MLB Bullets brewed up a bullpen

Good morning. The NLCS starts tonight and I’m bummed because I’m cheering for the Dodgers.

• The Red Sox move on to the the ALCS and Grant Brisbee thinks that the ninth inning of Game 4 of the Red Sox/Yankees ALDS was a perfect example of why baseball is so terrific.
• Jeff Passan writes about how Boston manager Alex Cora won the trust of the Red Sox team throughout the year and led them to a win over the Yankees.
• David Schoenfield thinks Cora made all the right calls in their ALDS victory.
• Hayley Glatter writes about how the Red Sox did something that seemed impossible once: they turned the Yankees into underdogs.
• Craig Calcaterra has some possible scapegoats for the Yankees downfall
• Jon Heyman reports that the Yankees think game three starter Luis Severino was tipping his pitches.
• MIke Axisa says maybe Severino was tipping his pitches but he has more problems than just that.
• Jack Dickey writes about how a 100-win season for the Yankees turned into a disappointment.
• Mike Axisa looks at four questions the Yankees must answer this winter.
• Craig Edwards notes that the Yankees have a lot of available payroll money to spend this winter.
• Jon Heyman reports that the Yankees are expected to target free agent pitcher Patrick Corbin this winter.
• Richard Justice lists the ten biggest stars in the upcoming ALCS. I’d say Jose Altuve is both the biggest star and the littlest star in the ALCS.
• Will Leitch has some fun facts about each possible World Series matchup. Yes, I agree that a Brewers/Astros matchup would be weird with the Brewers representing the NL and the Astros representing the AL.
• Tim Kurkjian has three reasons why the Dodgers will defeat the Brewers in the NLCS.
• Mike Petriello compares the Dodgers and Brewers rosters.
• Eric Stephen thinks the key to the Brewers possible success will be their dominant bullpen.
• Sam Miller outlines how the Brewers bullpen came together.
• Jesse Rogers on how Brewers manager Craig Counsell’s experience as a player has helped to shape him as a manager.
• The Brewers thought they were getting a good player when the traded for Christian Yelich, but they didn’t think he was this good. Eddie Matz looks at how Yelich went from being a pretty good player to the probable NL MVP.
• No one is enjoying the Brewers’ playoff success more than their 84-year-old Hall-of-Fame broadcaster Bob Uecker.
• The Dodgers expect that Clayton Kershaw will opt out of his current contract.
• More bad news off the field for the Dodgers. A report in The Daily Beast contends that emails from 2015 tell that a Dodgers minor-league player sexually assaulted a maid at the team hotel in Glendale, AZ. The player was sent home to the Dominican Republic and eventually released, but the Dodgers informed neither the police nor MLB about the incident. The player, who is unnamed in the piece, eventually signed with a different team who knew nothing about the alleged assault. The player is now out of baseball, according to the report.
• Other legal issues in that former MLB outfielder Lenny Dykstra has been indicted on drug charges and “making terroristic threats.” Dykstra was my least-favorite ballplayer of all-time even before his retirement career as a con man and a thug, so this just moves him further down the list.
• There was a trade! The Marlins traded reliever Kyle Barraclough to the Nationals for international pool money as Miami tries to sign the Mesa brothers.
• Craig Edwards breaks down the Barraclough deal.
• Adam Wainwright has not thrown his last pitch for the Cardinals as the team signed him to a new one-year deal.
• Diamondbacks reliever Brad Ziegler announced his retirement. Ziegler led the league in appearances this year with 82.
• Jon Heyman has an update on the Twins’ managerial search, including Giants hitting coach Hensley “Bam-Bam” Meulens. He should get the job on the basis of his nickname alone.
• Heyman also has an update on the Mets general manager search, which clearly no one wants at this point. That’s an overstatement, but it’s not sounding like a job with a lot of independent authority.
• Ben Lindbergh understands why teams are going with “bullpenning,” but he fears the trend is hurting the attractiveness of the narrative of the game. Basically, it’s hard to market a “bullpenning” start like they used to bill a Phillies/Mets game as “Carlton v. Seaver” back in the 1970s.
• One of those great pitchers from the 1970s is former Cubs great Ferguson Jenkins and he opens old baseball cards with Mike Oz.
• And finally, the Dodgers gave second baseman Chase Utley a retirement gift of a rocking chair with the Phillies and Dodgers logos on it. He seems to like it.

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