big League Stew)
• The bat from the Ken Griffey Jr. statue outside Safeco Field was stolen. The perpetrator has been arrested and the bat recovered.
• ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcaster Dan Shulman has done his last Sunday Night Baseball game after seven seasons. If you didn’t hear about it, it’s because Shulman made it clear that he didn’t want any fuss made over his departure.
• An NPB playoff game was a muddy mess thanks to rain and an all-dirt infield.
• Pirates fan Dom Cosentino talks to former Braves player Francisco Cabrera on the 25th anniversary of the hit that broke the heart of every baseball fan in Pittsburgh.
• And finally, a young Athletics fan in Santa Rosa County lost his home in the Wine Country Fire. He was most upset about losing his collection of baseball memorabilia and wrote the A’s to tell them how much the team means to him. The A’s and teams around baseball are chipping in to give the kid a new baseball memorabilia collection.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. I hope there will still be baseball.