Frayed Knot

Manfred went on the radio last week (with Craig freakin' Carton of all people!!) and when the topic of expansion/realignment came up he of course immediately went to a target of 32 teams with eight four-team divisions.

It would be an interesting research project to see how many pitchers were rostered that year Philadelphia Athletics used 15 pitchers in 1927 Washington Nationals = 16 Detroit Tigers = 14 Chicago White Sox = 10 (to pitch 153 games/1,367 innings!!) Cleveland Indians = 15 St Louis Browns = 14 Boston Red Sox = 14 So that's only 98 pitchers that Ruth could have possibly faced that year. The 2025 Mets used 46

Now up to 174 plate appearances and a .282/.397/.542 slash line and I'm not sure whether or not those stats have been updated to include Saturday's Four HR game.

In Babe Ruth's 60 HR season he faced 64 different pitchers. Cal Raleigh faced 303.

Alex Bregman to ink a five year deal with the Cubs

Yes, but he was traded there. Now he has some choice in the matter. I also tend to dismiss most of that big market/small market stuff. Maybe it's a factor with some guys. Usually it's just speculation jabber..

Service time is a big factor. 5-1/2+ seasons for Torrens VS slightly shy of three for Alvarez Arbies ... we've got the deets!

Will Salmon - The Athletic: - Dodgers, Jays, Mets appear to be Tucker's strongest suitors - Mets prefer to go shorter term [probably < 4 yrs], Jays more willing to go longer, LA might wait and 'swoop in' late - some question whether Tucker would be a good fit for a large market ... but he would also be the 3rd star here so maybe not a problem https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6951582/2026/01/07/mets-kyle-tucker-mlb-free-agency/?source=dailyemail&campaign=13928155&userId=30063869&source=dailyemail

I thought we had a mini-discussion on good but oft-injured Miami hurler Edward Cabrera somewheres about ... but I couldn't find one. So I'll put it here since he was just dealt to the Cubs for three prospects including CHC's top one, OF Owen Caissie Caissie (Kay-see) was a 2020 2nd round draft pick out of Ontario, Canada before working his way to mid-top-100 prospect status in both the pre-2024 & '25 lists. After a solid 100 games at AAA Iowa this past season he snagged two dozen ML ABs in August. IFs Cristian Hernández and 19 y/o Edgardo De Leon are the other two.

If her feedback was anything like what the Baltimore kicker received after missing a GW FG Sunday night then I'd shut it down too. The first year kicker had a joint page with his fiancee about their upcoming wedding. Comments started with 'I hope you two get divorced' and then degraded from there.

And the NFL WILL have a sub-.500 (8-9) team advance to their post-season in 2025-26 (for the 5th time in 18 seasons). The only question remains which team. Carolina is declared the winner in a three-way playoff (Atlanta wins on Sunday) but not a two-way playoff (Atlanta loses). Hope Manfred et al are taking notes.

Yes, a shorter schedule makes quirks like this more likely, although it's tough to even call them quirks when the NFL has had division winners with a .500 (twice) or sub-500 (4) record six times in the last 17 seasons (7 of 18 if the Panthers lose tonight)* so it's not exactly a rarity. And what greatly contributes to this is the low number of teams per division and the small percentage of in-division games (6 of 17 = 35% and soon to go down to 6/18) on the schedule. iow, it's not just one of those things, it's virtually inevitable. Some here may have forgotten (or intentionally blanked their minds) that MLB was on its way to potentially having Two sub-500 division winners when the strike wiped out the remainder of the 1994 season, and it's likely not a coincidence that both cases came from the divisions with only four teams in each during that 14-team/lg era. - the AL West was a collective 57 games under .500 when the season was called off with the 52-62 Rangers at the top of the hill. Only a 30-18 or better finish would have prevented a losing division winner so this one was a virtual certainty had the season been played to its conclusion. - in the NL, the Dodgers won five of their final seven games to up their record to 58-56 after leading the division for all of late July and early August with a sub-.500 mark. Nobody else was within five games of the break-even mark when play was halted. And, unlike football fans, seeing an under break-even team declared a winner and advance to the playoffs would actually bother baseball fans. The only thing NFL fans seem to object to is that these mediocre (or worse) division winners are granted home-field in playoff games over WC teams ... as if 'fixing' that would solve the issue. * and if you expand the definition to include those division champs with their heads just barely above water [9-7, 9-8, 8-7-1] the number probably triples

For the upcoming final weekend of regular season NFL action: - in the NFC South there is a chance for a two-way, or even three-way [CAR, TB, ATL], tie for first place where all teams wind up at 8-9. Only Carolina can clinch outright with a win because they're the only one of the three with even a chance at finishing over .500 (9-8) - the AFC North, where Pittsburgh and Baltimore are playing each other (Sunday Night), will wind up either with both teams tied for the division crown at 9-8, or with the Steelers at a lofty 10-7 and the Ravens at 8-9 Remember situations like these when anyone tries to sell you the glories of MLB restructured into eight four-team divisions.

In what well could be called the very definition of a 2020s version of a last ditch attempt at salvaging a ML career, Jarred Kelenic has signed a minor league deal with the Chicago White Sox. The one-time 6th overall pick [2018] and later a consensus top 10 prospect in all of baseball [4th/BA, 4th/MLB, and 6th/BP pre-2021] is now 26 y/o (27 in July - or just nine months younger than Juan Soto*) but carries into the 2026 season a career .211/.282/.376 slash line [658/84 OPS/OPS+] over parts of five seasons and 1,488 PAs with SEA & ATL. He also spent all but 24 games in the minors in 2025 and hit almost as poorly there [.213/.286/.309 in 95 games at AAA Gwinnett] as he did in Atlanta. So now I guess he's a prayer plus a Luis Robert Jr. trade away from hopefully proving himself to Chicago's south-siders. * I know, it's an unfair comparison, but I just wanted to add a bit of perspective

That was always my knock on his candidacy as well, that he petered out so soon. OTOH, the fact that he was an everyday regular -- and a good one: a combined 114 OPS+ and two Gold Gloves -- during his first four full ML seasons at ages (20 thru 23) before many players even played a single game has gotta count for something. iow, is an eleven year prime that runs from one's age 20 to 30 seasons less than that of one that runs from, say, ages 24 to 34 simply because it's less common? Yeah, he petered out young, but he also petered in young too.

A quick side turn here as the talk about Andruw Jones got me thinking about his son, Andruw Nicholas Jones (goes by Druw) who was the #2 overall draft pick (out of a GA HS) by Arizona in 2022. That high draft status got him onto some top-100 Prospects lists in the pre-'23 and '24 season rankings. But he was not on any of those lists prior to this past year and, given as how he back-slid a bit in his 2025 season, he's unlikely to make a reappearance this winter either. Not that he's a lost cause or anything quite yet. I mean, yeah, he's yet to get out of A-ball, but he'll still just be 22 for the entirety of the '26 season which gives him some time. On the other hand, one of the reasons his papa, Andruw Rudolph Jones, is up for HoF consideration is that by the time he was at the age his son is now [22 y/1 m] he was already two months into his 4th ML season (one partial + two full preceding it), had appeared in nearly 400 ML games (plus 31 more post-season contests), racked up over 1,300 PAs, 60-some HRs, and was the owner of the first of his eventual ten Gold Gloves. Kind of puts into perspective how precociously young he was -- ML debut at 19y/114d -- and how little ramp-up time he required before hitting the ML grounds running after notching just 188 career AA ABs and a ridiculous 82 in AAA (and a handful of those were from late career rehab time). btw, not that he was anywhere near the type of player Pete Alonso is, but, like Alonso, the Braves unsentimentally let Jones walk after his age 30 season. In the 12 seasons he spent in Atlanta Jones played in 150+ games every year except for 1996 when he was a 19 y/o August call-up. In the five seasons (with four different clubs) after he left ATL he topped out at 107 games played and averaged fewer than 90/per before calling it quits following his .197 hitting swan song in the Bronx at age 35 [2012] Jus' sayin'

I disagree too. Voting for no one, if that's what represents your convictions, IS a vote.

As you may have already suspected (I know I did) the sub-title of this sequel is the funniest thing about it. But it was on HBO this past week so why not. Plus they were smart enough to slot the original (which I hadn't seen in years) right before it so you could watch the two back to back. I tend to ignore/dislike sequels* as a rule, so maybe I'm not the best to comment here. But this one is mostly warned-over jokes from the classic original plus a bunch of age-related quips along with pointless cameos (Paul, Elton) thrown in. It's not that this flick is totally without substance or chuckles. But there aren't enough of them and, in general, it just lacks the originality of the first one and so just about everything they try here sounds old and/or tired. Plus it's weird seeing Rob Reiner/Marti DiBergi so soon after his tragic/violent death. * If I dislike a movie I, of course, don't want to see a second version of it. And if I like a movie I'm always afraid that a sequel is going to detract from its predecessor (ie. I'd have much better memories of ROCKY had Stallone's character not gone on to fight everyone short of RAMBO in god knows how many sequels, aka: I don't want to see CASABLANCA II

Don't call him youngster Austin Hays, not in his twenties anymore Not a starter with the Reds in Cincy like he once was in Baltimore That's all I got

Willson Contreras (the extra L is for ______) to the BoSox for RH pitchers Hunter Dobbins plus two minor leaguers.

2020's NYY pitchers turned Mets: - Clay Holmes - Luis Severino - Devin Williams - Adam Otavino - Luke Weaver - Frankie Montas

No guessing on Francesa. Like most things, he's not been shy about it.

Weaver is a bit like Devin Williams in rhat neither could hold onto the Yanx closer role ... at least not consistently. Both had overall good numbers but with really bad stretches in between. iow, they're relief pitchers. It's not going to be a lot different than us asking, 'Is it going to be good Edwin or bad Edwin tonight?'

His nickname is 'The Password' Meanwhile, his minor league brother Jhonanfran (BOS org) has already been dubbed 'Username' Best ML nicknames since the very large [6' 3" / 250] D.R.-born Cleveland RF/1B/DH, Jhonkensy Noel, was given the handle 'Big Christmas'

Also has a killer throwing arm.