[tiktok inflection] Well ladies, if he wanted to, he would.
Remember this summer when Freddie Freeman cried so hard over no longer being a Brave that he could barely get a word out in Atlanta, both on the field while accepting a World Series ring, or in a press conference where he sobbed into a towel over same?
My main takeaway from the Aaron Judge-Giants-Yankees saga, which Alex Pavlovic ably excavated, is that he wanted to be a Yankee. I don’t think he was playing around with the Giants, but I do think he had an end goal and achieved it. There will be no tears.
Now I personally cannot imagine a world in which I had the opportunity to take my talents to California and declined in order to stay in New York, but variety, as they say, is the spice of life.
Anyway, Kevin Durant had the most salient take of the day.
Hot Stove Season
There are two 15-team leagues in Major League Baseball and it’s no secret that the National League is the best one. The American League has a few extremely good teams and a lot of very bad teams and not enough fun, weird in-the-middle teams. There’s also an overall lack of sauce. This isn’t up to me, it’s science.
But the balanced schedule may change my mind — rather than watching the Giants play the beleaguered Rockies 27 times next year, we’ll get the opportunity to see teams we don’t normally see. And I am a little excited about some AL moves made during the Winter Meetings this week.
Between us, the Milwaukee Brewers were my favorite non NL West NL team, other than the Mets. Young, fun, weird. Big Kolten Wong fan over here. Wong going to the Mariners means I’ll watch more than four Mariners games this year, I guess!
Jacob De Grom’s enormous deal with the Rangers. So on one hand, he’s the best pitcher in baseball. On the other, he had a horrible post-season outing with the Mets this year and 22 total starts in the last two years (injuries, tbf), so there’s no reason to imagine that he’ll suddenly be dealing every five days for the Rangers. On the other, other hand, his manager will be Bruce Bochy? On the other other other hand, Bruce Bochy’s record 2017-2019.
What I’m saying is I’m excited to have a reason to watch the Rangers!?
And the big deals for old guys overall — it’s all fun and games now but let’s check back in here in 2027 when $30-$40 million a year suddenly seems like a bad bill.
My favorite AL team, by far, are the absolutely delightful Cleveland Guardians. Seeing Josh Bell head that way after an uneven half-season with the Padres is actually exciting. It’s a fun, young club, he seems (as is able to be determined by publicly available reports) like a great guy and a good vet. Love that union.
There’s a lot of speculation that the Giants are going to go hard for the last remaining free agent shortstop, Carlos Correa (lol remember when I said this wasn’t a fantasy GM newsletter?). As of 9:57 p.m. pacific on December 7, I don’t think that’s the case for four reasons:
The Giants have an extremely competent and oft-spectacular shortstop in Brandon Crawford
Craw has never played any other position in 11 years as a Giant and has made it clear that he has no interest in doing so before he retires (presumably end of next season when his contract is up)
Correa also has no desire to play another position per his agent Scott Boras
Infield defense isn’t the issue with this team, it’s outfield. Mitch Haniger is a great start but they need one more outfielder who can rake.
With that said, sign him, Farhan! Just imagine the boos at Dodger Stadium when he steps up to the plate…
Far away from home
A week ago in this very blog, I mentioned how much I love Christine McVie. The next day it was announced she had died at the age of 79. She was everything. One of the only tweets I remember writing in 12 years was: “Christine McVie was born Christine Perfect, and remains so.”
Anyway, I’m just as basic as everyone on the planet who loves “Everywhere” and “You Make Loving Fun” but the song that really really got me over the last few years was an alternate version of “Honey Hi” from Tusk. It has all this synth-iness happening. Super soft hand drums too. Tambourines. That tea-and-honey-soaked, confident, searching, seeking voice. It’s a meditation.
More soon.
Shani
P.S. how many shortstops do the Padres actually need at this point? Get the bag, tho, X.