I love having some nice old, tall trees in our backyard, and I like the beautiful colors of leaves in the fall. I do not, however, love having to deal with the combination of the two in late October.
- Per The Athletic, Craig Breslow was actually very unlikely to take a secondary job with the Red Sox, even if it came with a nominal title promotion. It was top job or bust, so the Red Sox gave him the top job. Clearly, they REALLY wanted Breslow, even if it meant jumping him way up in role and responsibility. They were going to do whatever it took to get him.
- And now the Cubs will be tasked with finding a replacement to head up the pitching department, and maybe also a replacement assistant GM. Like I said before, it sucks, but hopefully Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins can view this as an opportunity to hire/promote another wave of front office talent.
- In addition to hiring Bob Melvin as their new manager through 2026, the San Francisco Giants are also extending president Farhan Zaidi through 2026. So that’s their runway to get back to the playoffs, and you can probably expect a busy offseason for them.
- I kept wanting to discuss this in a standalone, but never quite got over the hump of having enough to say about it, so it’s a Bullet: the Padres are already talking about how to move Xander Bogaerts off of shortstop to maximize the total production of their infield. That doesn’t mean Bogaerts, 31, can’t still have a lot of value, but if he winds up at third or first base soon, it dramatically eats into the value of what the Padres hoped to get when signing him to that 11-year, $280 million contract. The deal looked BONKERS the day it was signed for so many reasons, and just a year in, one of those reasons is already manifesting (Bogaerts’ eventual position move).
- Relatedly: did the Padres really have no idea that RSNs were imploding and the debt-service rules existed as of last year? How do you go from cavalierly signing the deals that they did over the last 18 month to having to cut $50+ million from payroll? Still feels like we’re not getting the full story there.
- It definitely felt like a whole lot of us were watching this one, and nowadays 9.1 million viewers for a game on TBS is a whole lot:
- I’ll have to look into this, because I’ll admit was entirely unfamiliar:
- Tons of recognizable names were drafted, albeit mostly from a pool of “oh yeah, whatever happened to that guy?” But some old friends, too, including Zac Rosscup, Hernan Perez, Alberto Mineo, and Brian Schlitter.
- I laughed a lot:
- Every time I see Corbin Carroll doing something incredible, I think about “how you get a superstar.” I think about how the Diamondbacks got him, and how IMMEDIATELY incredible he was, relative to where he was drafted. Carroll was a very well-regarded draft prospect out of high school, but not necessarily a top-five guy. He lasted until pick 16 in 2019 – signed for slot value – and he just exploded in pro ball despite a pandemic AND shoulder surgery costing him so much time. Obviously a number of teams did not foresee that explosion, or else he probably would’ve been drafted in the top three that year, together with Adley Rutschman and Bobby Witt Jr. I guess I just really want to see the Cubs, who’ll draft right around that spot in 2024, land a prospect as good as Corbin Carroll was immediately. Not a huge ask, right?
- Similar thoughts when I see Ronald Acuña Jr., by the way, as he was an IFA signing who did not commit early for an enormous bonus. Yes, you are more likely to be able to find a superstar among the top five picks or top five IFA bonuses, but you have to be able to find them elsewhere, too.