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Andruw ended up with 66.2 percent of the vote. He's well-positioned to get in, either next year or the year after.

You all need to take a deep breath. About the Dodgers, anyway. Hyperventilating about the Braves' terrible offseason is both acceptable and encouraged.

Thing is, while this is still a really good team and a really good roster, there are clear, obvious weaknesses that need to be addressed. Anthopolous or beat writers can try to frame this as silly fans who just want to see activity for the sake of activity, but right now we have one outfielder...

B-Ref has him at slightly below average defensively and as a baserunner (which passes the smell test, certainly) and it was a SLG-heavy OPS. Still, 3.3 WAR (per B-Ref) does feel pretty low for that season. I think there's always been a belief that WAR doesn't do a great job evaluating catchers...

Rosenthal says the Blue Jays are in on Alonso. Of course, as Blue Jays fans will tell you, Toronto is always "in on" everyone and always finishes second.

His raw sex appeal.

I remember thinking that Frank Wren was pretty open in comparison to Schuerholz, but I'd be hard-pressed to cite anything specific to justify that belief.

I will say that if this ends up being the offseason and there are no major acquisitions, the Laureano non-tender looks meaningfully worse. There was a reasonable argument at the time that clearing the $6 million he was expected to make in arbitration was a good idea, either to make that money...

Rosenthal has a notes column (paywalled) which leads with a discussion of the Braves' offseason. Frankly, it's a pretty generous spin, claiming that Strider and Acuna are likely going to return earlier than expected. That's also the explanation for why the team hasn't acquired an outfielder --...

Not to engage too much in something that's quite possibly just malarkey, but it might be that the team didn't want to announce a move on New Year's Eve or Day because it wouldn't get much attention. Not something that Anthopolous cares overmuch about, I suspect, but the business side probably...

Is there any narrative as to why Scott improved so much in Miami after leaving Baltimore? I don't think the Marlins are known as a super dev franchise.

Bill James once wrote that you could Rickey in half, and both halves would be a Hall of Famer.

Guys seem to love playing there.

Is there any reason to think Arraez can capably play left field? He's played 48 games there in his career, none since he was in his early 20's in Minnesota. Isn't he painfully slow?

Not going to lie, it would have been pretty hilarious if the A's had signed Soto to a one-year, $100 million contract just to hit whatever threshold they needed to hit to get the MLBPA off their backs.

Good for Max. I suppose this closes the books on the Martin Prado for Justin Upton trade.

For what it's worth, the notion that second basemen tend to age poorly and fall off performance cliffs is an old trope I've heard basically since I started following baseball. The idea, as I understand it, is that second basemen take a lot of punishment at the bag, particularly on double play...

A huge part of baseball is that you can't just bring up your best player in the biggest moments. Bottom of the ninth and Ronald Acuna is due up: cool, good for you. Bottom of the ninth and Luke Williams is due up? Too bad, find someone better than Luke Williams. That's the whole damn point.

Braves non-tender Laureano, Canning, Kerr, Ynoa and Salinas.

If I had to guess, I'd say Sale needs another couple good-but-not-great years -- I don't think he's quite passed the bus test yet. But the Cy is a huge feather in his cap, so is the fact that he has a ring (and it's helpful that there's highlight video of him closing out that World Series), and...