MLB Bullets welcomes the winter

I know it’s technically not winter yet and I know that most of you living in the Old Northwest are not looking forward to it. But winter in baseball started on Monday.

Happy Halloween, by the way.

• Let’s just wrap up the World Series first. Jeff Passan goes into the clubhouse at the World Series to give an inside story of how the Red Sox won it all.
• Tom Verducci has an inside look at both the World Series and key moments of the entire season and declares the 2018 Red Sox to be one of the greatest teams of all time.
• Neil Paine and the number-crunchers at fivethirtyeight agree: The 2018 Red Sox are the best team in baseball since the 1998 Yankees. It should be mentioned, because this is a Cubs site, after all, that the 2016 Cubs are just behind this year’s Red Sox as the best team since the Yankees big ‘98 season. Only five of the top 20 teams in their calculations are from after integration.
• Grant Brisbee announces that the Red Sox are now the bullies that they always wanted to be. And as for the Dodgers? They’re still the same disappointing Dodgers that we’ve grown to know since 1988.
• Jonah Keri looks back at how the Red Sox built a juggernaut.
• Travis Sawchik notes that the Red Sox won a title after their front office went against the prevailing conventional wisdom about building a champion.
• The Red Sox get a lot of credit for their drafting talent and Jim Callis looks back at the 2011 draft that gave the Red Sox four of their 2018 stars. It’s also funny the way their then-scouting director gives himself a bad grade for drafting Mookie Betts—in the fifth round. (They did rate him as a second-round talent.) But 29 other teams messed up even worse and the Red Sox got Betts anyway.
• Tim Keown profiles Red Sox first-year manager Alex Cora and explains why the Red Sox came to believe in him so quickly.
• Whitney McIntosh looks at all the smart decisions Cora made in the World Series.
• Sam Miller notes that the Red Sox starting rotation won the Series—by pitching out of the bullpen.
• Clinton Yates writes about the redemptive power the World Series had on David Price, his career and the narratives that once surrounded him.
• Clayton Kershaw, on the other hand. Claire McNear argues that Kershaw’s failures in the postseason and especially in deciding games is currently a part of his legacy.
• Tim Brown wonders what is next for Kershaw. He can opt out of his contract with the Dodgers in the next couple of days.
• Eric Stephen places the Dodgers’ failure in the World Series directly on their hitters.
• Craig Edwards has four questions that LA needs to answer this winter after their second-straight World Series defeat.
• One of the questions is certainly free agent Manny Machado. Alden Gonzalez looks at the decisions facing the Dodgers and Machado. Machado sounds like someone who wants to stay, but the Dodgers seem less sure, especially because of the money and that they expect Corey Seager to return in 2019. Gonzalez does note that Machado’s behavior is not playing a role as everyone on the team seems to love him.
• The Dodgers do intend to sign manager Dave Roberts to an extension. Yes, Roberts has been criticized for many of his moves in the postseason, but he’s also the most successful Dodgers manager since Tommy Lasorda retired.
• One note before we leave the World Series. You may have read about the poor TV ratings of the 2018 World Series. Craig Edwards puts those TV numbers into some context. For those of you who don’t want to read the article, basically Edwards says the numbers aren’t good news, but there are reasons for them other than “baseball is dying.”
• The Mets introduced their new general manager Brodie Van Wagenen and Van Wagenen announced that manager Mickey Callaway will return in 2019. He also said he wants to sign Jacob deGrom, his former client, to a long-term extension.
• Buster Olney reports that baseball executives are shaking their heads in disbelief that the Mets would hand the keys a man who has never worked in an MLB front office before (ESPN+ sub. req.) The people Olney is talking to think this could go bad very fast.
• Bob Nightengale also blasts the decision to hire Van Wagenen. When you’ve lost Bob Nightengale. . . actually, I don’t know what this means because it’s never happened before.
• The Athletics are sticking with what works and have signed team vice-president Billy Beane, general manager David Forst and manager Bob Melvin to extensions.
• Tim Kurkjian has ten top storylines as we head into the winter.
• Jim Duquette does a ranking of the top-25 free agents. It’s like the Sears Catalog of baseball players, except that it still exists.
• Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus will not be a free agent as decided not to opt-out of his contract.
• OK, you want to know if Bryce Harper is going to be a Cub. I guess I’ve put it off long enough. The short answer is—we don’t know yet. (And his agent Scott Boras was joking when he said that Harper had already signed with a team.) Barry Svrluga and Chelsea Janes examine the top candidates for Harper’s services. Yes, the Cubs are at the top of the list.
• Will Leitch has a bizarre idea that Harper should sign a one-year deal and go back on the market next season. It would be interesting to see what he’d get on a one-year deal, but it isn’t happening.
• Mike Petriello thinks Nelson Cruz should be an in-demand free agent this winter and suggests some teams that might want the DH.
• Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto announced that he will not sign an extension with the Marlins and that his agent said that expects Realmuto to be traded before Opening Day.
• Jeff Sullivan looks at what went wrong with the Orioles this summer. TL:DR answer: everything. In case you’ve forgotten, the Orioles were projected to win 76 games this season. They fell just a tad short of that.
• The roster of the team of MLB All-Stars that will tour Japan this winter has been announced. No Cubs are making the trip, but what a terrific young outfield with Ronald Acuna Jr., Juan Soto and Rhys Hoskins.
• And finally, it’s election time and while I’ll avoid any politics beyond saying that everyone eligible to vote should please vote, there is a baseball connection here. Someone in the Boston area voted for David Price for district attorney.

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