Posey, Mancini take comeback awards
Red Sox to bring back Cora for two seasons
NEW YORK — San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey and Baltimore Orioles slugger Trey Mancini were named baseball’s Comeback Player of the Year Award winners on Monday night.
Posey, the National League winner, sat out the 2020 season after twin girls adopted by him and his wife were born prematurely. He announced this month he was retiring after 12 seasons. Mancini, who took the American League prize, missed the entire 2020 season while being treated for stage 3 colon cancer. They were selected in balloting by the 30 team beat reporters at MLB.com.
The 34-year-old Posey hit .304 with 18 home runs, 56 RBIs and an .889 OPS for the 107-win Giants. The batting average was his highest since 2017 and the homer total his best since 2015.
Mancini, 29, batted .255 with 21 homers, 71 RBIs and a .758 OPS as a first baseman and designated hitter for Baltimore.
RED SOX: Boston has picked up Alex Cora’s option for two more seasons, rewarding their manager for taking them to the AL Championship Series in his first year back after serving his one-year signstealing suspension.
Cora, 46, is now under contract through 2024.
A former infielder who was a member of Boston’s 2007 World Series championship team, Cora is 284-202 in three seasons as manager.
In his first year, 2018, he led the club to a franchise-record 108 victories and a World Series title. Cora was let go a year later when he was identified as the ringleader in the Houston Astros cheating scandal.
After Ron Roenicke managed the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Cora was brought back to the Boston dugout. The Red Sox went 92-70, then beat the New York Yankees in the AL wild-card game and the Tampa Bay Rays in the divisional round before losing to the Astros in the ALCS.
HALL OF FAME BALLOT: David Ortiz, Ryan Howard, Tim Lincecum and Alex Rodriguez are among 13 first-time candidates on the Hall of Fame ballot of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, joining 17 holdovers.
Steroids-tainted stars Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens make their 10th and final appearance on the BBWAA ballot along with Curt Schilling, who fell 16 votes shy of the necessary 75% in last year’s balloting. Schilling appeared on 71.1% of ballots, Bonds 61.8% and Clemens 61.6%.
Justin Morneau, Jimmy Rollins and Jake Peavy also are new to the ballot along with Carl Crawford, Prince Fielder, Joe Nathan, Jonathan Papelbon, A.J. Pierzynski and Mark Teixeira, the Hall and BBWAA said Monday.
Holdovers include Bobby Abreu, Mark Buehrle, Todd Helton, Tim Hudson, Torii Hunter, Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent, Andy Pettitte, Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield, Sammy Sosa, Omar Vizquel and Billy Wagner.
ANGELS: Left-handed reliever Aaron Loup has agreed to a $17 million, two-year deal with Los Angeles.
The club is adding one of the most effective relievers on the free agent market to right-handed starter Noah Syndergaard in an impressive early-offseason haul for the perpetually pitching-poor Angels.
The 33-year-old Loup went 6-0 with a 0.95 ERA in 65 appearances last season for the New York Mets, posting the lowest ERA among all major league relievers with at least 50 innings.
GIANTS: Right-hander Anthony DeSclafani reached agreement Monday on a $36 million, threeyear contract to remain with San Francisco.
DeSclafani emerged as a key member of manager Gabe Kapler’s rotation during the NL West champion Giants’ record-setting 107-win season, going a career-best 13-7 with 152 strikeouts and a 3.17 ERA.
He is set to make $12 million in each season of the deal from 202224, and the contract also includes a $60,000 donation the 31-year-old pitcher will make annually to the Giants Community Fund.
TRADE: The Texas Rangers acquired outfielders Billy McKinney and Zach Reks from the Los Angeles Dodgers for cash in a deal announced Monday.
JONES DIES: Doug Jones, a fivetime All-Star reliever who had his best success closing for the Cleveland Indians, has died in Arizona. He was 64.