MLB Bullets prepares for the winter

Love will tear us apart.

• The offseason is upon us so let’s start out with probably the two best baseball writers in the game today offering their winter preview. Jeff Passan asks himself 20 questions about the offseason and then answers them himself.
• And Ken Rosenthal has his winter preview, noting that it’s the winter of Scott Boras. (The Athletic sub. req.) Both Passan and Rosenthal speculate on a big shakeup for the Cubs, with Rosenthal going into more details.
• Red Sox DH J.D. Martinez opted to not opt-out of his contract. (I opted to make that sentence more difficult than it should have been.) Joon Lee explains why Martinez is staying and the ripple effects that it causes for the Red Sox winter. Particularly in regards to Mookie Betts.
• Eric Stephen thinks the Red Sox can keep both Martinez and Betts. For one, they need to stop clipping coupons and start acting like the Red Sox again.
• Will Leitch has the five teams with the most to prove this winter.
• Leitch also has one “untouchable” player for each team. But really, there’s no one who’s “untouchable” on the Marlins, so that’s a limitation of this “one for every team” formula for an article.
• Matt Martell has one free agent that each team should sign this winter. Again, there’s no reason for the Marlins to sign any major league free agent.
• Richard Justice looks at the ten players who got qualifying offers and whether or not they should or will accept them.
• Dayn Perry thinks that if the Nationals want to repeat as World Series champions, they’d better get their checkbook out and stop worrying about the luxury tax threshold.
• One team that everyone expects will spend big this winter is the Angels and R.J. Anderson has a possible wish list for the Halos, starting with Gerrit Cole.
• Mike Petriello explains why forming a battery with Padres catcher Austin Hedges is exactly what free agent pitcher Stephen Strasburg needs to take his game to the next level. And Strasburg is a San Diego native, so . . . he’ll probably still re-sign with the Nats.
• Sheryl Ring believes that MLB needs a salary floor in the next collective bargaining agreement.
• Levi Weaver has four suggested new rules. (The Athletic sub. req.) He’s not for robot umpires but rather a fifth umpire that calls balls and strikes from a replay booth.
• Speaking of robot umpires, it looks like the organized minor leagues will get some form of automated ball and strike calls this season. (The Athletic sub. req. but you can get the basic gist of the news here along with additional commentary.) It sounds like the Florida State League is the most likely venue for our new robot overlords, giving a new meaning to the term “Florida Man.”
• A quick return to the 2019 World Series as Tom Verducci gets the story behind the critical moments in Game 6 and 7 that made the Nationals World Champions.
• Nationals fans don’t have the long history of suffering that the Cubs, White Sox and Red Sox fan bases experienced before winning a title, despite Thomas Boswell trying to make 1933 and 1924 a thing. But Chris Almeida does remember the critical moments in his 14-year quest to see the Nats win it all. (Almeida is only 25, so it was over half his life.)
• The Mets have a new manager in Carlos Beltrán and Wallace Matthews wonders how Beltrán is going to be any different than all those failures that preceded him.
• Neil Paine notes that Beltrán has one thing going against him: he was a terrific ballplayer. Most good managers were not that good as players. Paine notes that Joe Torre is an exception, but Torre had bad experiences as a manager with the Mets, Braves and Cardinals before winning all those titles with the Yankees.
• Ken Rosenthal explains how a “just staying connected” lunch with Beltrán so impressed members of the Mets front office that it led to him being the new manager in Queens. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes didn’t play at all in 2019 because of injuries and the team isn’t sure he’ll play in 2020 either.
• David Schoenfield debates the credentials for the “Modern Era” candidates for the Hall of Fame and guesses which ones will be inducted. Lou Whitaker has to finally go in, right?
• Jay Jaffe, who has made a career out of explaining all the ins and outs of Cooperstown, looks at the process that produced that ballot.
• There’s been a lot of talk about the declining TV ratings of the World Series and baseball in general, but Chad Finn argues that when placed in context, baseball’s TV ratings aren’t really a problem at all. In a TV landscape where an 0.2 rating got Crazy Ex-Girlfriend four seasons (and shame on you for not watching!), the World Series’ 8.1 rating was actually excellent.
• The Brewers traded pitcher Chase Anderson (and his $8.5 million contract option for 2020) to the Blue Jays for a minor leaguer.
• And finally, Orioles first baseman Chris Davis set a record he wasn’t too proud of earlier this season, so it’s only fitting that he finish the year with a record to be very proud of. Davis made a record $3 million donation to the University of Maryland Children’s Hospital.

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