Ray’s Ramblings: A Really Slow Monday

There isn’t much going on in the world of baseball this Monday, as the entire universe is focused in an epic Sunday of football. Hopefully, we get some great news out of New York today on the labor front, tomorrow we get HOF results, and there are still a few topics worthy of discussion today.

GAUSMAN WAS NEVER GOING TO RE-SIGN WITH GIANTS

I find this hard to believe, but Kevin Gausman said it directly, so it sure seems to be the truth.

I want to set the record straight for y’all bc there has been a lot of bs out there about this. SF never made me an offer. Simple as that. Anyone or anything that says otherwise is #FakeNews

— Kevin Gausman (@KevinGausman) January 23, 2022

The top of the #SFGiants rotation will look a little different in 2022 after losing Kevin Gausman to the Blue Jays.

Turns out, the option to stay was never really given to him.

Will the organization regret their decision? pic.twitter.com/t2mAjgfFAS

— MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM (@MLBNetworkRadio) January 24, 2022

That’s pretty shocking. It was always going to take a big-time contract to sign Gausman, and perhaps the Giants simply decided they weren’t going to go as high as the Blue Jays did (5-year, $110 million), but no actual offers? Pretty shocking given how Gausman dominated during his time with the Giants: 17-9, 3.00 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 10.9 K/9, 4.64 K/BB over 251.2 innings.

The Giants basically are trying to replace Gausman in the rotation with Alex Cobb who pitched as well as he has in years last season for the Angels. Alas, we all know the story here. Cobb has had an extremely difficult time staying on the field over the years, and the last three years he has thrown a total of 158 innings (last year he made 18 starts covering 93.1 frames). The Giants are short in their rotation at the moment with Cobb-Wood-DeSclafani-Webb locked in if healthy, but what of that 5^th spot? They might give a shot to Tyler Beede if he’s back to health (49.2 innings last season), but it sure seems like they need to still make some moves in free agency. It is still astounding to think that they won 107 games last season.

THIS AND THAT…

Wladimir Balentien retired over the weekend. He las played in the Majors in 2009 and played just 170 games in total, a terribly disappointing number for a player that Baseball Prospectus had as one of the top-100 prospects in baseball heading into the 2008 season. However, it’s not like he had a bad career at all, and in fact, he had a pretty epic one. In his first season in the Japan Central League, he hit 31 homers and he hit 30 homers for eight straight seasons in which he played 100 games. His best season was 2013, and it is fair to say it is one of the better seasons, by any player, in any league, in the 21^st century. Balentien went .330/.455/.779 that season, a 1.234 OPS, over his 130 games played. He also drove in 131 runs, yep one more than games played, and he blasted 60 homers. Yep, sixty. As I said, not a bad career at all.

Fingers crossed that something positive comes out of the meeting today in Manhattan. We need some good news MLB.

Jack Flaherty has gone 13-5 with a 3.79 ERA and 1.11 WHIP the last two years covering 118.2 innings. Sure seems like a long time ago that he had that massive season of 231 punchouts and a 0.97 WHIP… but it was only a few years ago (2019).

We will find out the HOF results Tuesday, and here is an interesting bit of information to keep in mind, one I have not seen talked about much at all.

Noted this on @MLBNetwork a short time ago: If Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling, and Sammy Sosa are not elected by the BBWAA tomorrow, they will be eligible for consideration this autumn by the Today’s Game Era Committee in the 2023 HOF cycle. @baseballhall

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) January 24, 2022

By the way, Fangraphs crowdsourced the HOF ballot, over 1,00 folks voted, and David Ortiz missed out while Rolen/Bonds/Clemens made it. Here are those results. By the way, I got a Joe Nathan autographed ball from my Mom for Christmas.

David Price had a 1.43 WHIP over 73.2 frames last season. He had a mark of 1.31 his previous season of 2019 (he did play in 2020). Before that, from 2008-18, Price rocked an average season of 1.14 over more than 1,900 innings. Also won nearly twice as many as he lost going 143-75.

Robot Umps? I discussed that option here.

Who is going to play shortstop for the Yankees this season? It’s not going to be Gleyber Torres, he’s a second baseman now, so it might be Gio Urshela with DJ LeMahieu playing third base. Urshela is a solid defender at third base but he has played shortstop a bit with 41 appearances there including 24 last season. Urshela went from a two-year run with an .881 OPS to a mark of .720 last season, and that isn’t ideal. The Yanks have enough offense where they could handle that level of offensive production from their shortstop, and it seems like they might be willing to go this route and wait for Anthony Volpe or Oswald Peraza to prove they are ready for the Majors in the second half of the season. There is also a report from Joel Sherman that suggest that they might be interested in bringing in Andrelton Simmons as a placeholder.