MLB Bullets found its halo

I’m hoping that today’s Bullets will be the final one dominated by Shohei Ohtani and Giancarlo Stanton for a while. I think their stories are pretty much over until March.

Also, I liked this Tweet from Grant Brisbee.

OK. Which one of you losers fell down on the job and forgot to mention that Chicago has a Medieval Times too? I’m betting Jed takes the fall on this one.

• Sure, Ohtani is an Angel and Stanton is a Yankee, but the big news today is that Craig Calcaterra has released his 5th annual ranking of the handsomest managers in MLB and Brad Ausmus has been knocked off his throne. Sure, that’s in part because Ausmus isn’t a manager anymore, at least not this year, but he probably would have been knocked off the top anyway. Just check out the photos of the new number one.
• OK, on to real news. So were you shocked when Shohei Ohtani chose the Angels? I bet you were. But not nearly as stunned as Angels general manager Billy Eppler, who literally fell out of his chair when he got the news.
• Zach Kram is thrilled, and thinks you should be too, that Ohtani and Mike Trout are going to be teammates.
• Tommy Stokke agrees: Ohtani to the Angels is good for baseball.
• Jonah Keri also chimes in that Trout is finally playing for a contender, and that’s a good thing.
• Will Leitch is stunned that the best player in baseball has never been on the winning team of a playoff game and thinks Ohtani should change that.
• Ohtani, for his part, already feels comfortable enough with his teammates that he can jokingly request Trout’s number.
• Jeff Sullivan analyzes how good the Angels can expect to be with Ohtani.
• Ben Lindbergh thinks that the Angels signing Ohtani is good news for everyone but Albert Pujols, who could find himself out of a job soon.
• Buster Olney writes that no matter who won the Ohtani sweepstakes, MLB is going to launch an investigation to make sure no funny business occurred in the recruiting process.
• Did you hear Giancarlo Stanton got traded? Jonah Keri believes that the deal is a huge win for the Yankees and their fans.
• Grant Brisbee argues that the Yankees were smart to move on Stanton now rather than wait next year for Bryce Harper.
• Neil Paine tries to predict just how good Stanton will be in 2018 with the Yankees.
• Craig Calcaterra calls the Yankees lineup with Stanton in it “terrifying.”
• Andrew Marchand hails this deal as a return the Yankees era of being the “evil empire.”
• Zach Kram agrees and say that the Yankees are acquiring great players just because they can, much like they used to.
• On that front, Mike Lupica remarks that the Stanton deal reminds him very much of the deal that brought Alex Rodriguez to the Bronx.
• Gabe Lacques looks at what the Stanton deal means for the Yankees and the rest of baseball. It’s good news if you’re one of those who thinks the Cubs will pursue Bryce Harper next winter.
• Dave Cameron notes that the American League, like the National League, is becoming divided into haves and have-nots.
• Eric Longenhagen gives a rundown of the two prospects the Marlins got from the Yankees for Stanton.
• By the way. Starlin Castro? Class act.
• Of course, Castro may not end up leaving New York yet. The Mets are expected to call the Marlins to ask about a deal for Castro.
• Michael Baumann rips Marlins owner Bruce Sherman, who says he isn’t engaging in a good faith attempt at rebuilding as much as he’s liquidating its assets and making Jeter take the blame. (He notes that Sherman has a long history of buying corporations and stripping them for parts, so to speak.)
• Baumann also compares and contrasts how the Angels went about rebuilding a team around one superstar to what the Marlins are doing. The Angels come off looking better, even if he admits they got a little lucky. Baumann also expands in this piece what he wrote about Sherman, comparing the Marlins current moves to someone who burns down their own building to commit insurance fraud.
• Tommy Stokke gives a defense of the Marlins and Jeter, although only in connection to the Stanton deal.
• Of course, now the Marlins are at least ‘listening to offers” for Marcell Ozuna. I kind of thought the point of trading Stanton was so the team could build around Ozuna and Yelich? Guess not.
• Buster Olney predicts what the next big news in MLB will be now that Ohtani and Stanton are off the board.
• Matt Kelly has the needs of all 30 teams as they head into the Winter Meetings.
• David Schoenfield has a Winter Meetings preview.
• Mark Feinsand also has a preview of the Winter Meetings.
• Richard Justice has 7 predictions for the Winter Meetings, although his proposed “Kyle Schwarber for David Price” deal isn’t happening unless the Red Sox agree to eat about 75% of Price’s salary.
• The Veterans Committee of the Hall of Fame elected two members of the “Modern Baseball Era” and they are two members of the 1984 Tigers: Alan Trammell and Jack Morris. This is why I don’t care about the Hall anymore. Trammell should have gotten in years ago. Morris should never have gotten in. Their teammate, Lou Whitaker, should have gone in with Trammell.
• Cooperstown is pretty much Jay Jaffe’s thing, so he breaks down the cases for each of the inductees.
• Former Cardinals and Brewers catcher Ted Simmons missed being inducted by one vote. Simmons is a real borderline case for me, but he certainly deserved induction more that Morris.
• Bill Baer writes that Morris doesn’t belong in the Hall. Not just because his stats don’t merit induction, but also because he’s a pig of a human being.
• David Schoenfield is happy about the election, in part because the Tigers and the 1980s are underrepresented in Cooperstown. But he also doesn’t see how the Hall keeps Curt Schilling and Mike Mussina out after electing Morris. I’ve seen the case made on Twitter that now that Morris is in, we pretty much have to elect Chris Carpenter too.
• Speaking of the Cardinals, they signed free agent reliever Luke Gregerson to a two-year deal.
• Red Sox pitcher Steven Wright was arrested on a domestic assault charge. There will be an investigation.
• Wichita is coming closer to having an affiliated minor league team again. The largest city in Kansas has not had a team in affiliated baseball since 2007.
• The Braves Triple-A Affiliate has a new name and it is the Gwinnett Stripers. That one is going to be a nightmare for typos and autocorrect.
• Team Puerto Rico had a reunion for a charity softball game and there was much bleach. Javy Baez was there, but it didn’t look like he bleached his hair.
• Finally, Shohei Ohtani wants the fans to come up with a nickname for him. The Big Oh? The Oh-Dog? The Oh-Must-See? Oh-Oh-Klahoma? (That last one doesn’t even make sense.) It seems I’m not good at this. Have at it in the comments.

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