Roki Sasaki is the next great generational thing coming over
from Japan and he's going to be posted by the
Marines, his current employer there. He's 23 years
old grades out highly across the board. All the
speculation has begun. Does he want to join Otani
and Yamamoto in Los Angeles, people have been quick
to point out online that he grew up a Yu
Darvish kid. So maybe the Padres are in play
, but the Padres aren't spending money now, like
were three years ago when they gave, you know
, 31 year old shortstops, 11 years guaranteed,
etcetera, etcetera. I don't know that San Diego
is as big a player in the Sasaki sweepstakes as
some other teams. But look, not dissimilar to
the discussion we just had on soto, there is
a large lucrative pasture awaiting this young man here.
Stateside. Yeah. So look, I'm intrigued and
I'm not into the basic agreement of the uh of
the Japanese uh players and their owners, but you
know, this, I, I go back to
, you know, starting with Nomo and they had
to play a lot, they had to play,
uh you know, become a legitimate free agent.
It was age based, the fact that we had
Otani be able to come here at such a young
age. And now Sasaki, I, I'm intrigued
by it because they don't have to. So there's
a, there was a respect factor to this by
allowing him. So therefore every team should be in
on this guy. The next Marlins manager was going
to come from Dodger Blue and it's Clayton mccullough who
managed previously at the minor league level for seven years
. That was before his decade with the Dodgers.
He's the new head man in Miami gets the Marlins
managerial job. He lives in the area in the
off season. Uh This hiring makes sense on a
lot of fronts. Not only is, is he
well qualified and well positioned to do the job,
but, you know, you weren't going to lure
Lou Panella out of retirement to manage the Miami Marlins
. You know what I mean? It's going to
have to be a guy that kind of grows up
with it that grows with the changes that are coming
with the Marlins. So congratulations to Clayton for landing
the last open gig as a major league manager this
winter. I mean, I don't know, you
, you're just kind of going through the season.
There's so much that you're focused on. So it
wasn't really my, you know, it wasn't something
that we were talking about. It was, I
knew something for after the season was over. Um
So I didn't really have necessarily any expectation, especially
, you know, once you get to the playoffs
and you're just kind of grinding through that every day
. Um That's where the focus went. Um So
I'm excited to be back and, uh, you
know, we'll see, we'll see if there's,
you know, any more dialogue that goes on.
Um, you know, as far as you asked
about his extension, you know, we'll see in
that regard, but, you know, regardless,
I'm excited to be back and excited to get to
lead this crew again that said, you know,
a lot lots going on after the season with just
, uh, you know, throughout the organization,
you know, contracts being up and, you know
, there's a lot of work to do that you
don't necessarily to attend to when you're going through the
playoffs and the World Series. So, um I
know there's a lot of, you know, loose
ends to tie up, you know, organizationally.
So we'll see, see what unfolds. Um But
either way, um you know, I'm prepared and
ready to go and excited for 2025. Here are
your American League MVP finalists, Aaron Judge Bobby Witt
Juan Soto again, most years, Juan Soto's offense
would be enough a judge just towers above everyone else
. The one place again, if you wanted to
make an argument and I was making this argument toward
the end, uh didn't quite get there, but
Bobby with Junior who is a fantastic fielder and base
runner, you know, would you rather have had
that season or the guy who can really hit and
also play center field. Eventually it landed the fact
that judges holding down center field holds off the ward
for me, for him. But I'd be tempted
to give it to the shortstop who can field and
run national league. It was very difficult to the
end where you have Francisco Lior playing a very good
shortstop got hurt down the stretch though to tell Marte
was also having a fantastic season, got hurt down
the stretch though a little bit even longer than and
then you have so O toi who was a hit
also base running was outstanding but does not play the
field. So are you close on this with Landor
especially the way he ended the season, Landor has
taken a lot of heat. A lot of criticism
. The first couple of years of that contract,
he played like an MVP. He too like Bobby
will unfortunately picked a bad year to have a great
year because when a guy goes 5050 like Otani does
and Otani has that. Pr Train plays for the
Dodgers, the World Series champs. It's something nobody's
ever done in the history of baseball. Frankie L
kind of gets behind Cy Young award winner, start
with the American League. Tarik Scoble is the big
front runner set go had a marvelous year, 206
innings. Emmanuel class a regular season wise. Again
, the postseason was a different story but a 0.61
. Where are you then? Bal and NL Cy
Young slam dunk. It's, he was the best
pitcher early on, arguably pitched some of the biggest
games and when they needed him the most, he
stepped up the most marvelous pitcher. He's the best
left handed starting pitcher in the game right now.
This is very close now again, I think skiing
because of 133 innings, he's just not going to
win. This shouldn't win this even though he was
fantastic. They had more innings. Sure. But
Chris Sale was the leader all year long but Zack
Wheeler with 200 innings, ok. That's 23 Wars
or 22 plus more innings. That matters. That
matters in R A nine war. I, I'm
, I'm a toss up on this one. I
am in awe of what Zach Wheeler does. I
think if you put the combination of power, speed
swing and miss going deep in the games, he's
your guy. But it's hard to deny what Chris
did. Let's start with rookie of the year in
the American League. Dan Place, Colton Ker of
the Orioles Louis Hill of the Yankees, also,
Austin Wells of the Yankees, not as strong as
the National league, but a good field to me
, the guy in the middle Louis Hill, he's
more than likely going to be the guy. Big
impact early on national league, tremendous competition. Jackson
Chio of the Brewers were a tremendous second half.
Jackson Harold Merrill also had a tremendous second half.
Paul Schemes had a historic year rookie pitcher for the
Pittsburgh Pirates with a 1.96 a in 100 and 33
innings. You know what, I've been making these
arguments on MLB now and I tell you, I'm
changing my pick. I've been going with Paul Skeens
and I haven't believed in it. Dan, I'm
looking at Jackson Maryland after watching him in the playoffs
. He's an even better player than I thought he
was better when you watch him every single day.
Take a look at some of his numbers. He
played 100 56 games in nearly 600 plate appearances in
a 4.5 more. Let's go to manager of the
year numbers. Maro AJ Hinch Steven vote of the
division champion Cleveland Guardians. Who you going? I'm
going to go with Steven vote for this simple reason
. Normally you don't want to be the guy that
follows the guy that was the guy and that guy
was Terry Francona. And I think a lot of
baseball people thought, ok, great story. They're
going to have enough, listen to be able to
do what he did to have his players buy in
, they all bought into what he was selling that
it just made a huge difference. Start Mike S
have changed the attitude with the Padres from the very
start. Carlos Mendoza, they had a very rough
start and worried not a good ball club through May
1st year manager was outstanding. Pat Murphy basically made
it wire to wire for the Brewers. I've had
Pat Murphy in my head as the manager of the
year for so long, but I'm leaning toward Mike
, the, the closer get to it. I
might end up there and I don't want to let
the playoffs because this is for the regular season.
Right. It's not supposed to be, you know
, for the postseason. Maybe that gets to me
a little bit, but you are right about what
all the dysfunction and the things that the Malays that
were not happening to the Padres Mikes completely changed the
culture. Now, Pat Murphy also was, did
a stunning job. So I'm close, but I
, I'm, I might get to silt by the
time I have to make some sort of unofficial vote
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