This post is part of a series covering the 2024 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee Managers/Executives/Umpires ballot, covering candidates in those categories who made their greatest impact from 1980 to the present. For an introduction to the ballot, see here. The eight candidates will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in Nashville on December 3, and anyone receiving at least 75% of the vote from the 16 committee members will be inducted in Cooperstown on July 21, 2024 along with any candidates elected by the BBWAA.

Lou Piniella

Lou Piniella spent even more years managing in the majors (23, between 1986 and 2010) than he did playing the outfield (18, between 1964 and ’84). To both, “Sweet Lou” brought a flair for the dramatic and a fiery intensity — his dust-kicking, hat-stomping, base-throwing tirades became the stuff of legend — as well as tremendous baseball acumen. Like fellow Contemporary Baseball candidate Davey Johnson, he won championships in both phases of his career, but his failure even to reach the World Series a second time as a manager cast a long shadow on every successive stop. Unlike Johnson, however, he came close to election, missing by just one vote on the 2019 Today’s Game Era Committee ballot from which Harold Baines and Lee Smith were elected. Read the rest of this entry »

In case you were on sabbatical on Monday and missed the news, it’s manager hirin’ season. As much as player evaluation is an inexact science, identifying good potential managers is even more so. Even previous success as a manager is no guarantee. Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy both won titles almost immediately after being hired to their last jobs, but consider how badly things went for Joe Girardi in Philadelphia or Joe Maddon in Anaheim.

So much of this job is either intangible or inscrutable to outsiders; more than that, there are several different ways to become qualified for it. Monday’s new hires — Craig Counsell of the Cubs, Stephen Vogt of the Guardians, and Carlos Mendoza of the Mets — represent three different paths to managerial candidacy. That got me thinking about managers less as individuals than as classes of individuals. Read the rest of this entry »

2:01	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to the first offseason edition of my Tuesday chat!

2:03

Jay Jaffe: This is also very possibly the last one of these I conduct for a few weeks in my current abode, as The Big Move from the apartment where I’ve spent the past 16 years — the everyday professional part of my writing career, as it is — to our new home further south in Brooklyn is scheduled for a week from Saturday.

2:04

Jay Jaffe: It’s all very exciting and stressful and there’s a lot to do, as you can imagine. Since I’ll be without a computer setup for a few days, I’ll have to work ahead, hence the unlikelihood of a chat next week. Anyway, yesterday I wrote about Clayton Kershaw’s surgery and Lance Lynn’s option: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/with-kershaws-surgery-and-lynns-declined-o…

2:05	Jay Jaffe: And today I published my first candidate profile from the 2024 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee Managers/Executives/Umpires ballot, Davey Johnson https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2024-contemporary-baseball-era-committee-c…

2:05	Jay Jaffe: And now, on with the show

Read the rest of this entry »

This post is part of a series covering the 2024 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee Managers/Executives/Umpires ballot, covering candidates in those categories who made their greatest impact from 1980 to the present. For an introduction to the ballot, see here. The eight candidates will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in Nashville on December 3, and anyone receiving at least 75% of the vote from the 16 committee members will be inducted in Cooperstown on July 21, 2024, along with any candidates elected by the BBWAA.

Davey Johnson

Like Billy Martin before him, albeit with far less drinking and drama, Davey Johnson was renowned for his ability to turn teams around. He posted a winning record in his first full season at four of his five managerial stops and took four of the five franchises that he managed to the playoffs at least once. But after six-plus seasons managing the Mets, he never lasted even three full seasons in any other job and never replicated the success he had in piloting the 1986 Mets to 108 wins and a World Series victory. Read the rest of this entry »

Cooper Hjerpe is catching up for lost time in the Arizona Fall League. St. Louis’ first-round pick (22nd overall) in 2022, the 22-year-old southpaw was out of action from late May to early September due to an elbow issue and ended up tossing just 41 innings. He was effective when healthy. Throwing from what my colleague Eric Longenhagen has called “a funky low-slot delivery,” Hjerpe fanned 51 batters, allowed 26 hits and posted a 3.51 ERA with High-A Peoria.

The Oregon State University product’s AFL stint with the Scottsdale Scorpions included a two-batter appearance in Sunday night’s Fall Stars game. Entering in the eighth inning, Hjerpe retired fellow former first-rounders Max Muncy and Jace Jung, the latter on a swinging strike. I caught up to the deceptive lefty after the game to ask about his pitch metrics and approach on the mound.

———

David Laurila: We should start with a health update. What was the procedure you had this summer, and how is your elbow now?

Cooper Hjerpe: “I had what’s called arthroscopy surgery. A microscope went in there and took out bodies of cartilage. There were two pieces of cartilage at the front and the back of the elbow; they took them out and shaved what they came off of. It wasn’t like reconstruction surgery or anything like that. Everything is back to normal.”

Laurila: You throw from a low slot and approach angle, so I’m interested in what you can tell me about your pitch metrics.

Hjerpe: “The heater has changed a little bit. I don’t know if it’s the balls or what, but right now it has been like 10 vertical and 18 horizontal. The slider is anywhere from zero to negative-four vertical, with 14 to 16 HB [horizontal break]. The changeup is anywhere from positive-two to negative-three vertical, and negative-19 horizontal. The cutter, which I’m still working on, is 10 to 13 vert and around zero horizontal.” Read the rest of this entry »

An entire offseason’s worth of managerial reshuffling took place early Monday afternoon, as the most coveted managerial role was filled and the most coveted managerial candidate found a home — just not how you’d think.

The Guardians first announced the hiring of Mariners bullpen coach and golden-voiced baritone Stephen Vogt. Shortly thereafter, news broke that the Cubs were hiring outgoing Brewers manager Craig Counsell, despite already having David Ross under contract for that position. Counsell had been expected to follow former Brewers baseball ops boss David Stearns to the Mets, but when he landed in Chicago, the Mets unveiled Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza as their new manager.

Counsell, regarded as one of the top skippers in the sport, has reset the market for manager salaries with a five-year, $40 million contract. A free agent after his Brewers contract expired, he interviewed with both New York and Cleveland and was regarded as both teams’ top choice. When he made his unexpected switch to Chicago, that made the other teams’ decisions easier, and thus followed the busy afternoon on the coaching carousel. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about whether whether they’d watch the winning team celebrate if they lost the World Series, then (17:09) discuss a trio of managerial moves (the Cubs poaching Craig Counsell from the Brewers, the Guardians hiring Stephen Vogt, and the Mets hiring Carlos Mendoza), the Marlins hiring the Rays’ GM, and what the Padres declining Michael Wacha’s option says about a Juan Soto trade, plus (1:04:30) some consideration of whether an-season tournament like the NBA’s makes sense for MLB and (1:23:27) a few follow-ups.

Audio intro: Beatwriter, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Jonathan Crymes, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to FB thread
Link to Patek photo
Link to Sam on Kershaw
Link to Sad Keanu meme
Link to MLBTR on Counsell
Link to story about Cubs tampering
Link to story on Selig Rule
Link to ESPN on Vogt
Link to Aaron on journeymanagers
Link to ESPN on Mendoza
Link to Passan tweet about salaries
Link to MLBTR on Wacha’s option
Link to Becker’s tweet about Wacha
Link to MLBTR on Bendix
Link to Bendix at SB Nation
Link to in-season tournament wiki
Link to in-season tournament explainer
Link to story on load management
Link to Attanasio comment
Link to Vogt’s wiki
Link to EW on Vogt’s wiki
Link to Correa on Maldonado
Link to Ben on player-value estimates
Link to qualifying offers
Link to qualifying-offer history

 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Facebook Group
 Twitter Account
 EW Subreddit
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
 Get Our Merch!
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

The Dodgers provided some clarity with regards to their decimated rotation on Friday, though perhaps not in the most reassuring manner. First, the team reportedly declined Lance Lynn’s $18 million option, and then Clayton Kershaw announced via Instagram that he had undergone shoulder surgery that morning, with hopes of a return to play “at some point next summer.” As if that didn’t raise enough questions, the three-time Cy Young winner and future Hall of Famer did nothing to tip his hand regarding whether he’d seek a return to the Dodgers.

When we last saw the 35-year-old Kershaw in action, he was leaving the mound after retiring just one of the eight Diamondbacks he faced in the Division Series opener. Because the Dodgers were swept in the best-of-five series, he didn’t get a chance to take another turn, though manager Dave Roberts had planned to send him out for Game 4 had the team extended the series. Asked in the immediate aftermath of the team’s elimination what would come next for him, Kershaw responded cryptically, saying, “I don’t know how to answer that right now.”

Kershaw’s inability to articulate his plans at the time was understandable, in part because for the third year in a row he was headed towards free agency, with a chance to leave the only organization he’s known since being drafted out of Highland Park High School in Dallas in 2006. In the past two winters, he had given some consideration to pitching closer to home with the Rangers, but chose to return to the Dodgers after the 2021 season, signing a one-year, $17 million contract after the lockout ended in March ’22, and then re-upping for one year and $20 million last December. Though he missed the 2021 postseason due to forearm discomfort, Kershaw didn’t have any health-related question marks hanging over his head by the time he re-signed either of those deals. This time, he’s in uncharted territory. Read the rest of this entry »

As the professional baseball career of Nelson Cruz flashes before my eyes, no single image emerges to define his legacy. He served as a leader in the clubhouse, was devoted to off-the-field humanitarian efforts, proudly represented his Dominican homeland, consistently hit the baseball so hard that he earned the nickname Boomstick, and did all of it at a high level for more years than any aging curve would have dared to predict.

Last week, after 19 seasons in majors, Cruz announced his retirement on The Adam Jones Podcast. He also addressed the second-most important topic pertaining to his career: the origin of his nickname. Back in 2009, while playing as himself in a video game for some sort of promo event, Cruz hit a home run and referred to his bat as the Boomstick. The name circulated amongst fans and stuck. Read the rest of this entry »

In the five days between the World Series and the start of free agency, there’s plenty of paperwork to do — exercising or declining options, sorting out 40-man roster spots, that sort of thing — before a team starts the offseason in earnest. Sometimes, that shuffling reveals a landing spot for a player who was going to be turned loose anyway, and we get a trade.

Mark Canha, your friendly neighborhood on-base machine, is headed from Milwaukee to Detroit, with 25-year-old Double-A reliever Blake Holub headed in the opposite direction. Read the rest of this entry »