Welcome to the final week of January! Hard to believe we’re already here and that baseball will be back (in some capacity) next month! The past week has been a bustling one, with the biggest story of the week being the Hall of Fame announcements, and we’ll get into the three new Hall of Famers in a moment.
Additionally, new evidence has been released in the case against Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter, the Mets unveiled a new road jersey (though Pete Alonso probably won’t be wearing it) and how many games will teams be playing with the automated strike zone this coming season.
Let’s get into it!
Hall of Fame
The Hall of Fame inductee announcements were made this past Tuesday evening, and three new names will be added to the coveted halls of Cooperstown: Ichiro Suzuki (who was ONE VOTE short of a unanimous election), CC Sabathia, and after eight years on the ballot, Billy Wagner.
While the one voter who left Ichiro off his ballot feels like a good villain for me to personally align myself against for the remainder of the year, it’s still great to see three such worthy contenders make their way into the Hall. Sabathia and Suzuki were obvious first-ballot inductees, and Wagner was long-suffering, but his trajectory showed this to be his likely finale. Love to see it.
Here are a few good links if you want to dive deeper into the elections.
Quick Hits
- Some interesting details on how many games each team will play with the automated strike zone.
Social Media Highlights
Former MLB catcher and Chicago White Sox manager Jeff Torborg passed away this morning in Westfield, N.J. He was 83 years old.
Torborg was named the 1990 A.L. Manager of the Year after guiding the Sox to a 94-68 record that season, a 25-game improvement from the previous year. pic.twitter.com/cKpNNdLod7
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) January 20, 2025