The first off day of the World Series generated a ton of news, some of which the league is happy to announce.
The league's investigation into an umpire's AR-15/"CIVAL WAR" comments doesn't fall into that bucket, nor does the Houston Astros' firing of Brandon Taubman after their attempt to bully female reporters blew up in their faces.
(It's amazing how Houston could've avoided all of this with a simple "sorry" or "We're looking into this matter." Instead, organizational hubris has steered the Astros into poor decisions for four consecutive days, digging such a hole that axing Taubman didn't really solve the problem.)
Managerial hires and Gold Glove finalists? Yeah, that's more MLB's style.
Regarding the former, here's where the carousel has stopped as the World Series resumes:
- Los Angeles Angels: Hired Joe Maddon to replace Brad Ausmus.
- Chicago Cubs: Hired David Ross to replace Maddon.
- Philadelphia Phillies: Hired Joe Girardi to replace Gabe Kapler.
- San Diego Padres: Hired Jayce Tingler to replace Andy Green.
(Wanna feel old? Apparently guys named "Jayce" can manage now.)
In non-managerial news, the Marlins hired James Rowson away from the Twins to serve as Miami's bench coach and "offensive coordinator." Rowson was the Twins' hitting coach, and now we'll see how much he had to do with Minnesota's 307-homer season, and whether the OC title is one that will stick.
And not that Jerry Reinsdorf would ever consider upsetting his current leadership structure, but the Red Sox are apparently on the verge of hiring Chaim Bloom away from the Rays to replace Dave Dombrowski as the club's GM.
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When it comes to Gold Gloves, the White Sox received a pair of nods for defensive honors in the American League. Everybody expected Yolmer Sánchez to garner Gold Glove consideration at second base, but Lucas Giolito came out of nowhere to snag one of three finalist spots among pitchers.
We're familiar with Sánchez's literal handiwork on a daily basis, and he has the best statistical case of the finalists at second, at least if you only consider their work at second.
| Candidate | SDI* | UZR | DRS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yolmer Sánchez | 7.8 | 4.9 | 12 |
| Jose Altuve | -0.8 | -6.4 | -2 |
| DJ LeMahieu | 6.1 | 4.0 | 5 |
(*As of Aug. 23; SABR doesn't release its final outcome until after the awards since it accounts for approximately a quarter of the vote.)
Sánchez sweeps the board when looking at metrics for the position, but LeMahieu's numbers are better than they look considering he made only 66 starts at second base, with 47 at third and 28 at first. Assuming it's a two-horse race and Altuve got recognized for being recognizable, the contest will come down how the electorate interprets the task -- are they voting for the best defensive second baseman, or the best defender who played a meaningful amount of second base? LeMahieu earned positive marks for his work elsewhere around the infield.
The Gold Glove winners will be announced on Nov. 3, or roughly a month before the non-tender deadline, which could mark the end of Sánchez's White Sox career.
As for pitchers, Giolito became the first Sox pitcher to be nominated there since Jake Peavy in 2012, and like Peavy, the pitcher crop seems randomized because the automatic choice moved to the National League. Seven years ago, Peavy was one of the candidates selected in the wake of Mark Buehrle's shift to Miami. Here, Giolito joins Mike Leake and Jose Berríos in attempting to replace Dallas Keuchel, who won the Gold Glove in four of the last five years, but plied his trade for the Braves in 2019.
I had to reverse-engineer Peavy's case because I hadn't thought much about it, and his biggest triumph was a massive crackdown on stolen-base attempts. Giolito benefits from the same phenomenon, which I wrote about after his season came to an end:
- 2018: 26 steals in 30 attempts
- 2019: Three steals in six attempts
But Giolito, to the extent that anybody can feel great about 30 games' worth of defensive metrics, improved in that area as well:
- 2018: -1 DRS, -0.9 SDI
- 2019: 3 DRS, 1.0 SDI
I didn't give it a whole lot of thought because Giolito's strikeout surge made his ability to defend far less necessary, but improvement makes sense as a byproduct of his more repeatable delivery. If he spent far less time falling off the side of the mound, it should mean he spent far more time in better fielding position.
The video archive only shows one defensive highlight, for what it's worth ...
... but his record shows no errors, so he didn't do anything to harm any gains. I'm not sure whether he did enough to beat Leake (who finished atop the AL SDI list) and Berríos (who was near the bottom), but it's another neat trick for Giolito regardless. The late-season injury cost him some Cy Young votes, but between the Gold Glove and Comeback Player of the Year, he has a couple other opportunities to pick up hardware.
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Thanks to Josh, Patrick, Ted and Greg for keeping the site and Offseason Plan Project running while I was off getting married.
A fun story: When my now-wife and I started dating in January 2016, she had never followed the ins and outs of a baseball season for one team. Adam LaRoche retired two months in, and Chris Sale slashed up the jerseys around the six-month mark. If she wanted to run away from everything associated with the White Sox at that point, I wouldn't have blamed her.
Not much survived the 2016 White Sox season. Our relationship -- which is now a marriage -- was one of them. These were not my vows, but maybe they should've been.
