Doing some visiting today, friends and family, so I’ll be in and out. There’s more to discuss on the managerial search, but I’m going to save my thoughts for when I’ve got a little more time (tomorrow) to crystalize them. Feel free to discuss in the comments today, though, if you’d like.
The Red Sox are your ALCS champions, having beaten the Tigers last night in the longest nine inning game ever (probably – it was almost four hours) last night. I’m already dreading this World Series for a number of reasons, and the ensuing narratives are probably the greatest ones. The Cardinals do it the right way. The Red Sox showed you can turn it around in a year, as long as you’ve got the right front office. Crap like that. It’s still going to be very easy to root for the Red Sox, though.
CSN Chicago continues its tour through the Cubs’ various positions organization-wide, and is currently reviewing third base. It’s a deep, high-impact crop, including Kris Bryant, Mike Olt, Christian Villanueva, and Jeimer Candelario (among others). Remember when it was Josh Vitters and a whole lot of nothing?
Jorge Soler’s rust continues to show in the AFL, with another 1-4 performance yesterday. I definitely wouldn’t count myself as worried, though. Wes Darvill was 0-4, and each of Matt Loosen and Lendy Castillo threw scoreless innings (Loosen struck out two).
Keith Law was unimpressed by the stuff he saw from Armando Rivero in the AFL, but caveats that, given Rivero’s long layoff coming into this season (the Cubs signed him earlier this year after he defected last year, and he got in very limited action in the second half), an uptick in stuff in the Spring wouldn’t be a surprise. Also, if Rivero was striking out everyone he faced last year with sub-par stuff, I’d hate to see what he could do with good stuff.
Wow – Cincinnati is doing that thing that Chicago used to be so very good at: shredding a player after the season as a precursor to said player being dumped. Here’s an example piece tearing Brandon Phillips apart, mostly for good reasons. It’s a reminder that, sometimes, the post-season shredding was justified … even if it doesn’t help you get good value for your damaged merchandise.