True dat. Kind of like the Royals did this year.

Dude. You got screwed.

There’s still no official announcement about Joe Maddon becoming the Cubs’ new manager, but in the meantime the Cubs just announced the firing of their current manager, Rick Renteria.

Renteria was hired last offseason–less than 365 days ago, in fact–and went 73-89 in his first and only year on the job. He had two seasons remaining on his contract, so while Renteria is no doubt very unhappy with how things worked out in Chicago he’ll at least be getting paid not to manage the Cubs for a while. He was reportedly offered another role within the organization and said no thanks. Tough to blame him, obviously.

As for Maddon … well, when news first broke about his coming to Chicago it sure seemed like MLB scolded the Cubs for letting that get out during the World Series. Which led to quotes from Maddon’s agent and “Cubs sources” saying it wasn’t a done deal. Hopefully we can all do away with that charade shortly.

UPDATE: The Cubs just put out a lengthy press release explaining the situation from their point of view and, to me at least, being about as transparent as possible under the circumstances. You should read the whole thing, but here’s an excerpt:

Rick deserved to come back for another season as Cubs manager, and we said as much when we announced that he would be returning in 2015. We met with Rick two weeks ago for a long end-of-season evaluation and discussed plans for next season. We praised Rick to the media and to our season ticket holders. These actions were made in good faith.

Last Thursday, we learned that Joe Maddon – who may be as well suited as anyone in the industry to manage the challenges that lie ahead of us – had become a free agent. We confirmed the news with Major League Baseball, and it became public knowledge the next day. We saw it as a unique opportunity and faced a clear dilemma: be loyal to Rick or be loyal to the organization. In this business of trying to win a world championship for the first time in 107 years, the organization has priority over any one individual. We decided to pursue Joe.

While there was no clear playbook for how to handle this type of situation, we knew we had to be transparent with Rick before engaging with Joe. Jed flew to San Diego last Friday and told Rick in person of our intention to talk to Joe about the managerial job. Subsequently, Jed and I provided updates to Rick via telephone and today informed him that we will indeed make a change.

The Brewers declined the 2015 option on Rickie Weeks making him free to sign with any team


Their future looks brighter already

The next manager of the Minnesota Twins, Paul Molitor.

NOT a good year for free agent outfielders.

Not much to see here at all.

1. Melky Cabrera
Age: 30. Last team: Blue Jays

This past season, Cabrera batted .301/.351/.458 with 16 homers, and over the last four seasons he's put up an OPS+ of 124. Cabrera can play either outfield corner, and he still has a bit of speed on the bases. In the near-term he projects as a comfortably above-average bat. In a thin crop, that's enough to land him the top spot.

2. Colby Rasmus
Age: 28. Last team: Blue Jays

Rasmus can man center on a regular basis, and while his numbers cratered this past season, he still managed an OPS+ of 104. For his career, he's averaged 24 homers per 162 games played, so he's got power. As well, Rasmus' age of 28 puts him on the young side as six-year free agents go.

3. Nick Markakis
Age: 30 Last team: Orioles

Markakis appears likely to re-up with Baltimore, but for now he's on the market. He's a line-drive, power-to-the-gaps, on-base sort who's run a 113 OPS+ for his career. While Markakis has a reputation as a defensive asset, the advanced metrics have never really thought much of his fielding. Still, he's a career .291/.364/.452 hitter against right-handed pitching.

4. Michael Cuddyer
Age: 35. Last team: Rockies

Working in Cuddyer's favor is that he's put up an OPS+ of 121 since turning 30 (note that OPS+ is park-adjusted, so it's accounting for the Coors Field effect). Not in his favor is that he's 35 and a defensive liability in the outfield. As well, he's had trouble staying healthy in recent seasons. At this stage, he's a near-term solution at DH for an AL team.

5. Nori Aoki
Age: 32. Last team: Royals

Aoki was of course a core member of the AL-champion Royals last season, and he boasts a useful glove in right (if the occasional meandering route toward a fly ball) in tandem with good on-base skills (particularly in platoon-advantaged situations) and some speed on the bases. As near-term leadoff fixes go, Aoki's a sound option.

6. Torii Hunter
Age: 39. Last team: Tigers

Hunter continues to defy the aging curve, as he's coming off a 2014 season that saw him put up an OPS+ of 111 and tally 52 extra-base hits in 142 games. Hunter is these days a pronounced liability in the field, and at his age sudden and steep decline at the plate is very much a possibility. Even so, the Steamer projection system available at FanGraphs tabs Hunter for a slash line of .284/.328/.430 in the season to come. That's useful.

7. Emilio Bonifacio
Age: 29. Last team: Braves

Bonifacio is of course more of a super-utility sort, but since he spent the plurality of his time in center last season, we'll call him an outfielder. He's a marginal hitter, but his defensive flexibility (and ability to be a plus fielder at multiple positions) and base-running value make him a useful player. Bonifacio's also still on the right side of age 30.

8. Michael Morse
Age: 32. Last team: Giants

Morse has plenty of right-handed power, and that's always going to have a market. On the downside, he has no business playing the field these days (he's a serious option for AL teams only), he's 32, and he's also been limited by any number of nagging injuries in recent seasons -- the kinds of injuries that tend to recur as a player ages.

9. Alex Rios
Age: 33. Last team: Rangers

Here we have a once-useful player very much in decline. Rios graded out as a slightly below-average hitter this past season, and that becomes more of a concern when you note that he's a corner outfielder whose glove-work is slipping. In related matters, he managed just four home runs in 131 games. Rios stole 17 bases, but he also got caught nine times and he took the extra base just 42 percent of the time. At this stage he looks like a bench player who's best deployed against just lefties.

10. Chris Young
Age: 31. Last team: Yankees

Yes, we're getting desperate. Young last season played himself off the Mets' roster before undergoing a small-sample-size renaissance in the Bronx. He can play all three outfield positions and show some occasional pop. Bench player.

My favorite Royals T Shirt at the moment, the "we don't suck anymore" one.

I'll take the first 2 guys on that list, you can have the rest

Why should the players have all the fun? Here is a link to some of the better fan catches of the last month or so of the regular season.

wapc.mlb.com/cutfour/2014/11/03/100278976/gif-best-fan-catches-of-september-and-october

Did the Jays really -give- Lind to the Brewers? Idon't get that logic

An early list of guys who have received a $ 15.3 mil qualifying offer from their 2014 teams

Melky Cabrera, Blue Jays
Nelson Cruz, Orioles
Michael Cuddyer, Rockies
Francisco Liriano, Pirates
Russell Martin, Pirates
Victor Martinez, Tigers
Hanley Ramirez, Dodgers
David Robertson, Yankees
Pablo Sandoval, Giants
Ervin Santana, Braves
Max Scherzer, Tigers
James Shields, Royals


Look for Cuddyer to accept his, and all others listed to decline.

According to Michael O’Keeffe, Christian Red, and Teri Thompson of the New York Daily News, Alex Rodriguez allegedly paid his cousin Yuri Sucart nearly $1 million to stay silent about his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Alex Rodriguez’s infamous “Cousin Yuri Sucart” threatened to expose the Yankee superstar’s doping secrets unless the scandal-ridden slugger coughed up “enormous sums of money,” according to court papers filed last week in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Rodriguez caved, entering into a confidential settlement with Sucart on June 5, 2013, agreeing to pay Sucart one $700,000 payment for his silence, in addition to three more payments made to Sucart that totalled $200,000.

In a Dec. 18, 2012 letter, Sucart’s former attorney, Jeffrey Sonn, had demanded $5 million and a “life estate” for Sucart and his wife, according to the court papers.
Sucart is currently a defendant in a federal case involving Biogenesis. He has pleaded not guilty. The Daily News story suggests that Rodriguez could potentially be a witness against Sucart.

There’s a long history between these two, as Rodriguez admitted in 2009 that he received performance-enhancing drugs from Sucart when he was a member of the Rangers. The Yankees told Rodriguez to keep Sucart away from the team shortly after that. Rodriguez remained in contact with Sucart anyway and even got him a duplicate 2009 World Series ring. Sucart later sold it in an auction.

Rodriguez isn’t going to win in the court of the public opinion at this point and what was given to Sucart will be viewed as hush money, but couldn’t you also call it extortion?

The new face of the Cubs......

Tis' the season for free agency in baseball, and the forecast this time of year calls for a sandstorm of redeemable currency. So given that money is the topic du jour, let us talk about money.

In the service of doing so, we shall devote this episode of "Leaderboarding" to those active (or presumably active) players who have accrued the most money in MLB salary over the course of their careers. All data come from the lovely and necessary Baseball-Reference. Unleash the filthy lucre ...

Yankees, present and past, abound! Not surprising, of course. As for this, our A-Rod, yes, that figure accounts for the salary he lost to suspension this past season. Optimal for his purposes is that he's still owed another $61 million. Also, expect Mr. Pujols to vault up this list in the years to come, as he's still got a hefty $189 million left on his Angels contract. That, obviously, would make him MLB's second $300-million man in history.

As for the recently retired Derek Jeter, he hauled in more than $265 million in his career -- second only to this, our A-Rod all-time -- and that's of course not counting the Cap'n's substantial income from endorsements.

Members of baseball's upper class? They're not struggling, it seems.

On my end, the list I tried to post did not work.  Here is a link to see it, just in case.

www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24782032/leaderboarding-which-active-players-have-made-the-most-money

This is probably one of the largest "did you knows" I have ever done. I know I knew nothing of this man, but, after reading, it very much seems as if I should have known about him.

Bob Howsam was the Architect of the Big Red Machine.

The success wasn't a happenstance. It was the residual of Howsam's good fortune as a young man to become associated with two of the great executives in baseball history -- Branch Rickey and George Weiss -- and his willingness to learn from both.

Rickey and Weiss have both been enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame for their contributions to the game. Howsam might join them.

There are no guarantees in Hall of Fame elections, but at least Howsam is going to get his day in court. Howsam is the lone executive among the 10 people on the Golden Era Ballot who will be considered by a 16-member Veterans Committee during the Winter Meetings next month.

He will share the stage with former players Dick Allen, Ken Boyer, Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Minnie Minoso, Tony Oliva, Billy Pierce, Luis Tiant and Maury Wills.

It will take 12 votes for induction.

Howsam's situation will be interesting.

He died in 2008, and had been removed from the game for some time. He never was a major public figure, but he was a man who impacted the American sporting scene, including during tenures as a general manager for the Cardinals, as well as the Reds.

Howsam was a key player in not only forcing Major League Baseball to hold its initial expansion, but also in the creation of the American Football League, which eventually merged with the NFL, and he was a major part of not only professional baseball coming to Denver in the 1940s, but also with Denver being awarded the Rockies as part of the 1993 expansion.

He will be most remembered for his efforts with the Reds, having taken over as the general manager prior to the 1967 season. After the 1969 season, he fired popular manager Dave Bristol and hired an unknown 35-year-old, Sparky Anderson, who managed for Howsam in both the Cardinals' and Reds' Minor League systems.

With Anderson in charge, and a homegrown nucleus that included Pete Rose and Johnny Bench, Howsam had a building block in place. His staff signed and developed Dave Concepcion, Ken Griffey Sr., Ray Knight and Bernie Carbo.

Howsam dealt aging Reds players for the likes of George Foster, Woody Woodward, Clay Carroll, Tony Cloninger, Bobby Tolan, Wayne Granger, and the package that would become his calling card -- Joe Morgan, Jack Billingham, Ed Armbrister, Cesar Geronimo and Denis Menke from the Astros at the 1971 Winter Meetings.

That was the core of a Reds team that, as well as winning five NL West titles and four NL pennnats from 1970-76, won back-to-back world championships in 1975-76, the last NL team to accomplish that.

That was a vindication of sorts for Howsam. He had never been accepted in St. Louis, where at the urging of Rickey, a senior adviser to Cardinals owner Gussie Busch, Howsam was hired in mid-1964 to replace the popular Bing Devine. The Cardinals rallied and won the NL pennant that year, in big part because of Devine's acquisition of Lou Brock from the Cubs for Ernie Broglio. Cardinals players and fans did not hide resentment over Rickey orchestrating Devine's firing and Howsam's hiring.

Over the next two years the Cardinals struggled in the standings, but Howsam made the moves that led to back-to-back NL pennants in 1967-68, at which time he had already gone to Cincinnati. During his time in St. Louis, he had hired Red Schoendienst to manage, and made deals for Roger Maris and Orlando Cepeda, at the time overlooked by a fan base upset at the loss of aging veterans Ken Boyer, Dick Groat and Bill White.

He also showed a business sense he learned from Weiss, creating plans for season tickets and marketing, which the Cardinals were lacking.

It was a long way from his upbringing in San Luis Valley, Colorado, the son of a beekeeper.

He also became the son-in-law of former U.S. Senator and two-term Colorado Gov. Edwin C. Johnson. When Johnson was made the unpaid President of the resurrected Western League, he appointed Howsam as the league's executive secretary, and gave him authority to run the league.

That opened the way for Howsam, his brother and father to purchase the Class A Denver franchise, which was affiliated with the Pirates, which is where he got to know Rickey.

With Denver annually among the top draws in Minor League Baseball in 1954, Howsam purchased the Triple-A Kansas City Blues, who were being displaced by the transfer of the big league A's from Philadelphia. He moved the Blues, a Yankees affiliate, to Denver, and developed his relationship with Weiss -- proving to be as alert on the business side as Rickey was on the playing side.

Five years later, Howsam was part of the group with Rickey that put together a proposed Continental League, hoping to work with MLB to create a third Major League. He expanded Bears Stadium, which eventually was transformed into Mile High Stadium, to 34,000 seats to accommodate a big league franchise.

MLB, however, blunted that plan by the expansion that included three of the eight cities proposed for membership in the Continental League -- New York, which had been vacated by the move of the Giants and Dodgers to the West Coast; Washington, where the Senators were moving, and Houston.

With the Major League dream for Denver dying, and having extended himself so far in expanding Bears Stadium that he couldn't make with a Minor League team, plus a loss on the AFL team, the Howsams sold controlling interest in both the Bears and the Broncos to Gerald and Allan Phipps prior to the 1961 season, and entered the investment business.

Three years later, the Cardinals came calling. Now the question is whether the Hall of Fame will coming calling, too.