As the early days of the offseason continue, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world today:
1. Awards ceremony tonight:
While the most notable awards for the 2024 season won’t be announced until next week, a number of others are set to be announced this evening. The All-MLB first and second teams, the Hank Aaron Award for best overall offensive player in each league, the Reliever of the Year award for the best bullpen arm in each league, the Comeback Player of the Year award for the player in each league who overcame hardship to impact his team, and the Outstanding DH Award for MLB’s best designated hitter will all be unveiled tonight.
Shohei Ohtani appears likely to be in line for his fourth consecutive Outstanding DH Award as well as the NL Hank Aaron Award, while Aaron Judge appears to be the most likely candidate for the AL Hank Aaron Award. Braves southpaw Chris Sale is the most likely candidate for the NL Comeback Player of the Year award, while in the AL free agent slugger Tyler O’Neill and White Sox lefty Garrett Crochet are among the potential candidates. There’s a deep crop of candidates for the AL Reliever of the Year award including Mason Miller, Kirby Yates, and Cade Smith, but Emmanuel Clase appears to be the most likely candidate for the award after posting a 0.61 ERA during the regular season. Meanwhile, Raisel Iglesias, Jeff Hoffman, Tanner Scott, and Ryan Helsley are among the likely candidates in the NL.
2. Diamond Sports Group hearing today:
The saga surrounding Diamond Sports Group and broadcasting rights for a number of MLB clubs continues today as Diamond faces a confirmation hearing, where their plan to restructure the company will need to be approved by a bankruptcy court in order to continue operations for the 2025 season. A number of teams (with the Tigers and Rays among the most recent) have reached new deals with Diamond at a lower rate in order to maintain their broadcasting agreements, though a few clubs have opted to look for a new broadcasting partner or handed distribution off to the league. Even after today’s hearing, some questions will remain. The Reds and Rangers have parted ways with Diamond but do not have a clear broadcasting plan for 2025 at this point, while the Royals are still negotiating with Diamond but have not yet come to an agreement.
3. Teams rounding out coaching staffs:
While yesterday was rather light on hot stove transactions, a number of teams announced tweaks to their coaching staffs. The Pirates named two new coaches, while the Phillies, Guardians, and Red Sox each had a coaching change of their own. We’ve seen plenty of personnel decisions since the season ended, but there are still plenty of vacant jobs around the league. For example, the Cubs and Brewers are both currently without a first base coach, while the Orioles have yet to hire a bench coach for next season. The Marlins, in particular, figure to be extremely active in hiring coaches as new manager Clayton McCullough is tasked with filling out a coaching staff that turned over completely following the departure of former manager Skip Schumaker.
4. Live video chat today for subscribers:
The first-ever MLBTR live video chat takes place today at 10am central time! If you’re a Trade Rumors Front Office member, you received an email yesterday with the Zoom link. Tim Dierkes, Darragh McDonald, Steve Adams, and Anthony Franco will be on video answering questions live for one hour.
Great article.
Soto will sign with the Orioles and will destroy the Warehouse and ruin Camden Yards with an average 60+ HR per year for the first 10 years of the contract. At least 10 per season will hit the Warehouse and they definitely might have to install break-resistant windows because of Juan. His defense and SB will also both improve a lot and fast and he could very well be patrolling CF in 2 years as one of the best defensive CF in MLB. His defense and speed are both vastly underrated now as it is and they will both get much better and very soon.
Heard it here first
The article didn’t even talk about Soto lol
Troll comments, huh.
@Clofreez: You bet he’s a troll. He’s spent a lot of his troll time claiming that a bookie was after him because he couldn’t pay his bad bet on the Yanks in the WS and Harris in the Presidential Election. He’s since denied ever posting those comments.
Acoss – It’s his shtick, just go with it. LOL!
I really hope Houck wins Comeback Player of the Year, he deserves it.
Tyler O’Neill?
Clo – I don’t think not getting along with your manager qualifies as hardship. LOL!
I actually didn’t know that. Thanks for the info.
No, I say the Royals will sign Soto. It’ll be a surprise move that no one saw coming. oh and he won’t be signing for the same amount of money that Bobby witt Junior signed for. He’ll sign for slightly less.
Legalizing marijuana was bound to have consequences.
@Ehend
People started to realize you don’t know anything about baseball.
glad you can joke about it.
Didn’t realize it was April Fool’s Day. Lol
Emmanuel Clase has an 0.61 ERA and a 0.659 WHIP in 74 1/3 innings. My jaw dropped when I saw this. Oh my goodness. The last time my jaw dropped seeing a reliever be that dominant since Kimbrel in 2012.
The first time*
Clof – And yet he was awful in the postseason.
Just goes to show the playoffs is a whole different thing, some players are made for it and some aren’t.
What makes this more painful is that I’m a Rangers fan. Seeing Clase dominate in Cleveland hurts.
And then hearing Kluber dissect it on a podcast is another level.
@Fever Pitch Guy
Definitely no Mariano Rivera. But, ultimately, he’s still one of the better closers in the game, today. Can’t fault the Indians for using him when it counts.
Zack Britton was even better in 2016.
@King Floch
I would say he was that much better, they had very similar seasons, only thing majorly separating them is ERA+ everything else is within 5 of each other.
If I’m gonna be honest, clase had the better season, more games, more innings, less walks, and a higher WAR.
But that’s just me.
Britton did have a worse WHIP and fewer innings pitched, but he played in Camden Yards before the ugly wall was made, which makes it more impressive. Clase’s 2024 and Britton’s 2016 are very similar.
Not sure why Clase would get the AL Reliever of the Year award, unless we’re living in the 1970s and our sole data point is ERA. Now, when the big boys want to put their pants on, we can see that by SIERA, Miller should get the award and if not, then Smith should.
SIERA
Clase: 2.64
Miller: 1.91
Yate: 2.85
Smith 2.16
I do hope Yates wins it. He pitched in the hitter’s park of GLF with a putrid Rangers offense. But saying no to Clase is very hard to do.
York – It’s not just the ERA, and I agree ERA doesn’t tell the complete story when it comes to relievers.
Look at the difference in walks ….. Miller 8.4% compared to Clase 3.7%
No contest, Miller needs to improve his control.
And while on the subject, why the hell doesn’t BR show Save Opportunities or Save Percentage anymore???
@Fever Pitch Guy
Well, if the purpose is to now dig deeper, Miller had a 41..8% K% vs. 24.4% for Clase.
Now, to your point, he did have more opportunities, 50, but given that Oakland wasn’t a team on the verge of winning anything this year and were below .500, they both blew 3 games each.
For Clase, his defense benefited him with an RA9def of +0.47 while Miller didn’t have the support from his defense, with an RA9def of -0.24.
For me, it’s clear that Miller is the correct choice but I know that feelings will get in the way of the right choice, as it usually does wiht baseball, and they’ll select Clase.
@york
Usually I agree with you…but I’m afraid I cannot this time.
You seem to be only going off of SIERA…
Lets see who leads in each of these stats:
WAR: Clase
G: Clase
IP:Clase
W-L:Clase
Saves:Clase
ERA:Clase
ERA+:Clase
Least walks given up: Clase
BB%: Clase
I’m going to easily give this to Clase here.
Fem – I agree, and Clase dismissed!
(Do you really agree with him often? LOL)
@FemboySportsFan!
Games are pretty meaningless, as are innings. There is no context given. W-L is also a meaningless stat. The Save amounts were different but that’s because the teams were on different paths. Give they had the same SVO %, it’s a tie. ERA is meaningless. SIERA is essentially the closest correlation for ERA estimators, per Fangraphs (tht.fangraphs.com/kwera-the-starting-point-for-pit…).
Sure, he had the least walks but he benefited greatly from his team’s defense, while the Miller didn’t benefit.
Your argument pretty much fell apart quickly. Thanks for trying, though.
York – Neither of you provided stats on Inherited Runners?
To me that’s an important factor for relievers.
And I agree K% is important for closers, but retiring hitters on grounders or fly balls is much better than walking them. Miller needs to improve his control, if he’s brought into a game in the 8th inning with 2 or 3 runners on base the last thing you want is him walking somebody.
@york
Miller also gave up 18 EARNED RUNS and 6 home runs in less innings
compared to clase’s 5 earned runs and 2 home runs
So definitely a big separation in closing success
@Fever Pitch Guy
2024, Class inherited 0 runners so obviously gave up 0 runs. However, Miller inherited 8 runners and gave up 1 run. Also, Miller came in for multiple innings throughout the season while Clase did that once. To me, it seems like Miller is the guy I want in tough situations.
@FemboySportsFan!
Using RA9def, you can see that his defense actually saved about 4 ERs for Clase, which raises his ER total to 9, while Miller’s defense cost him about 2 ERs, which drops his ER down to 16. Put Clase on the A’s team and I’m sure he wouldn’t have as much success, thanks to the poor defense.
So, sure, Miller essentially gave up 7 more ERs when you account for everything but I’d rather a guy who had great metrics in terms of what he can control (SIERA) and still ends up giving up 16 ERs 60+ innings. Sure, he could improve upon that reality but this was his second season in the bigs.
York – Thanks, that is interesting Clase started an inning every time he pitched in the regular season. Question is, was that done because he’s been historically bad entering games in the middle of an inning?
That would explain him entering the October 17th postseason game with 2 outs in the 8th and getting absolutely hammered (homerun, homerun, single).
@Fever Pitch Guy
You’d need to ask the MLB sabermetric nerds about that.
In his career, he’s had 20 inherited runners and allowed 5 of them to score, so I don’t think it’s a case that he’s terrible at it.
Hey MLBTR,
Got a suggestion, how about nightly Open Thread post where we can discuss anything baseball related?
I like it. We can take a virtual road tour through the gre — err — perfectly suitable state of FL and the southeast every night pondering where the h— the Rays will play ball. No sandlot will go untouched. By the end of it, we draft a formal letter to Rob and all will be well in St. Pete.
Run – With the probable loss of funding for the new stadium, I anticipate the repairing of The Trop is highly likely. They will be back there in 2026.
Yeah, seems like the case – what a waste of millions of dollars for 2 years of use. Can they barter with Temu on naming rights for a new roof??
Run – County commissioners meet next week for a possible vote on the new stadium bonds. Two commissioners who had been supportive of the bonds are now gone, one of the replacement commissioners is dead set against it.
So bottom line, if they approve the bonds and they decide to repair The Trop, the Ray would play there for 3 more years (2026-2028).
If they reject the bond funding, the Rays could be in The Trop for a lot longer than 3 years.
I was afraid this would happen, not enough locals care enough about the Rays to give them a new stadium.
@Salzilla
I can see that turning into a moderator nightmare. Dems vs. Reps will be spilling their Twitter battles in here, on an open thread. We already see some of it spill into topics not even related to politics.
I mean it wouldn’t be much different than any other thread, just not so focused on one particular topic.
Great idea:
1. MLBTR institutional bias in favor of Cubs over Cardinals.
2. Miscellaneous Football Slider-related matters.
3. Relative merits of Bay Area cities from social and economic perspective (esp. Oakland) versus other US metropolitan areas.
…all of these (and more) will benefit from the enhanced free expression offered by the Open Thread.
It’s clearly a winner.
@longdistancebrewer
Maybe open it up to subscribers only? Maybe that already exists?
I’m a subscriber….am I missing something?!
…but yeah, if your point is to exclude those who post thousands of times a month but are somehow comfortable with not paying a couple of bucks per month? I couldn’t agree more and would definitely improve the quality of debate.
I’m sure the Diamond plan will be approved given the number of teams they’ve reached agreement with. Creditors will be leaving money on the table if they force dissolution now. The Braves media revenue seems to be completely safe.
You know that Arte, Trout, Addell, etc are loving Ohtani’s 2 for 19 World Series “performance” as well as Ohtani’s non-existant presence in the NLDS and the fact that winning the World Series was completely ruined for Ohtani by the fact that he won it with LA and not Anaheim.
@EHenderson
Some guys are Regular Season stars while others are Post Season stars. Not everyone is made for the spotlight.