Outside The Confines: What have you done for me lately?

The Cubs have really cost themselves a bunch of ping-pong balls in the draft lottery recently.

• Emma Baccellieri tracked down the inside story of how the minor leagues were unionized. It was something that two years ago everyone thought was impossible to an official organizing drive of 17 days. Of course, there was a lot of preparatory work done before that organizing drive even started.
• Yankees slugger Aaron Judge came a few feet away from hitting home run number 61 last night, but the Yankees clinched a playoff spot anyway.
• Judge is still leading all three American League Triple Crown categories.
• Dayn Perry makes the case that Judge’s 2022 season is among the greatest in baseball history.
• Tonight’s Yankees game versus the Red Sox, when Judge will once again be trying for the AL home run record, is an Apple TV+ exclusive and a lot of people are upset about that. The YES Network has been negotiating to get the game broadcast on their channel as well, but Apple and MLB are not interested at the moment. They’ve also tried to get Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay on the Apple broadcast, but Kay does not want to take a job away from another broadcaster. It should be noted that baseball games on Apple TV+ are still free and the YES Network is not.
• Jason Owens looks at the dilemma of what to do with the ball for the fan who is going to catch home run number 62.
• Dan Szymborski writes that despite Judge’s monster season, he still might have trouble finding a $300 million free agent contract this winter.
• Andrew Simon has a look at the odd career of Roger Maris, the man whose record Judge is trying to break.
• The Royals fired team president Dayton Moore, the man who led the to the 2015 World Series title. Tough business, but you can’t argue that the Royals current situation is a good one.
• Bradford Doolittle outlines how Moore brought respect and a title to Kansas City. (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• Joe Posnanski shares his personal memories of Moore and how he built a team that KC could be proud of, both on- and off-the-field.
• Rustin Dodd explains why the Royals fired Moore and hired J.J. Picollo, his long-time assistant, to replace him. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Anne Rogers introduces Picollo and writes that he was the right man for the job.
• As long as we’re on new executives, Kiley McDaniel has four things that new Tigers president Scott Harris should do to rebuild the team. (ESPN+ sub. req.)

• Anthony Castrovince lists 22 “bonkers” stats from the 2022 season.
• Chris Gilligan believes that this season has lacked drama. Adding extra wild card teams has certainly cut down the drama of who is and who isn’t going to make the playoffs.
• Will Leitch ranks every potential matchup in the Wild Card round of the playoffs.
• MLB has eliminated tie-breaker games at the end of the season. Jesse Rogers looks at what kind of impact that change might have on this season.
• Eno Sarris breaks down which players are likely to benefit from the rules changes coming next season. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Mike Axisa explains how the Twins season failed to live up to expectations this year. Especially in the second half.
• Ken Rosenthal apologizes to Phillies fans for, earlier this year, doubting that a managerial change would make any difference in turning around Philadelphia’s season. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Despite hitting a walk-off home run earlier this week, Jay Jaffe notes that Yankees outfielder Giancarlo Stanton is still in a slump.
• Thomas Harrigan lists the top Cy Young Award candidates for each league.
• Joe Trezza makes the case for and against Astros pitcher Justin Verlander for the AL Cy Young.
• The Dodgers are exercising their 2023 contract option on pitcher Daniel Hudson. Hudson tore his ACL in June and is out for the season, but he was very good before that.
• The Yankees got reliever Zack Britton back as he was activated from the injured list a year after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
• Outfielder Andres Torres has not played in the majors since 2013 and played just a handful of minor league games in 2014. But despite not having played since then, the 44-year-old is coming out of retirement in an effort to play for Team Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic. Torres played for the Iowa Cubs in 2008.
• If I made you guess which active major league star, while on the injured list, would put on the jersey of a Hall-of-Famer and wander around his home stadium during a game chatting with fans, how many of you would say Joey Votto? OK. All of you. Of course Votto did that because he’s the most interesting man in baseball.
• The Athletic has a collected oral stories over the career of Astros manager Dusty Baker, “the second-most interesting man in the world.” (The Athletic sub. req.) There are some Ryan Dempster stories about Baker in that article.
• If you’re into walk-up and entrance music, here’s a piece with the music and the stories behind them for several Latin MLB stars.
• And finally, hilarity down on the farm. Memphis Redbirds third baseman Delvin Pérez crushed one last night, flipped his bat and jogged around the bases. Only one problem. The wind knocked the ball down and it was just a long fly out. He didn’t realize it until he was well past third base. Here’s the actual play:

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