Freeman’s grand slam captured an award on Monday, plus analysis of the free agent Sasaki and thoughts from LA’s pitching coach
Awards season is upon us, with Shohei Ohtani sure to finish in the top three in National League MVP voting (spoiler alert: when he wins next week, he’ll be the 13th different Dodger to win MVP). Silver Slugger Awards also get announced later on Tuesday.
The MLB Legendary Moment Award has been around since 2020, a sponsored honor that is voted on by fans. This year, Shohei Ohtani joining the 50-50 club was one of four semifinalists for the award, which was won by his teammate — Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam to win Game 1 of the World Series.
Freeman, whose family adopted a cat after the World Series, was a guest on MLB Network talking about the grand slam and winning the award.
“I decided to look closer to me in that instance… thankfully he threw it right where I was looking.”
2024 World Series MVP Freddie Freeman details his clutch walk-off grand slam in Game 1, this year’s winner of the @budweiserusa Legendary Moment Award!#MLBTonight | @Dodgers pic.twitter.com/ME82X7J1x6
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) November 12, 2024
With Roki Sasaki soon to be posted to Major League Baseball, take some time to read this primer on the right-hander by Daniel Brim at Dodgers Digest. It’s the most thorough piece on Sasaki I’ve seen yet, with great detail on his relationship with the Chiba Lotte Marines, his scouting report, and how Sasaki might fare in MLB.
At FanGraphs, Eric Longenhagen shared scouting notes on international players in the 2024 and 2025 classes, including information on Sasaki. Longenhagen explained that while it’s possible Sasaki might wait to sign until the 2025 period opens on January 15, that would be a lot messier than if the right-hander signs by December 15 in the 2024 international period:
If he’s posted sooner, it’s cleaner. Teams have already signed their 2024 classes; no teenager would be denied his long-promised bonus. Money from the initial signing may not matter to Roki all that much anyway; he’s matriculating too early to get a huge free agent deal, which suggests he has other priorities and/or other sources of income. Not to mention signing earlier gives Sasaki time to, you know, move and get acclimated to a new league and culture. I don’t have any insight into what will transpire, but it seems more logical to me that Sasaki’s situation gets resolved in the next month.
Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior was a guest on MLB Network Radio on Monday, talking about the ups and downs of the 2024 season. He described the cohesiveness of the team in a way that would make Tommy Lasorda smile.
“The one thing that cannot be quantified, and there’s no objective data on this, is when teams are just pulling the same rope, and they’re going out there and picking each other up, they’re moving guys along, they’re passing the baton either in the offense down the lineup or it’s the bullpen guys or starters giving six innings while the bullpen might be taxed. Everybody knew their role.”