Originally posted on Sportsnaut | By Andres Chavez | Last updated 12/22/20
As we approach Christmas Eve, people are starting to write down their holiday wish lists. Yankees fans, of course, are no exception.
And since we are in the spirit of asking Santa for a PlayStation 5, the end of the pandemic, or even some family time, why can’t Yankees fans do the same? They, too, have needs and want things!
Yankees Christmas wish list: Pitching, analytics and good health Sep 30, 2020; Reds starting pitcher Trevor Bauer (27) pitches against the Braves during the fifth inning at Truist Park. Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
Priority 1: Trevor Bauer (or another quality starter via free agency or trade)
Updated Dec. 24, 2020 9:41 am ET
Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora fielded questions for more than 30 minutes at last week’s winter meetings, an annual tradition of the baseball offseason that moved from a hotel ballroom to Zoom this year. He was asked about slugger J.D. Martinez’s disappointing 2020 season, the team’s hole at second base and pitcher Eduardo Rodríguez’s health standard questions for somebody in Cora’s position.
What was more telling was what didn’t come up: the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal that rocked the sport and cost Cora his job just 11 months ago. A day earlier, A.J. Hinch, the skipper who oversaw the cheating Astros in 2017, went through the same exercise in his new role leading the Detroit Tigers and the tone was the same.
Courtesy MTM
This week 41 years ago: Beloved Cincinnati Reds manager Sparky Anderson was fired from his sports talk show on
WKRP In Cincinnati. I must be nuts. Every time I come into this town, I get fired, said Anderson at the conclusion of
WKRP s Sparky episode. It was first broadcast on Christmas Eve 1979 during
WKRP s second season.
Credit Courtesy MTM
The Reds Hall of Fame manager, who led the Big Red Machine to back-to-back World Championships, was hired to do a two-hour sports program by station manager Arthur Carlson (Dayton native Gordon Jump).
Carlson envisioned WKRP nationally syndicating
The Bullpen, while righting a wrong, the Reds firing of Anderson after two World Series titles, four National League pennants and five division titles in nine seasons. He was fired after the 1978 season and promptly hired to manage the Detroit Tigers.
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Which transaction this offseason will be key to unlocking a World Series title in 2021?
Every champion can point to an important move, whether it’s a blockbuster trade, a splashy free-agent signing or an under-the-radar pickup whose full impact is only revealed months later. Here is a look back at the biggest addition made by each of the past 26 World Series winners, since the beginning of the Wild Card Era. (This list only includes moves made during the prior offseason; crucial Trade Deadline deals are a different conversation).
2020 Dodgers: Traded for RF Mookie Betts
If you can’t beat him, acquire him. So it went for the Dodgers, who fell to Betts’ Red Sox in the 2018 World Series one of seven straight seasons in which L.A. fell short of a championship after winning the National League West. When Betts became available heading into his final season before free agency, the Dodgers pounced. It took some time, including a three-way deal with the Twins that fell through, bu