It's time to start the offseason. In my post-mortem after the division series loss to the Jays, I set forth my ideas about where things are going for 2023 so I'm not going to repeat them here.
Going to start off with a bunch of notable retirements from MLB: Justin Verlander, Justin Upton, Carlos Carrasco, Yadier Molina, Cameron Maybin, Jake McGee, Howie Kendrick, Joakim Soria, Eric Thames, Jay Bruce, Michael Brantley, Dee Gordon, Jason Kipnis, Yoenis Cespedes, Brian Dozier.
Got this message from Stu Sternberg. For reference purposes our total payroll last year was about $135M so yay, mo' money:
Made our first trade. I wasn't going to pick up Merrifield's team option for $6.5M so I managed to get an excellent SS prospect who isn't Rule 5 eligible. Valdes can hit for average and get on base (last two years OBPs of .429 and .389). He has little power, but he's an elite defender, a 75 at SS. Echevarria had a bad scouting report: "firmly entrenched in bad habits at the plate and offers meager defensive skills", so hasta la vista.
I also have a possible deal involving Xavier Edwards that will bring us back an elite RH prospect bat, the RH 2B/3B MLB guy I was looking for, and a pretty good bullpen piece. I'm going to have to throw in a secondary prospect and I also want to explore some other potential deals with Edwards so I'm not ready to pull the trigger yet but if this is the worst I can do I'll be happy.
Let the awards roll in, both very well deserved:
And yay me!
They left out the "I'd trade this award for a World Series ring" quote, though.
Noah Syndergaard won the NL Cy Young while Lucas Giolito took it home in the AL, and to nobody's surprise Vlad Jr. in the AL and Juan Soto in the NL unanimously won their league's MVP awards. Wander finished fifth in the AL voting behind Vlad, Lindor, Rutschman and Trout, so not too shabby there.
The Cleveland Indians traded Jose Ramirez, entering the final year of his contract, to the Atlanta Braves for a couple of prospects. I had sniffed around Ramirez, briefly entertaining the idea of dealing Snell for him in a trade of free-agents-to-be.