In an odd move Astros Owner lets the GM go after the team wins the WS. Everybody says that there is a personality conflict between Jim Click and Jim Crane. Crane didn't want him back to made him an insulting offer that he couldn't take. He got Dusty to go with the 1 year deal, but Dusty probably figures that this is the best job he's going to get even coming off a WS Title, so why not. Crane also said he would do everything he could to resign Verlander, but that's what he said when George Springer opted out and became a free agent. I won't be shocked if Verlander goes to the Dodgers. Wife Kate Upton likes L.A. and they have a home there. That's where he rehabbed last year.
Buck Showalter was named NL Manager of the Year, over the guy who won 111 games, he also allowed the Mets to lose the Division in the last few days of the season. But hey who's counting! Got to give it to Buck though he's been successful everywhere he's managed. The New York Mets' Buck Showalter was named National League Manager of the Year on Tuesday night, becoming just the third person to take the prize four times and the first to do it with four different franchises. Showalter, 66, has now won Manager of the Year in four different decades, his previous awards coming in the AL with the New York Yankees (1994), Texas Rangers (2004) and Baltimore Orioles (2014). The other four-time winners are Hall of Famers Bobby Cox and Tony La Russa. The AL Manager of the year award went to Cleveland's Terry Francona who truly did a great job with the Indians this year, Dusty Baker was a distant 4th.
Since I follow the AL now that the Astros are in the AL West...I have no idea who this guy is, but he had a helluva season and is the Cy Young Winner. It wasn't a question of whether Sandy Alcantara would win the Cy Young Award, just one of whether he would become the first unanimous winner in the National League since Clayton Kershaw in 2014. Indeed, the Miami Marlins' 27-year-old right-hander swept all 30 first-place votes to beat out Braves' lefty Max Fried and Dodgers' southpaw Julio Urias to become the first Cy Young winner in Marlins history. In this age of five-inning starters, Alcantara stood out as a unicorn: He pitched 228.2 innings, 23.2 more than other pitcher in the majors, and the most innings since David Price threw 230 in 2016. He threw six complete games - more than any other team. He pitched at least eight innings in 14 of his 32 starts, the most such games since 2014. His 8.0 WAR easily topped Aaron Nola's 6.0 as the best in the NL and ranked as the best in Marlins history, ahead of Kevin Brown's 7.9 in 1996.
Well deserved, I hope he comes back to the Astros. But I fear he wants to be in L.A. Justin Verlander was unanimously voted the American League Cy Young Award winner on Wednesday, capping a brilliant bounce-back season that saw him reach unprecedented heights for the Houston Astros. Verlander beat out Dylan Cease of the Chicago White Sox and Alek Manoah of the Toronto Blue Jays. With Miami Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara also winning the NL Cy Young by unanimous vote, this marks just the second time that both Cy Young winners were unanimous. Bob Gibson and Denny McLain also won unanimously in 1968, one year after the award started to be given out to both leagues.
Yankees re-sign Anthony Rizzo which was key to their immediate future. He and Judge are very close so people out here are hopeful....
I'm a big Anthony Rizzo fan, as are most Cubs fans. He was a huge factor in their World Series run in 2016.
Cards have the NL MVP and the MVP runner up...that's impressive. St. Louis Cardinals slugger Paul Goldschmidt has been voted the National League MVP, beating out teammate Nolan Arenado and San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado. Goldschmidt, 35, takes home his first MVP honor after leading the NL in slugging (.578) and OPS (.981) while compiling the highest OPS-plus (180) of his career. It's the sixth time in his 12-year career that he has finished in the top six in voting for the award. Along with Arenado, Goldschmidt helped lead the Cardinals to an NL Central division title.
No surprise and well deserved. Aaron Judge etched a permanent spot in the memories of baseball fans when he set the American League single-season home run record and chased a Triple Crown down the stretch. Now, he has a final accolade to top his historic 2022. The New York Yankees slugger was crowned AL Most Valuable Player on Thursday night, beating out Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels and Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros. He is the first Yankees outfielder to win the award since Mickey Mantle in 1962.
Well Alek Manoah, the Torono Bluejays pitcher called Yankee Ace Gerrit Cole the biggest cheater in baseball. Good way to start the off season!
Pitching style[edit] Perry claims he was taught the spitball in 1964 by pitcher Bob Shaw. Perry had a reputation throughout his career for doctoring baseballs, and was inspected on the mound by umpires and monitored closely by opposing teams.[7] On August 23, 1982, he was ejected from a game against the Boston Red Sox for doctoring the ball for the first and only time of his career; he was suspended for 10 days.[8][9] Perry reportedly approached the makers of Vaseline about endorsing the product and was allegedly rebuffed with a one-line postcard reading, "We soothe babies' backsides, not baseballs." Former manager Gene Mauch famously quipped "He should be in the Hall of Fame with a tube of K-Y Jelly attached to his plaque."[10] Gene Tenace, who caught Gaylord Perry when they played for the San Diego Padres, said: "I can remember a couple of occasions when I couldn't throw the ball back to him because it was so greasy that it slipped out of my hands. I just walked out to the mound and flipped the ball back to him."[11] Perry used his reputation to psyche out the hitters as well. As he looked in to his catcher for the pitch selection, Perry would touch various parts of his head, such as his eyebrows and his cap. In this manner, he may or may not have been applying a foreign substance to the ball on any particular pitch. Reggie Jackson was so upset after striking out against Perry one time that Jackson was ejected from the game. Jackson returned from the dugout with a container of Gatorade, splashing Gatorade onto the field while yelling at the umpire that Perry should be allowed to use the Gatorade on the baseball.[12] The spitball was not his only method for upsetting batters. Sports Illustrated's Joe Posnanski wrote of Perry, "My favorite trick pitch of his was the old Puffball, where he would load up on rosin so that a puff of white smoke would release while he threw his pitches. This was made illegal somewhere along the way (because of Perry, of course), but it's so awesome — it's like the sort of thing one of the villains on the old Batman TV show would do."[13]
"Perry threw 342 2/3 innings and led the American League with 29 complete games in 1972. This season there were only 35 complete games thrown in the entire big leagues. Perry won 20 or more games five times. He was the first pitcher to win a Cy Young Award in both leagues." "In his autobiography “Me and the Spitter” Perry did admit that he sometimes “loaded” the baseball. Mostly, however, it was the threat of the spitball that helped Perry strikeout 3,534 batters in 5,350 innings. Perry was frequently the target of umpires coming to the mound to search him for a foreign substance at the request of the opposing manager. But he was only ejected once in his career for throwing an illegal pitch. It happened in 1982 when Perry was pitching for Seattle in a game against the Angels. Dave Phillips was the plate umpire who ejected Perry. “He didn’t find anything on me or the ball, but when he saw one of my pitches sink about two feet he came running out to the mound and said, ‘That’s it Gaylord, you’re outta here,’” Perry is quoted as saying in “The Cleveland Indians Encyclopedia.” Some years later he was asked if he did moisten the pitch that dropped two feet. He said, “I was given a lie detector test by (famed attorney) F. Lee Bailey on television that winter, and they said I passed with flying colors.” Former umpire Bill Haller, on Perry’s Hall of Fame page in Cooperstown, is quoted as saying, ““I watched Gaylord like a hawk. I’ve never found anything. I’ll tell you what he’s got: a good curve, a fine fastball, a good change, and a fine sinker. I’ll tell you what Perry is: He’s one helluva pitcher, and a fine competitor.” “He didn’t find anything on me or the ball, but when he saw one of my pitches sink about two feet he came running out to the mound and said, ‘That’s it Gaylord, you’re outta here,’” Perry is quoted as saying in “The Cleveland Indians Encyclopedia.” Some years later he was asked if he did moisten the pitch that dropped two feet. He said, “I was given a lie detector test by (famed attorney) F. Lee Bailey on television that winter, and they said I passed with flying colors.” Former umpire Bill Haller, on Perry’s Hall of Fame page in Cooperstown, is quoted as saying, ““I watched Gaylord like a hawk. I’ve never found anything. I’ll tell you what he’s got: a good curve, a fine fastball, a good change, and a fine sinker. I’ll tell you what Perry is: He’s one helluva pitcher, and a fine competitor.” Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry, king of the spitball, dead at 84
Pete Rose took a handkerchief out of his waist band in between Perry pitches and wiped his face off. Perry got a big laugh out of that. By the way, Joe Posnanski wrote a great book called The Baseball 100 where he ranks his personal Top 100 players of all time. He spends time on each of them. Just finished Gaylord yesterday who he ranked #73 I believe.
Well after Jacob deGrom left for the Rangers I guess the Mets had plenty of money and they got Justin Verlander for 86M/2 years with a 3rd year option. It's the first time Verlander will have pitched in the National League. Good luck to him he added a lot to the Astros and while we are at the moment very solid with regards to pitching you always miss a guy like Verlander (at least in the regular season! ) .