The Cycle, Issue 113: Nevertheless, He Persisted
Parsing the awards results, the E-Rod, Verlander, Thor & Belt signings, José Berríos’s extension, the Mets’ GM hire, MLB’s hiring practices, Scott Kazmar Jr.'s retirement, Julio Lugo's passing & more
In this issue of The Cycle . . .
Housekeeping: Important info on The Cycle’s reduced subscription prices
Awards Watch: Parsing the results I got wrong, and where the NL Cy Young vote ranks among the closest in that award’s history
Newswire: MLB adjusts its minority-hiring practices, and the Phillies and Guardians settle copyright disputes
Transaction Reactions: Eduardo Rodríguez, José Berríos, Justin Verlander, Noah Syndergaard, Brandon Belt and the qualifying offer decisions, plus many more
Personnel Department: The Mets officially hire a GM, their old manager goes to the Yankees, and some old Yankees head down to Florida
Julio Lugo (1975–2021): How much should we remember?
Feedback
Closing Credits
Housekeeping
A quick note before we begin about my attempts to reduce the price of a Cycle subscription in accordance with the reduction of the publication schedule from three times a week to once a week:
Unbeknownst to me, Substack has minimum subscription prices of $5/month and $30/year. What I have done to counter that is issue a blanket 33 percent discount to all subscribers. That puts the annual subscription at $20.10, a hair less than one third of the original price of $60.50. The monthly price, with the discount, is $3.35, which is a bit more than I had intended to charge for the weekly newsletter, but I can’t apply different discounts to the different types of subscriptions. For what it’s worth, relative to the monthly subscription, the annual rate is effectively half off, or six months free.
For monthly subscribers, you should get the discount the next time your subscription renews. If you don’t, or if you want it immediately, just cancel and sign back up, and you’ll get it.
Things are a bit trickier for annual subscribers. It turns out that the change in price is not applied to your current subscription. However, I can manually extend your subscription so that the money you’ve already paid will be applied and the new lower rate. If you would like me to do that, just shoot me an email at cyclenewsletter[at] substack[dot]com or reply to this issue. If you can remember when you signed up as a paid subscriber, that would help me calculate your new expiration date (though I should also have access to that information).
Another option for annual subscribers would be to cancel your subscription then sign back up at the lower rate. Doing so would reset the clock on your subscription. However, if you signed up fewer than eight months ago, you likely have more than $20.10 remaining on your subscription, so my resetting your expiration date would actually extend you further out than simply cancelling and signing back up for another year. The choice is yours (as is the option of just letting your current subscription ride at the original price, though it is not my intent to make or ask anyone to do so).
If any one has any questions about any of the above, again, please email me at cyclenewsletter[at]substack[dot]com or reply to this issue. And, as always, thank you so much for reading and subscribing.
Awards Watch
The results of the voting for the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s year-end awards were announced this week, with Randy Arozarena and Jonathan India taking home the Rookie of the Year awards in the American and National League, respectively, on Monday, Kevin Cash and Gabe Kapler accepting Manager of the Year honors on Tuesday, Robbie Ray and Corbin Burnes winning the Cy Youngs on Thursday, and Shohei Ohtani and Bryce Harper receiving MVP honors on Thursday.
With two exceptions, the winners and the voting went largely as I anticipated and predicted last Wednesday. I predicted that Arozarena, Kapler, Ray, Ohtani, and Harper would win, that Ohtani would be unanimous (he was), and that the NL Cy Young award was too close to call (Burnes and Zack Wheeler tied in first place votes and Burnes won by a tiny 151–141 vote margin). Assuming you have been following my Awards Watch coverage all season, I don’t feel much need to explain or expand upon those winners, but I did want to sort out the two results I got wrong and dig a little deeper into the historically close vote for the NL Cy Young.