Offseason notes

Some notes I made that weren’t worth full posts on their own:

– There is a poll on mlb.com for the best play of the year. I’m biased, of course, but I fail to see how any play of the nominees could be better than Jeff Francoeur reaching his whole arm over the wall. I’m confident that you’ll all vote the right way.

– The Phillies are continuing their quest from last offseason to buy every pitcher in the Major Leagues, having signed Jonathan Papelbon. They do appear to recognise, however, that some of the blame for last year’s failure must go to their hitting and have convinced Jim Thome to return.

– I was going to put something about the now Miami Marlins here, but none of it was actually very interesting.

– The next ten days will see all of the major awards announced. There has been a bit of controversy this year, with discussions of whether pitchers ought to be eligible to win the MVP and whether relievers ought to be eligible to win the Cy Young. (To which the answers are ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ respectively.) The big question, however, is whether Eric Hosmer will get the Rookie of the Year award that he deserves. He probably won’t, but we’ll find out on Monday.