Ichiro Suzuki leads Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, plus the Rays stadium situation
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The ballots are public, let the debates begin. (Amongst yourselves. I'm good.) Also: The Rays' situation just got a lot more complicated, we check back on the Guardians' philosophy shift from last February and Ken has more on Alex Bregman's free agency. I'm Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal. Welcome to The Windup!
Cooperstown: Ichiro and who else?
It's official. The Hall of Fame ballot has been announced .
There's really only one slam-dunk candidate this year: Ichiro Suzuki. I know that the hits he logged in Japan before coming stateside don't count toward his MLB totals, but 4,367 is still a really big number (111 more than all-time leader Pete Rose's 4,256), and 3,089 of them came during his 19-year career in the states.
Only five other players have over 3,000 hits and no Hall of Fame plaque:
Given Ichiro's career total of only 117 home runs, it's safe to say that the suspicions that have kept Palmeiro and Rodriguez out of Cooperstown do not apply.
But, as Jayson Stark points out , the real intrigue starts after the perfunctory checking of the box by Ichiro's name.
Ken's Notebook: The case for Alex Bregman
From my latest notes column :
The Athletic's Tim Britton projects a seven-year, $189 million contract for free-agent third baseman Alex Bregman. My suspicion is that Bregman and his agent, Scott Boras, are aiming higher — specifically, at a deal closer to the 11-year, $350 million extension Manny Machado signed with the San Diego Padres in Feb. 2023.
Preposterous? Maybe, considering that another of Boras third-base clients, Matt Chapman , recently signed a six-year, $151 million deal. The Machado extension, which prevented him from opting out at the end of '23, resulted in part from the passion and generosity of the late Padres owner, Peter Seidler. Other teams, including Bregman's previous club, the Houston Astros , likely view it as an outlier. But the statistical comparison between Machado and Bregman is closer than one might think.
Bregman, at 30 years, eight months, is roughly the same age Machado was when he signed his extension. Machado began his major-league career at 19, three years earlier than Bregman, who played collegiately at LSU. So at the time Machado signed his deal, he had nearly 1,500 more plate appearances than Bregman does now.
Still, Bregman's career OPS+ is 32 percent above league average, 6 percent higher than Machado's was entering 2023. Machado rated an edge in Wins Above Replacement per season, but not by a terribly significant margin. And while Machado generally is considered the better defender, Bregman is no slouch, having just won his first Gold Glove.
It's true Bregman is five years removed from his best season — 2019, when he was the runner-up for AL MVP. Yet it's also true he has played in 99 postseason games, second only to Astros teammate Jose Altuve . Eighteen of those games were in 2017, when commissioner Rob Manfred determined the Astros stole signs illegally. The scandal, however, did not prevent two members of those teams, George Springer and Carlos Correa , from receiving market-value deals in free agency.
Boras, naturally, is using Bregman's playoff experience as a selling point. Bregman's career OPS in the postseason is .789.
"Bregman's value is beyond the customary season metrics of an excellent infielder," Boras said. "Owners covet championships. They openly admit in meetings the uniqueness of Bregman's leadership and postseason performance are not included in his WAR evaluation."
More here .
Messes: Did hurricane ruin Rays' stadium deal?
Last week, about five seconds after we sent our last newsletter, it became official: The Rays will play at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa . That's the Yankees' spring training facility, which has a capacity of 11,000 fans. Paired with the A's in Sacramento, that means two MLB teams will be playing in minor-league parks in 2025.
But there's a much bigger story brewing.
Initially, the story was, in sum: It didn't make sense to fix the Trop's roof, because the Rays had a new stadium on the way in 2028. Not so fast , says John Romano of the Tampa Bay Times.
Romano reports that Pinellas County commissioners have already delayed voting on the bond that would pay for the county's part of the new stadium, and it appears they will delay it again on Tuesday.
That's not a hard and fast "no," but with a very tight deadline in place to get the stadium done, the delays have already forced the Rays to halt forward movement with their development partners. Additionally, further delays could cause a price increase, and Romano reports that any increases would be on the team to cover.
One sticking point? The commission appears to be annoyed that the Rays are playing in Tampa in 2025 instead of at the Phillies' spring training complex, which is in Pinellas Co.
Team owner Stu Sternberg's quotes in the story could be posturing, but they certainly don't seem particularly subtle or vague:
"... it's a confluence of events and without the minds here coming together, (relocation) is not an unlikely conclusion."
Romano's story is worth your time. This situation is a complicated and fascinating logistical nightmare, and it might well result in the Rays packing up and moving away for good.
Looking Closer: Checking in on Cleveland 's new philosophy
Andrew Baggarly wrote on Saturday that the Giants have a new hitting philosophy — "more dynamism, fewer strikeouts" — which sounds pretty obvious, doesn't it? Who in their right mind would want to strike out more?
Well actually... There was one team that tried that recently , and they went to the ALCS.
It's been about a year since Zack Meisel wrote that about the Guardians, so I thought it would be worth checking in to see how it went. Here's a side-by-side comparison of the Guardians' 2023 and 2024 seasons, with their rank out of 30 in parenthesis. Just for fun, I put the 2024 Giants in there as well (I'll explain in a minute).
Obviously, there's more to it than these stats (pitching helps), but the Guardians jumped from 76-86 in 2023 to 92-69 last year.
What struck me was that while the change in philosophy was evident (their average dropped a bit while home runs jumped significantly), it didn't really cost the Guardians that many more strikeouts. Maybe it was one of those "jump, and the net will appear" situations you read about from bar-bathroom-wall philosophers and Instagram content farmers — you don't actually have to strike out more, you just need to stop worrying so much about avoiding it.
That advice probably doesn't apply to the Giants, though. Look at how closely their 2024 numbers mirror those of the Guardians, with one major exception: strikeouts. Cleveland went to the ALCS; San Francisco finished 80-82.
I will once again point out that it would be an oversimplification to equate cherry-picked statistical correlation to causation. Pitching exists, so it's not as simple as just "cut down about 250 strikeouts and you, too could be in the LCS next year."
But yeah, it feels like a step in the right direction.
Handshakes and High Fives
Diamond Sports will, in fact, emerge from bankruptcy. Evan Drellich has the details , and hopefully we will never have to talk about it again.
Juan Soto tracker: Here's what we know about his meeting with the Red Sox .
It was a funny bit, but the Orioles are moving the left field wall back in , as many as 20 feet in some places.
You ever trade baseball cards with a big-league team? The Pirates are offering a hilariously cool package in exchange for one particular Paul Skenes card.
John Sterling's replacement in the radio booth is among the best in the game: Dave Sims is leaving the Mariners to take the Yankees job .
Just because it's the offseason doesn't mean there won't be more Dodgers pitching injuries. Brusdar Graterol underwent right labrum surgery and will miss the first half of 2025.
BBWAA Awards season starts today, with one award for each league announced every day through Thursday, in this order: Rookies of the Year, Managers of the Year, Cy Young awards and Most Valuable Players.
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