Ortiz, A-Rod among first-time candidates for Hall
David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Howard and Tim Lincecum and 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 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.
Sosa also will be on the ballot for the final time after receiving 17% last year.
Ballot results will be announced Jan. 25.
Any players elected will be inducted into the Hall at Cooperstown on July 24 along with anyone elected by the Golden Days Era and Early Baseball Era committees, which are scheduled to meet on Dec. 5.
No was elected by the BBWAA in last year’s vote, and Schilling asked after the vote that the Hall remove him from the ballot.
• Covina native Doug Jones, a five-time All-Star reliever who had his best success closing for the Cleveland Indians, has died. He was 64.
Jones spent seven seasons with the Indians and ranks third on the club’s career saves list with 129. The club, which officially transitioned to Cleveland Guardians last week, said it was “saddened by the loss of one of our organization’s all-time greats.”
The team said Jones died in Arizona. A cause was not immediately known.
Known as “Jonesy,” Jones pitched in the majors for 16 seasons with Cleveland, Houston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, the Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee and Oakland. He had two stints with the Indians, first from 1986-91 and again in 1998.
The right-hander had a career-high 43 saves in 1990 for Cleveland, where he made the All-Star team three times. In 2001, he was selected as one of the team’s top 100 players.
Jones went 69-79 with a 3.30 ERA in 846 big league games. He retired following the 2000 season with the A’s.
• The Angels began retooling their bullpen by signing left-hander Aaron Loup to a two-year, $17 million deal.
Loup will make $7.5 million in 2022 and 2023. The deal includes a team option for $7.5 million in 2024, with a $2 million buyout.
Loup, 33, is coming off the best season of his career. He posted an 0.95 ERA in 56 2/3 innings in 65 games.
Loup averaged less than an inning per game, with the Mets trying to use him against left-handed hitters as much as the three-batter rule allowed. Lefties hit .167 with a .440 OPS against Loup in 2022, compared with .211 and .547 by righties. Loup has held lefties to a .597 OPS for his career. Righties have a .730 OPS.
The Angels will be Loup’s sixth team. He began his career spending parts of six seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays, including the years when current Angels GM Perry Minasian worked in the Toronto front office.
The Angels also picked up versatile Tyler Wade from the New York Yankees in exchange for cash considerations or a player to be named, giving them another alternative at shortstop and at least a speedy backup player who plays both infield and outfield.
Wade, who turns 27 today, played all three outfield positions and every infield position except for first base. He played the most games at shortstop, with 31 appearances and 14 starts.
Wade could go into the mix for regular playing time at shortstop, along with Luis Rengifo and Jack Mayfield. The Angels have no established shortstop for 2022, and they are expected to give strong consideration to going without a significant upgrade at that spot so they can put their major resources toward pitching.
Wade has played parts of five seasons with the Yankees, including 145 plate appearances over 103 games in 2021. Wade hit .268 with a .354 on-base percentage and a .677 OPS last season.
Two more former Dodgers found new homes with the Texas Rangers. Outfielders Billy McKinney and Zach Reks were traded to the Rangers in exchange for cash considerations.
McKinney, 27, is a Dallas native who joins his sixth team since being a firstround pick of the Oakland A’s in 2013. He hit .146 in 37 games with the Dodgers in 2021. Reks, 28, has hit .295 with an .870 OPS over four minor league seasons but went 0 for 10 in six games with the Dodgers last season.
• The Boston Red Sox exercised 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 a oneyear sign-stealing suspension. Cora, 46, is now under contract through 2024.
• Right-hander Anthony DeSclafani reached agreement on a $36 million, three-year contract to remain with San Francisco.
• The Chicago Cubs acquired outfielder Harold Ramirez from the Cleveland Guardians for cash. Ramirez, 27, batted .268 with seven home runs and 41 RBIs in 99 games for Cleveland last season.
• San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey and Baltimore Orioles slugger Trey Mancini were named baseball’s Comeback Player of the Year Award winners. $500 million mark this year.
The increases, which include $12 million purses in the three invitational tournaments, were approved at a board meeting two weeks ago in Houston and outlined in a memo PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan sent to players.
Monahan said the tour’s forecast is for 55% of revenue going back to the players in prize money, bonus programs and benefits. The $838 million allocated to the players includes $32 million from the reserve fund.
Prize money from official events comes out to $360.1million. That doesn’t include the $75 million from the FedEx Cup, and it doesn’t include the majors, which now are lagging behind regular PGA Tour events.
The majors typically don’t announce their purses until closer to the event. A year ago, the richest major was the U.S. Open at $12.5 million. The PGA Championship purse was $12 million and the Masters and British Open awarded $11.5 million.
The tour already posted the 2021-22 schedule that showed most tournaments increasing prize money by nearly $1 million.
The updates approved by the board include the postseason events — the FedEx St. Jude Championship and the BMW Championship — going from $11.5 million to $15 million in prize money, meaning the winner would get $2.7 million. That’s a boost from a $9.5 million purse a year ago.
Also, prize money at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera, the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill and the Memorial at Muirfield Village are going up to $12 million, compared to $10.5 million previously listed and $9.3 million a year ago.
The World Golf Championships-Dell Match Play also will have a $12 million purse.
Two-time U.S. figure skating champion Alysa Liu is making a coaching change less than three months before the Winter Olympics.
The 2019 and 2020 U.S. champ will begin training in Colorado Springs with Christy Krall, Drew Meekins and Viktor Pfeifer. She previously trained in Oakland under Massimo Scali and Jeremy Abbott.
The women’s squad for the February Games in Beijing will be selected in early January at the national championships in Nashville, Tenn. Liu is a favorite to make the team.
Liu, 16, is the 2020 world junior bronze medalist and finished second at the junior Grand Prix Final in 2019. Earlier this season, Liu won the Nebelhorn Trophy — to secure the United States a third berth in Beijing — and the Lombardo Trophy, but she has not fared as well in the senior Grand Prix series, her first at the senior level.
Liu finished fifth at Skate Canada and fourth at NHK Trophy, where her marks were diminished by underrotating several jumps.
Chelsea won the Champions League and England reached the European Championship final, but no Englishmen are on the nomination lists for FIFA’s annual awards.
Jorginho, a double European champion with Chelsea and Italy, was joined by club teammate N’Golo Kanté among 11 candidates to be voted FIFA’s best player in the 2020-21 season.
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo took their usual places on the list with last year’s winner, Robert Lewandowski.
The winner of the women’s award last year, England defender Lucy Bronze, is nominated again and the 13 candidates include her national and Manchester City teammate Ellen White.
Olympic gold medal-winning Canada has just one candidate, veteran forward Christine Sinclair, 19 years after she was first voted into the top 10.
No player was nominated from the United States team which took bronze at the Tokyo Olympics.
A men’s list dominated by forwards was completed by Mohamed Salah, Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, Karim Benzema and Neymar in the nominations by a FIFAappointed panel.
There are no defenders or goalkeepers in contention for the main FIFA award, though goalkeepers have their own separate award.
Italy’s Gianluigi Donnarumma, who was named player of the tournament at Euro 2020, is among the five goalkeeping candidates.
A virtual ceremony will be held on Jan. 17 remotely, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, from Zurich.
• Ali Curtis is out as general manager of Toronto’s Major League Soccer team after three seasons. The team announced his departure four months after Toronto FC fired Chris Armas, the coach Curtis brought with him from the New York Red Bulls.