WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Total Bases: MLB Awards Week

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

Mark and Greg discuss the latest baseball offseason news, featuring the BBWAA award winners.

Garrett Cole finally wins Tsai Young. Shohei Otani is looking for a second MVP later today and is Juan Soto on the trading block. We'll talk about all that and more coming up here on Total Bases.

All right, welcome to Total Bases here on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Greg Marino here with Mark Marino. And today we're a couple weeks into the off season now and there's a lot to get into as it's awards week for all the major awards the ones that

we like to talk about MVP si young rookie of the year and so far really you know we're a couple of Yankees fans in here so we were both pretty happy to see Garrett Cole finally win a Sy Young for the Yankees first Yankees Sy Young winner since Clemens in 2001

well I don't really like Cole so I want to say I'm like happy all right well like the normal Yankees fans who like the good players on the Yankees they were happy. Because I do think that people like, Cole was probably, you know,

maybe the best pitcher in baseball this year. Like, there were a lot of good pitchers. He was like, right in there. But he definitely wasn't very good in the last couple of years. Like, he was a massive disappointment. And then people have like totally forgotten that after this one excellent year. I don't know. I, I feel that he, he was

good in 2020 in the short end season. Yeah, it was pretty good. He wasn't great. I remember he gave a ton of underingering runs in one game. Yeah. And I guess in 2020, like that one game does actually work the stats a pretty large amount. But like 2021 he was good and 22, he was a little bit worse. Yeah, 2021, he was dominant for the first couple months.

But then once it cracked down to, you know, spy attack and the other sticky stuff, he kind of wasn't so good. And then he also wasn't so good in 2022. But you always had all those strikeouts. So you knew he had the ability to be elite again. and he was at least this year. He definitely deserved it. Yeah, I mean, people were talking, like, a couple of years ago.

If, you know, the end of spider attack was the end of Garrett Cole. As it, he did kind of have a big slump following the spider attack. I think people really weren't talking about it enough. But as usual, when I say something, that just kind of causes it to, like, not be true for the million time. I always, like, jinx and reverse. I guess, I guess I was talking to. you and you were talking about the Cole Spider-attack a lot. Yeah, but most

other people kind of like, people kind of ignore the whole sticky stuff. Even though I think like that was a pretty big cheating scandal personally. But anyway, we've kind of talked a lot about that now. Like Cole, you know, he had a great year. You think he's a terrible, but you

can't blame that in Cole. He's obviously not like a... He's not a Jacob de Grom, we'll say. Who gets injured enabling his team to actually in the World Series. But yeah, and in the NL side of things, Blake Snell

picks up his second Sion. That guy's really had an interesting career, going from Sy Young to like pretty bad on like a biannual basis. Yes, so when 2018, he was elite with like a 190 ERA or so. Then he had four years

of kind of being slightly above average. But again, he always had good, great talent. With him like, you know, walks or kind of a concern, even this year, like, he walked a ton of guys. He didn't go super deep in the games. But when you have a 225 ERA, that was, like, by far the best in MLB of, like, full-time starters.

Cole was the second best at 263. He was clearly deserving of this. And you can't just ignore two, like, really, really great years. So, like, he's a free agent. I mean, he's got to get a big payday. And, you know, like, all the walks are, like, part of, him like he's a guy who you know he's kind of wild he doesn't give in he's not going to pitch super deep in the games he's not carol in that respect but also that goes hand in hand with him having

great stuff striking out a ton of guys and he can be dominant as he was this year yeah i think snows got to get paid really i think a guy like him i could see him he's not super old either i could see him getting like 200 million yeah i would definitely consider that um that definitely ton of teams that need starting pitching this off season. There are a lot of starting pitchers on the market, though. It's a more pitcher-friendly market than hitters this year. Yeah. So, it'll be interesting to see where Snell lands.

Honestly, I haven't heard a lot of buzz about where Snell is going to land. However, one guy who we have heard an excessive amount of buzz about where he will land is Shohay Otani, who will probably be assuming nothing crazy happens, winning his second MVP award tonight as they'll be announcing that at 7 p.m. And so Otani as a free agent coming off at MVP year, you know, people are thinking like 400 million, like 800 million, you know, like no one really knows what this guy's going to get. But I'll say he's not going to be able to pitch next year. And you know, like in terms of present value, that does bring it down a pretty good him out because of his surgery or whatever on his elbow.

He's had a lot of injuries. Now, he's been great while he's on the field pretty much. I mean, he had like one terrible year in 2020, which was a short season. And in 2018 and 19, he just wasn't like hitting and especially pitching enough. Honestly, his first three years weren't that good. But his last three have been ridiculous. It's beyond debate at this point that he's a dominant hitter and really a very good pitcher when he's on the field. And I mean he's shown the ability to like you know even if his pitching got side

Velt he can still keep hitting and like he pin it well also it's interesting how how often he gets an injury and it like takes him off the man but not out of the batters box but really I think one thing that's definitely worth talking about with it Tony though is the fact that he's been on the angels with Mike try and that team has been an abysmal failure for the last few years with this year really being like a like a good glorious display of underachievement. You know, really not even second to the Mets, I would say. And so in a certain point,

Otani's been in that clubhouse, and I really, I think it's starting to come out that he's not exactly the best clubhouse guy. Yeah, definitely. There were multiple big controversies later in the season, while he cleaned out his locker with like several weeks to go. And then also, I think he, like, refused to get an MRI,

which is just completely insane. Yeah, I mean, if you're like a pro athlete, like, get the MRI. Yeah, especially when you're like, you know, the best athlete in the world. I mean, I think. Someone's going to be paying you $500 billion in a couple months. I think it's fair to say, like, all right, he kind of, he threw some fits towards the end of the year, but then again, he has been on a massively underachieving team for the last six years.

So that hasn't been able to make the playoffs, hasn't made it a win at all. So it's kind of, kind of understandable why he'd be kind of. frustrated and done with the angels by then but at the same time i still think like you know if i'm a gm looking for a guy i don't want the guy who's gonna you know clear stuff out of the locker when there's like five game losing streak you know so i i don't think that's like really a great look for him and i don't it might cost him some money but then he's going to get so much money that it's really more going to affect like what which teams want him you know which teams care about that sort of thing more.

I do think he wants to win. That's definitely something that it matters to him. And, like, I don't really see him going to, like, a team like the Padres where it might just become a complete locker room disaster with Otani or, like, the Mets. Like, I think he's going to, I kind of see the Dodgers is the most likely leading spot. Yeah. And, like, obviously, the Dodgers have a very good team chemistry, even though some individual players have had Bidre off the field issues.

But, like, aside from them, like, the whole team. has definitely had excellent chemistry. You would think that he would be able to get along there and have a better mood on a team that really just always wins. Yeah, honestly, it seems like the Dodgers want him, and, you know, he's already an LA guy, so if he's kind of like living in LA or whatever, like personally, it does seem to be a good fit.

Because, yeah, like, I don't think Otani's the kind of guy who wants to go to a mid-tier team and make it a great team because he kind of tried that and wasn't able to do it. he went to the Angels and wasn't able to actually make them good. So if you're showing Atani at this point, you've got to be thinking, all right, just put me on an already great team that I can just kind of contribute to because, you know, as much as people talk about him being like crazy out of this world baseball talent, you know, he wasn't enough to to make his team good.

So, you know, ultimately he's got to recognize that by now and want to go to a team that's already good. Yeah. Also, remember the Dodgers? they like totally did not spend any money last year in the offseason. They let the Padres like just, you know, load up and seem like the better team. And the Dodgers totally like took a step back and kind of had to reset year. They got under the luxury tax.

So the luxury tax kind of, you know, it goes up sort of exponentially for every further year that you're over it. So last year they kind of got under the luxury tax and like reset, saved money. And presumably they were trying to save it up for Otani. I think that people are also saying, like, you can't, last year people were saying you can't rule out the Mets, with Steve Cohen having like an unlimited checkbook. But I kind of feel like at this point, there's been some talk about the Mets wanting to, you know, rating the money a bit. Plus, Otani wants to be on a winner. That just doesn't seem like the best fit or something is like good to happen.

And I do think that the Dodgers are the favorites. Obviously, a lot of teams, we heard a lot of rumors of all sorts of teams, Mirreners, Giants, Cubs. The thing is with all those teams, though, it's the same thing. Mariners, Giants, Cubs, and Mets. None of them are good teams. So, but Mariner doesn't want to play for the Angels 2.0. Like, he wants to get onto the, like, a Dodgers-style team.

Yeah, the Mariners have been pretty good the last couple of years. So you would think that they would, you know, become an elite team if they got Otani. And he would be able to stay on the West Coast, which I think he won. Yeah, but like that is what people thought about the angels and that's been an absolute train wreck. So I don't know. I mean, honestly, I'm surprised no one's talking about the Rangers as getting Otani coming off the World Series. But the Rangers have spent so much money the last few years. You know, and then they also take out insurers' contract at the deadline last year.

I just don't think they have that much money to spend. And also when you've just won the World Series, you don't need to go and do anything too drastic. I don't know. And they don't really need offense. as well. Their offense is like stacked. I actually don't love that philosophy. I feel like coming off a World Series, it's pretty easy to kind of coast to a mid-tier season the following year. But, you know, if you make a splash, you get a new guy who hasn't won a World Series in that clubhouse, you know, I feel like that kind of keeps it going strong. We've seen in the last few years, it's kind of

frequent that teams have a World Series kind of bounce back that's bad, you know, like Red Sox 2018 nationals weren't very good in 2020. The nationals were a bit of a, you know, a fluke. And that was kind of coming anyway. And honestly, Braves in 22 coming off their World Series when they made the playoffs, but then had a pretty lackluster performance early into the last two years in the playoffs.

So, I don't think it's going to happen. I feel like for the Rangers, it's not just like they have a good clubhouse, but the clubhouse is like such a strong focus for them. I don't think they'd want to bring in a potential problem like Otani. Whereas the Dodgers, they're just kind of like, they're like a great baseball team who likes to win and happens to have a good clubhouse. The Rangers almost seem to have, like, build their team around a strong clubhouse,

and I think they'd want to mess it up. And also, he's only hitting next year, and the Rangers do not need offense. With Montgomery leaving, they definitely need some, maybe an elite starting pitcher. They've got a lot of kind of average starting pitchers, and they definitely need a lot of bullpen help. So the Rangers have holes. Yeah. I don't bind to the idea that just because your bullpen survived the postseason,

I think they got really lucky and they weren't even that great anyway. They definitely need to upgrade the bullpen and they might need to get an ace starting pitcher, but they do not need offense. Their offense is stacked one through nine. Yeah, yeah, I kind of, I mostly agree up. I don't think there's really any shot. Otani does go to the Rangers. Yeah, and so many teams would like to have him.

Mir just seems like a good fit. Yeah. Giants seem like a good for the giants have missed on so many free agents. Yeah, the giants, it's like every year they were going to get judged. That didn't happen. Like, they're always about to get the big guy and don't. So it seems like eventually they got him. But on the trade side of things, some kind of big news coming in more recently is Juan Soto is looking like he's very likely to be traded, which is rather new.

I mean, obviously it's been an option for the Padres for a while. They traded for him. and a half ago. And so, you know, it, it would seem to make sense, but now we're getting in news from MLB Insiders saying, like, no, it's like pretty certain. It's just a matter of where he goes and for what they get for him. But like, the Padres want to move him, which honestly, like, I think it kind of makes sense. You can get a huge haul for Soto. How many more years of, of control does he have on his contract? He has one more year. Oh, yeah. They give up a ton to the nationals for Soto, but at that point, he had two and a half years. It made sense to give up a ton for him. At this point,

you're not going to get like a ton for him, but he's still going to get a lot for an MVP, maybe top five in baseball player, even if it's just one year. That is a guy who can really change a landscape. A team that immediately came to mind of people was the Yankees. So it's obvious to see that he could transform a team like the Yankees if he went to them.

Yeah, I would love to see him on the Yankees. I think he'd be a great fit. They could use some outfield, left-handed power about outfielder. Yeah, definitely need outfield. There may need two outfielers. and we'll see if, you know, in a really strong division coming off an awful season, we'll see if the Ikees are like, I kind of get the sense they're going to try to win and, you know, bounce back.

They're not going to like, you know, start a rebuild or anything. Honestly, there's a few teams in that spot who were supposed to be very good last year and just were massive disappointments. And now it's kind of where to go from there. Like the Padres, it looks like they're going to go to the selling and rebuilding stage, which I don't think they're going to look for like a long-term rebuild. because I presume they still want to win with Tatisan Matrato and Bogart. They have all these massive contracts for a while.

It's not like they're going to, yeah, do a five or six year rebuild, but maybe they sort of kind of do like a half rebuild where they're not selling out the way they have the last couple of years. Yeah. Yeah, and that's kind of honestly, if they do trade Soto and they get a lot less than what they gave up for him, that's kind of just an L for them, honestly. like a pretty big blow for their organization to have gotten Soto for a year and a half and done nothing with it. But, you know, at a certain point, you kind of got to limit the costs.

And those costs are mostly sunk at this point. Yeah, they did have a nice run last year in the playoffs. You know, they should have beaten the Phillies. They didn't. Obviously, if they'd beat the Phillies, we might think differently about Soto's tenure there with the Padres. Yeah, I guess so. I guess they really were closer to a pennant last year. Yeah, but this year was up.

really mind-melting debacle. They had a great run differential, but they were still like 500. They have the Syng-Bank's. No, they have all those stars on offense. But for interstates, did not have a great year offensibly, though, that was really disappointing.

I mean, it really, even without Soto, they should still be a good team. And the Dodgers have plenty of question marks. Mm-hmm. The Diamondbacks are kind of tough to believe in. Yeah, the Diamondbacks, I'd feel like a bit of, like, a miraculous run this year for sure.

Yeah, there's no way that they're not going to be, you know, a team you've got to think about contending, even if they do trade soda, which I suspect they will with all those other big contracts. Yeah, I honestly, like, they're not going to be signing a long turn, you might as well trade them now. It's almost a bit of a

Mets case for the Padres. I'm just pool them in with the Mets in terms of teams with just massive payrolls that have a lot of really big names that just massively underachieves. and another interesting team to look at is the brewers who made the playoffs won the division but it wasn't like a super strong year for them it felt more just like an n.L central being bad kind of year for them and it's looking like they are thinking of selling out you know we could see corin burns on the

move brand and woodruff they have a lot of big pieces maybe even christian yellich you know i haven't heard anything specific to yelich but if the brewers are selling you'd have to won't you know, Yellowch had a nice bounce back year last year, and not quite MVP for him, but had a pretty solid year at the plate. And so that could really shake things up, especially in the NL Central, where the Cubs just signed Craig Counsel to what they give him?

They gave him five years and 40 million. For a manager, that is Craig Counselor's a manager. Yeah, and I don't even think that, you know, if you would actually rank managers, everyone says in your lead manager, but I think if you actually rank managers, he wouldn't be that high. And that's the highest contract for a manager ever.

that's as much money as Yandi Diaz makes, who was one of the best hitters in the A-I-L-M-A-L-M-Bee like a top-M-VP. Yeah, that just seemed crazy to me. It's kind of, I can sort of see the argument. It's like, take a look at the, like, this year's World Series matchup between the Diamondbacks and the Rangers, and it's like it wasn't like the biggest named players with the biggest salaries in there.

It's like maybe you really kind of got to build that team chemistry, like the Rangers had, you know, that brought them all the way to a World Series. You know, I can kind of see the argument for it, But also, yeah, I don't really love it, though. Because like you said, like, even if paying managers is a worthwhile investment, like, I don't know if counsel's the guy to pay. Yeah, like, David Voss seemed like a solid manager.

Counsel's not known as that's like on a clubbuss guy, like, you know, a toy level on the dimebacks. And, like, obviously, like, Bruce Bochy. Like, he's kind of the best in the business. Like, there's no comparing anyone to him, really. So, like, I feel like you've got to actually, like, rank the managers and be like, where is this guy? And I don't think counsel will be super high.

Yeah, but how would you see? see the NL Central looking next year if the Brewers sell and now the Cubs are maybe getting aggressive the Cubs are losing Bellinger to free agency then he's a pretty big part of their options

Stroman But like say the Cubs do land someone like Otani You know like like I said like looking unlikely Maybe not even Otani maybe just like Snell You know some of the big free agents Maybe they re-sign Bollinger Yeah I think the Reds are more potentially scary than the Cubs.

And you can't rely a Cardinals bounce back. So I think it's going to be like a bunch of mediocre teams. You know, as usual, the NL Central won't be that strong. But yeah, the Cubs are going to have to make themselves a serious contender. I don't think they are one right now. Yeah, I kind of agree with that. Honestly, I think we can see the NL Central looking pretty similar to how it did this year, except it might just be a different team that emerges out of

that cluster of mostly mediocrity. So this year we saw the Brewers ultimately pull ahead, but maybe it'll be the Cubs next year, maybe the rest. The Reds really weren't competitive in terms of playoffs last year. There was like a brief time, and right when they called up Eli de la Cruz, where it was like, all right,

the Reds are going to come in and like steal a wild card spot. It didn't really end up happening. But they seem to have a good future ahead of them. Yeah, so quickly, let's talk about that MVP, which are being announced tonight. Joe Hara Tani is like almost certainly going to win it falling like up really he got even better this year

he was the best hitter in the AL not to mention he was also one of the best pitchers there was a time when it was looking like he was going to hit 60 homers yeah well maybe like having a side of his on the mad like a year after judge did it yeah so he was so far in a way better than everyone else that there's no way he doesn't win it even with

the team being bad and him having yeah multiple Also, there wasn't anyone else great in the AL. You know, I think if Betts or Acuna had been into NL, maybe, as far as the Anna goes, I think it's got to be wrong on the Coonio Jr. Like, I think a lot of people are saying, oh, bets and Acuna are pretty even, but I think Acuna just seems to have an edge on Betz and pretty much every relevant stat. And so I don't really see how it doesn't go to Acuna.

Yeah, I think that, you know, some of the advanced metrics like war, say like Betts was better defensively, so that might, you know, make it close. And also, Betts, you know, did come and play the infield, a bit of shortstop. in a lot of second base. So, like, you know, people say like, oh, that versatility in doing whatever the team needs, like can make that many people. I think that's a little overblown. Yeah.

I just like Acuna just hit better than him, you know, 337 average. He had the 70 steals, which I don't know it's a big year of Stole Mases, but like 70s. It's kind of mind-blowing. So, yeah. I just got to go to Acuna. Yeah. But that, we're about out of time here. So that I'll wrap it up for us here on total bases on Radio Free Hillsdale 1-1.7 FM,

but thank you for listening and you'll hear from us next week.