Credit the Yankees’ aggressiveness for keeping themselves in the driver’s seat of the American League East where their other four rivals continue to tip-toe — or in the case of the Blue Jays, downright flounder. Let’s examine:

BLUE JAYS

Can anyone explain what the heck the Blue Jays are doing and how team president Mark Shapiro and GM Ross Atkins keep their jobs? If you ask me, the Blue Jays organization demise under Shapiro began a couple of years ago when they parted ways with Rich Griffin, their esteemed, highly respected media relations director. So far this winter they’ve done nothing to improve last year’s 74-win last place team other than to embark on another high stakes wild goose chase for the No. 1 free agent, this time Soto, after last year’s equally futile pursuit of Shohei Ohtani.

Meanwhile, they continue to ignore their own superstar, Vlad Guerrero Jr., who settled on a $28.5 million arbitration deal last week, but has had very little overtures from them in regard to his pending free agency. Reportedly, Shapiro has indicated to Blue Jay officials that he doesn’t consider Guerrero a franchise-type player which, if true, is preposterous. Not only is Guerrero only 25 and just now entering into the prime of his career, he was born in Canada when his daddy was playing for the Expos.

Earlier this winter, Guerrero implored the Blue Jay brass to bring back his friend Teoscar Hernandez, but they apparently made no effort to do so. A frustrated Guerrero has set Opening Day as the deadline for a contract, but with each passing day of no progress, and with a moneyed team like the Red Sox looming for a right-handed power hitting first baseman next year, it’s looking more and more certain he’ll be gone. It’s hard enough for the Blue Jays to lure good players to Canada. Without Guerrero, why would anyone sign with Toronto — and making matters worse, the Blue Jays’ player development system under Atkins has consistently been one of the lowest rated in the majors. Grade: F

ORIOLES

If Atkins has been arguably the worst GM in baseball, the Orioles’ analytics guru Mike Elias may be the most overrated. Two years ago, when the Orioles emerged from five years in the AL East doldrums to win the division with 101 victories, Elias was voted Executive of the Year. But the Orioles’ improvement was in no way the result of superior scouting and analytics expertise on Elias’ part but rather his subjecting Oriole fans to four years of tanking that resulted in the drafting of no-brainer No. 1 picks in Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Colton Cowser and Jordan Westburg. But in his six years on the job, Elias has yet to develop a single top quality starting pitcher and it’s hurt them badly in the postseason where they have yet to win a game. This winter they were unable to retain their ace Corbin Burnes and Elias filled out what was already a very mediocre rotation with 41-year-old Charlie Morton (who thought he was done) and 35-year-old soft-throwing Japanese import Tomoyuki Sugano. Grade: D

RED SOX

The Red Sox addressed their primary need — starting pitching — with their trade for the White Sox’s Garrett Crochet and their signings of recent Tommy John surgery recoveries Walker Buehler and Patrick Sandoval. But they still have plenty of question marks. Do they really believe after letting Kenley Jansen go, they can adequately and consistently close out games with 37-year-old Aroldis Chapman and Liam Hendricks, another Tommy John surgery comebacker? And there are holes in the lineup that weren’t fixed. Connor Wong is a below average catcher. Triston Casas remains an enigma at first base. Emmanuel Valdez hit .214 at second base and they desperately need Trevor Story to finally get through a season without another major injury. And all the while, the bigger question remains: Will the Red Sox really open up John Henry’s purse strings and pay what it takes for Guerrero next winter? Grade: C

RAYS

The good news is the revenue-challenged Rays will have all their talented injured starting pitchers — Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen and Shane Baz — back together at some point this season. The bad news is they’ll playing all their home games at Steinbrenner Field and after scoring the second-fewest runs in all of baseball last year, did nothing to improve it — unless you think Eloy Jimenez (ugh!) is an improvement. They will get through the season continuing to trade off their highest paid players and hope Tropicana Field gets fixed in time for 2026. Grade: F

At first blush, the loss of a superstar player of Soto’s caliber severely weakened the Yankees while, at the same time, pundits proclaimed the Mets to now be in the same class as the National League’s elite teams: the Dodgers, Braves and Phillies. But in just two short weeks, the Yankees made four major moves to improve their lot post-Soto, while the Mets have been seemingly stuck in neutral in failing to address their biggest need — starting pitching — which was also their biggest need before they even signed Soto.

Dipping first in their $750 million war chest of saved money on Soto, the Yankees gave Max Fried the largest contract ever for a left-handed pitcher, eight years, $218 million. Even though it was a gross overpay (certainly in years) for a 30-year-old pitcher with a recent history of forearm issues who has only once thrown more than 180 innings in a season, there’s no denying Fried is a genuine ace and the perfect complement to Gerrit Cole at the top of their rotation. They then quickly followed that up by trading with the Brewers for former All-Star closer Devin Williams, thus significantly fortifying their pitching staff on both the front and back ends.

OK, fine, said the Yankee skeptics, but how are they going to replace those 41 homers, 109 RBI and league-leading 128 runs from Soto? The answer is they aren’t, but the acquisition of Cody Bellinger from the Cubs last week gives them a player with decent power and speed, with superior defense and athleticism and, unlike Soto, has previously won an MVP award and genuinely wanted to be a Yankee.

It is the Yankees’ hope that most of that lost Soto production can be covered by a combination of Bellinger in center, Jasson Dominguez in left, further improvement by Austin Wells behind the plate and Paul Goldschmidt, another former MVP, at first base. Obviously a lot is riding on Dominguez, being given his first full shot as an everyday player, to finally live up to the immense hype that has followed him after signing a franchise record $5.1 million international free agent bonus as a 16-year-old back in 2019.

Of course the name of the game in baseball is, and always has been, pitching and you have to say, top to bottom, the Yankees’ pitching is presently far superior to the Mets’. When it comes to starting pitching, Mets baseball ops chief David Stearns has so far eschewed any expensive Fried-like long-term deals, opting instead for short term, often reclamation projects, such as Luis Severino and Sean Manaea, previously, and now Frankie Montas, Clay Holmes and Griffin Canning so far this offseason. Manaea is said to be seeking a four-year deal off his breakout season with the Mets last year — which he’ll probably get — and which is why Stearns has been unable to lure him back to Queens.

But even with the vast addition of Soto, does Stearns seriously envision the Mets going to the World Series with a rotation comprised of any kind of combination of Montas, Canning, Holmes, David Peterson, Tylor Megill, Kodai Senga (or a hopeful breakthrough by Brandon Sproat) — and not a legitimate No. 1 workhorse (a la Chris Sale, Zack Wheeler) among them? If he’s not interested in getting in on Corbin Burnes, it seems to me it would behoove Stearns to get in on the Mariners’ auction of Luis Castillo or the Marlins’ Jesus Luzardo. He has the prospect capital to get either one, and if he doesn’t do a major upgrade to his rotation, he is risking wasting Soto.

IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD

What about Roki Sasaki? The Mets reportedly met last week with the 23-year-old Japanese prodigy, who according to all the scouts would definitely qualify as a bona fide top-of-the-rotation starter. Because of his age, however, Sasaki has been designated an amateur international free agent and can sign only a minor league contract, rendering Steve Cohen’s deep pockets moot. The Yankees also plan to meet with Sasaki, but word is he’s not interested in signing with an east coast club and will most likely wind up with either the Padres (where he’s said to be very close to Yu Darvish) or the Dodgers. … The Rays’ situation in Tampa remains in limbo despite the Pinellas County board reversing its initial dissenting stance with a 5-2 approval to advance the sale of $312.5 million in bonds for the proposed $1.3 billion ballpark to be built as part of a massive redevelopment of the Gas Plant section of St. Petersburg, the site of where Tropicana Field is. The new hurdle for a deal is the county’s delay in approving the bond issue has made it impossible for the new stadium to be ready for the 2028 season and the cost overruns for a year’s delay have been estimated at slightly more than $100 million. Rays owner Stu Sternberg is balking at ponying up any more money and the Rays would be responsible for the cost overruns. It took a personal meeting with Rob Manfred and the previously dissenting Pinellas County commissioners to change their minds. But the commissioner clearly wants the Rays to stay in the Tampa Bay market and there is new speculation that if the St. Pete deal fails, Manfred may order Sternberg to sell the team and bring about a renewal of Tampa interests in a proposed stadium in the downtown Channelside section near the Lightning’s hockey arena.

The Yankees finally realized that as the negotiations reached the nitty-gritty stage last Sunday night when they were already in far beyond their comfort zone at $700 million and were told by Soto’s agent Scott Boras they would have to pony up a $60 million signing bonus if they were to remain competitive with three other clubs in the bidding, the Mets, Red Sox and Blue Jays. Hal Steinbrenner gulped hard, talked it over with Yankee president Randy Levine and GM Brian Cashman and reluctantly agreed, only to be told that other clubs had also agreed to a provision that would allow them to void the opt-out after the fifth year in exchange for adding another $4 million per year salary to Soto for the remainder of the contract. Again, they reluctantly agreed but said they would have to add another year to the contract in order to keep the annual average value for them at $47.5 million.

It was at this point when they were informed that Soto’s mother, Belkis Pacheco, who had become the driving force in the negotiations, insisted the Yankees throw in a suite at Yankee Stadium for the entire 15 years of the contract. That was when Hal Steinbrenner said something to the effect: “We’re gonna pay you $760 million and you can’t afford to pay for your own suite? We don’t give away suites (which range from $600,000 to $1 million) at Yankee Stadium,” — while adding that Aaron Judge, Derek Jeter and CC Sabathia all had suites at Yankee Stadium which they paid for themselves, as well as for premier seats in the Legends section behind home plate.

Cohen, on the other hand, had no problem with any added perks Soto and his family threw at him, and there were plenty. Besides a suite at Citi Field for 15 years, he also threw in 22 (for Soto’s number) Delta Club premium seats, security people for both him and his entire family home and away, and it is said, but not confirmed, the “family services” clause in the contract includes charter flights for his family to road games and a clothes allowance for his mother! Cohen probably doesn’t care but all these perks are included in the overall value of contract for luxury tax purposes and when it’s all said and done, Soto’s AAV will be more likely around $55 million not $51 million. I’m told Rob Manfred’s salary police are all over this contract.

So, yes, the deeper you dig into the contract the more obscene it gets as Cohen has essentially handed over his team to one player — a one dimensional player, by the way, who will most assuredly be a fulltime DH long before it’s even half over. As one former manager put it to me: “Carlos Mendoza’s job just got a whole lot harder as Aaron Boone’s got a whole lot easier.”

As for the Yankees, they are happily moving on from the unseemly Soto negotiation and in the end may be the better for it. No sooner did Cashman say “we’re not going to be spending money like drunken sailors,” they did just that, signing (soon-to-be) 31-year-old lefty Max Fried to an eight-year, $218 million contract — even though he has missed considerable time in each of the past two seasons with forearm issues and has never pitched more than 185 innings in a season.

Was it a ridiculous stretch on their part? Of course it was, but Cashman is going for the “now” in an effort to make a return trip to the World Series, and the trade of Nestor Cortes and second base prospect Caleb Durbin for Brewers’ two-time All-Star closer Devin Williams now gives them potentially the deepest and most formidable bullpen in the AL.

Still, with the pitching shored up, Cashman has a whole lot more work to do, with holes at first base and third base and maybe center field. They are engaged with the Cubs, who are looking to dump Cody Bellinger’s contract, but they don’t see him as a $27 million-a-year player. Meanwhile, they’re waiting for the first base market to sort itself out as Pete Alonso and Christian Walker are both said to be presently  seeking 5-6 year deals of over $100 million. Despite all the speculation about Alex Bregman for third base, he seems more suited for the Tigers or returning to the Astros.

IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD

As it turned out, the team that had the highest runner-up offer for Juan Soto was actually the Blue Jays even though they had no chance to sign him from the get-go. As one Blue Jay insider told me: “Why in the world would anyone think Soto was going to sign with a last place team in another country?” So like the Yankees, the Blue Jays are looking to use a lot of that saved money elsewhere now. Vlad Guerrero is urging them to bring back Teoscar Hernandez and that’ll probably happen after the Dodgers signed Michael Conforto for their outfield, and they’ve also made a sizeable offer to Corbin Burnes, though he is said to be favoring the Giants. … Interesting that the Rays, who have a history of identifying pitching talent from other organizations, plucked two pitchers — lefty reliever Nate Lavender and righty Mike Vasil – from the Mets in the Rule 5 Draft at the winter meetings. Vasil, an eighth round draft pick out of Virginia in 2021, was once regarded as a top 10 prospect by the Mets but struggled in Triple-A the last two years. Lavender, however, never got much respect from the Mets, who never protected him from the Rule 5 Draft despite enormous success as a reliever after being drafted in the 14th round in 2021: His batting averages against in 2021-22-23 were .130, .193 and .196 and he had an overall 1.22 WHIP before being felled last spring with Tommy John surgery. His funky sidearm delivery which is almost impossible for the hitters to pick up, makes him just the sort of “find” the Rays have been famous for (See: Pete Fairbanks, Nick Anderson and J.P. Feyereisen).

In Juan Soto, baseball’s Avenging Agent has the perfect free agent, a super slugger just 26 years old and already in his prime, and a perfect storm of competition for his services with all of the large market teams — Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Phillies and Red Sox — anxious and willing to blow past baseball’s luxury tax barriers to satisfy their demanding fan bases. Unlike so many previous years when Boras was hard-pressed to get a bidding war going for his high-priced clients and had to resort to leaking tales of a “mystery team” suddenly emerged into the bidding, there’ll be none of that this offseason with Soto. The big guys are all in and who knows how high the bidding is going to go, although Boras’ projections of Soto becoming the first $50 million-a-year player do not seem so far-fetched now.

Because of Steve Cohen’s seemingly unlimited resources, the Mets are regarded as the favorites to land Soto, especially if “the most money” is the deciding factor for him. But the Mets as presently constituted have a more pressing need with their starting rotation — Sean Manaea, Luis Severino and Jose Quintana are all free agents — which must be adequately addressed if they are to overtake the Phillies and Braves in the NL East. Again, however, because of Cohen’s money, the Mets are also viewed as favorites to sign Orioles ace Corbin Burnes, the top starter on the market who grew up in the Brewers system under Mets president of baseball ops David Stearns. It helps the Mets have $150 million coming off the books in expired contracts, but Cohen obviously intends to spend all of that back and a whole lot more.

What’s interesting is there wasn’t a whole lot of leaked scuttlebutt about Soto’s meeting with the Mets hierarchy at Cohen’s Beverly Hills Mansion last week, while his meeting with Hal Steinbrenner and Yankee officials in a hotel a few days later was described as being very “warm” and “honest.” And in a scrum with the media at the owners’ meetings a couple days later, Steinbrenner sure sounded like he’s ready to spend silly money when he said, “I’ve got ears. I know what’s expected of me.”

Even though the Yankees have by far the most revenue in baseball, there’s nothing Hal can do if Cohen decides he has to have Soto at whatever cost and blows the market into a record-shattering stratosphere. But there are believed to be some intangibles that could influence Soto’s decision above and beyond the money. Specifically, he has reportedly told people he became very close with Nationals owner Ted Lerner when he was with Washington and Padres owner Peter Seidler in San Diego. But when Lerner’s son Mark took over as Washington’s CEO in 2018, the relationship wasn’t the same and that was a principal factor in his turning down their 15-year, $440 million extension offer in 2022. Similarly, when Seidler died in November 2023, Soto made it known to the Padres he wasn’t interested in signing an extension with them before becoming a free agent.

This is why one of Steinbrenner’s principal selling points in his meeting with Soto was his close relationship with Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole, his two highest paid players, with whom he often seeks counsel — and how it would be the same with him. And, of course, there is always the matter of the Yankee brand, which unlike the Mets’, is all over the world. I’m sure Hal brought up Robbie Cano in his talk with Soto. And as Derek Jeter said, he’s made more in endorsements after his career, and it really is hard to see Soto signing with the Phillies or Blue Jays. (As one Blue Jay insider told me last week: “Why in the world does anyone think Soto would sign with a last-place team in another country?”)

I scoffed when the Red Sox said they planned to get in on the Soto bidding, but I’m told their interest is sincere and they’re prepared to abandon their recent austerity stance. In Fenway Park, Soto could put up truly historic numbers over the next 10-12 years, which is what the Red Sox’s brass is thinking. But again, they don’t have the comfort relationship with him that the Yankees have.

As for the Dodgers, I just don’t see it. How many superstars do they need? What they do need is starting pitching. It is also being said that Soto does not want to play on the west coast.

All this said, Boras is going to push Soto to sign for the most money, which is what Cohen is counting on. Steinbrenner is counting on Soto seeing there is just as much money in endorsements and marketing beyond the contract because of just being a Yankee.

IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD

Elections and hurricanes have consequences and it now appears the consequences of both are likely going to mean the Tampa Bay Rays picking up stakes and re-locating, possibly as soon as 2026. There was much jubilation in Tampa Bay back in July when the city of St. Petersburg approved a deal for constructing a new $1.3 billion domed stadium for the Rays as the centerpiece of a massive $6.5 billion redevelopment project of the Gas Plant District where Tropicana Field is located. All that was waiting was for a similar green light from the Pinellas County Commission which was said at the time to be 5-2 in favor of the project. But when Hurricane Milton destroyed the roof on Tropicana Field on Oct. 9, it created another roadblock for the new stadium as it was estimated to be going to cost another $56 million for the repairs on a facility slated to be demolished in 2028. The hurricane forced the county to delay their vote until after the election — which resulted in two of the members who were in favor of the new stadium voted out and replaced by two newcomers opposed to it. Further exasperating tensions between the Rays and Pinellas County was the Rays decision to play their games next year at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa (Hillsborough County), even though it’s a vastly superior facility to the Phillies’ Florida State League ballpark in Clearwater. Then, on Friday the St. Petersburg City Council, after first approving to spend more than $23 million on the repairs to Tropicana Field, suddenly reversed course and delayed their vote until after the New Year, probably in response to the Rays not playing their games in Hillsborough County next season. So with the County Commission apparently now 4-3 against the new stadium and the delayed vote on repairs to Tropicana Field making it likely they won’t be completed until 2026, the Rays find themselves in stadium limbo. At the owners’ meeting in New York, I’m told Rays owner Stu Sternberg was given permission to re-locate the team if a new stadium deal is not in place by the end of this coming season.

Queue the Everly Brothers:

“Bye-Bye Rays. Bye-Bye Happiness. Hello Emptiness. Tampa Bay is about to cry. Bureaucrats kissed their team good bye. Bye-bye their Rays Bye-buy.”

For that they can thank the sea of mediocrity the American League was this year, making way for possibly the worst Yankee team to ever make the World Series. As horrific as that Game 5 fifth inning was, it was not something out of character for this Yankee team that has been one of the most fundamentally and defensively challenged teams in baseball for quite a while now but this year was able to mask those flaws with a major league leading 237 homers and a whole lot of inferior teams in the AL. I would submit that, besides the Dodgers, there were at least three other National League teams — the Padres, Phillies and (when healthy) the Braves — who were better than the Yankees. And once the Astros and Orioles were eliminated in the AL Division series, the Yankees never had an easier path to the World Series than this year.

This is the dilemma facing Brian Cashman and the Yankee high command: The half full picture is that they finally achieved their yearly goal of going to the World Series. The half empty is they haven’t been able to correct the flaws that have plagued them for years and now they have to figure out how to retain Juan Soto, who hit 41 of those 237 homers but is also a below average defender in right field. They desperately need Soto’s power bat, but they almost just as badly need to clean up their act defensively and on the basepaths.

Through his surrogates in the media, Soto’s agent Scott Boras has already floated the $700 million figure as the benchmark for his client. No matter what, it’s going to be another 10-12 year contract that will probably greatly surpass Aaron Judge’s $40 million per annum, even though Judge was a homegrown Yankee and a superior all-around player than Soto. That’s why if I were the Yankees I would offer Soto a contract slightly more than Judge’s and then see what clubs would be willing to top that. Where does it say that Soto is worth $10 million more a year than Judge?

Maybe Steve Cohen will, but I’m not so sure the Mets are going to be in on Soto and here’s why: David Stearns is a tried and true analytics man and one of the principal tenets of analytics is to eschew these crazy 10-12 year contracts that never work out beyond the first 6-7 years when the player reaches his mid-30s. Without Soto, the Mets finished sixth in the major in homers this year and seventh in runs. Stearns’ top priority this winter is starting pitching and it’s no secret he would like to achieve a reunion with his former Milwaukee Brewers ace Corbin Burnes.

It would not be at all surprising if, instead of investing $50 million a year on one player, Stearns opts to spend that money on 2-3 players on shorter-term contracts from among Burnes, Max Fried, Christian Walker, Yusei Kikuchi, and re-signing Sean Manaea (which they’re reportedly already working on). There is also the matter of fan favorite Pete Alonso, who is not a favorite of Stearns’ analytics group. For how much do the Mets want him back?

Even though out of necessity Soto remains their top priority, the Yankees likewise need to be thinking about a Plan B without him, especially after he didn’t exactly express a whole lot of loyalty to them at the end of the World Series when, in true Borasonian speak, he said he was going to look at every offer he gets and will be open to every team. They, too, should be considering how they could spread that $50 million on 2-3 other players on shorter term contracts with an eye on filling the hole at first base (Alonso? Walker?) and improving their defense (Tyler O’Neill?)

With nearly $58 million coming off the payroll in free agents Anthony Rizzo, Gleyber Torres, Clay Holmes, Alex Verdugo  and Tommy Kahnle, the Yankees will have the money to sign Soto (for next year’s payroll purposes anyway). If Cohen decides not to get in on Soto, it’s uncertain as to just how high his market will go. But even if they are able to re-sign him, it doesn’t address the deeper problems with this Yankee team.

Throughout his entire playing career — which encompassed three batting titles, the Rookie of the Year award in 1963,  a Most Valuable Player award in 1973, 10 200-hit seasons, a National League record 44-game hitting streak,  four runs-scored titles, a .321 average in 67 postseason games, and the major league records for most hits (4,256), games played (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890) — Rose embodied how the game was supposed to be played and he was also baseball’s prime goodwill ambassador.

If only that brash, shaggy-haired “Charlie Hustle” persona could have been the essence of him.

If only Rose’s uncompromising will to win on the field wasn’t eclipsed by his equally uncompromising obsessive, self-destructive behavior off it.

It all began to unravel for Rose on March 20, 1989 when then-commissioner Peter Ueberroth announced he was conducting a full inquiry into “serious allegations” of Rose’s involvement in wide-scale betting and his connections with a network of bookies and other gambling figures. Betting on baseball was the game’s cardinal sin, dating back to the 1919 Black Sox World Series fix and carried with it a lifetime ban for anyone in the game engaging in it.

When Ueberroth left office, his successor Bart Giamatti’s dogged investigator John Dowd uncovered a mountain of evidence — telephone records, betting slips and sworn testimony from Rose’s bookies and associates — “that reveal extensive betting activity by Pete Rose in connection with professional baseball and, in particular, Cincinnati Reds games during the 1985-86-87 baseball seasons (when Rose was the Reds player-manager).”

At the subsequent press conference in New York announcing his decision to suspend Rose, a visibly sad-faced Giamatti said: “One of the game’s greatest players has engaged in a variety of acts which have stained the game, and he must now live with the consequences of those acts.”

What’s important to note, however, was that in announcing he was placing Rose on baseball’s permanent ineligible list, Giamatti left the door open for Rose to appeal for reinstatement down the road — but that he first needed “to reconfigure his life.” In addition, Giamatti said nothing about the Hall of Fame. It wasn’t until two years later, when Rose was about to go on the Baseball Writers Association ballot, that the Hall of Fame Board of Directors adopted a rule that anyone on the permanent ineligible list was also ineligible for election to the Hall of Fame. At the time, there was considerable upset among the baseball writers for having the Hall of Fame vote on Rose taken away from them.

I have to admit I have had conflicted feelings about Rose and the Hall of Fame over the years, mostly because as a player he was a delight for the writers and an inspiration to the fans. Like my BBWAA brethren I was extremely disappointed when the Hall of Fame took his fate out of our hands. I definitely wouldn’t have voted for him his first year on the ballot, but I would’ve liked to see if he “reconfigured his life” over the next 10 years. As it turned out, he never did — and he made it worse by denying he bet on baseball for 14 years before finally coming clean in 2004 in a mea culpa meeting with commissioner Bud Selig that was arranged by his former teammates, Hall of Famers Joe Morgan and Mike Schmidt.

But just as it looked as if Selig might be ready to finally lift his ban, Rose, in his inimitable ability to infuriate baseball officials, elected to go public with his confession in a book “My Prison Without Bars” — which was published the same day Paul Molitor and Dennis Eckersley were elected to the Hall of Fame. Molitor was Selig’s favorite player with the Milwaukee Brewers and the commissioner was outraged at Rose for upstaging him and Eckersley on their big day.  That was probably the closest Rose ever got to being reinstated.

He made numerous pleas to the present commissioner Rob Manfred, but always there were concerns about something else cropping up about Rose to embarrass baseball — such as in 2017 when the Phillies were forced to cancel their induction of Rose into their Hall of Fame amid allegations that he’d had sex with an underage girl in the 1970s. The statute of limitations had long since expired and Rose was never charged with a crime, but he was dropped by FOX as a commentator and never had any further associations with baseball.

And yet I still keep going back to Rose’s original sin — betting on baseball, which was compounded by all those years of denying it. Today, Major League Baseball is in bed with betting and gambling sites and in retrospect it does seem rather hypocritical to deny baseball’s all-time hits leader a Hall of Fame vote. If you ask me, Barry Bonds and the steroid cheats did a whole lot more damage to the game than Rose did, but they at least all got their day in court with both the baseball writers and the veterans committee.

I was taken by something Johnny Bench said the other day on the news of Rose’s passing. Despite being the cornerstone players of the ‘70s Big Red Machine, Bench and Rose had been estranged for years, but death has a way of rekindling the good times and the meaning of relationships. “My heart is sad,” Bench said. “I loved you Peter Edward. You made all of us better. No matter the life we led.”

Rose is gone now. His lifetime ban has been completed. Manfred has no more worries about being embarrassed by him. He should re-instate him and allow the Hall of Fame to accord him the same process as they have had with the steroid cheats. And what will be, will be.

But now the postseason is upon us, and as Boone knows all too well, this will be the real referendum for him. For all their warts, the Yankee payroll remains the second highest in baseball, behind only the Mets, and another early exit will generate renewed scrutiny not only on Boone but on Brian Cashman. There are no super teams in the American League this year, making for potentially the Yankees’ easiest path to the World Series since Boone became manager in 2018. But there is also no getting around the major concerns about the lineup, which has been essentially a two-man (Aaron Judge-Juan Soto) operation that was especially exposed in September.

To wit:

Since returning to the lineup Sept. 1, Anthony Rizzo has seven RBI and has yet to hit a homer.

The constantly adjusting Anthony Volpe has again looked lost at the plate, his average dropping nearly 10 points in September with one homer with 25 strikeouts in 23 games as of Saturday.

Austin Wells, after being in the AL Rookie of the Year conversation most of the season, has hit the skids in September, his average dropping over 20 points with just one homer.

The initial spark Jazz Chisholm brought to the lineup has fizzled in September with just one homer and seven RBI as his average has dropped nearly 10 points.

Alex Verdugo has been in a prolonged offensive funk since mid-July and Jasson Dominguez has provided little offensive improvement in left field and has at times been a liability on defense. It remains a mystery why the Yankees continue to eschew their best outfield defense — which would be Soto in left, Judge in right and Dominguez in his natural position, center.

What has sustained the Yankees through all their offensive ruts is their consistently effective starting pitching. Despite the loss of Nestor Cortes (and that potentially could be significant given his versatility), in Cole, Carlos Rodon, Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt the Yankees go into the postseason with the deepest rotation, quality-wise, of any team. And after enduring too much anxiety with Clay Holmes, it appears the Yankees have settled the back end of their bullpen with Tommy Kahnle (and the anticipated return of Jake Cousins) as the primary set-up men and Luke Weaver’s emergence as a dependable closer.

It is not an exaggeration to say this may be the most important postseason in recent times for the Yankees because they need to justify their $308 million payroll to Hal Steinbrenner, especially because it figures to rise even higher if they are able to re-sign Soto, the cost of which is likely to be a minimum of $500 million. A trip to the World Series for the first time in 15 years would surely make Hal more amenable to spending even more, but if the Yankees should suffer another early KO from a team with a payroll one-third of theirs, it is understandable if the owner wants to know how he got in this predicament?

IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD

Well, the White Sox finally did it, falling to the resurgent Tigers Friday night for their 121st loss to surpass the ’62 Mets as the losingest team in major league history, But at least here’s this: The loss left White Sox with a run differential of minus 314, but with only two games left they are unlikely to break that other record of ignominious futility which according to the Elias Bureau is minus 349 by the 43-11 1932 Red Sox. … The Reds fired David Bell as their manager last week, purportedly because the team didn’t live up to ownership’s great expectations, despite the fact they were decimated by injuries. After the Twins collapse there was growing speculation that Rocco Baldelli could be following Bell on the unemployment line. The Twins were in second place in the AL Central on Sept. 5 and seemingly in control of at least a wild card berth but instead went 6-13 to fall to fourth and out of contention. Another team that failed to live up to expectations was the Pirates who have now had five straight losing seasons under GM Ben Cherington and manager Derek Shelton, but Pittsburgh owner Bob Nutting, who was reported to have made a $68 million profit last year, seems disinclined to make any changes. … For their final game in Oakland, the A’s were treated to a full house of 46,889 loyal fans, the final chapter to one of baseball’s great tragedies. It is unconscionable that baseball allowed the A’s billionaire owner John Fisher to strip the team of all its best players after he failed to reach agreement on a new stadium in Oakland, the sixth largest TV market, and then greenlighted his move to Las Vegas, the 42nd largest market.

Before Friday night’s 12-2 whopping by the Phillies (which was somewhat softened by the Braves losing to Miami), the Mets had won 15 of their last 20 games, including a franchise record three straight games of scoring 10 or more runs last week, and were 24-10 since Aug. 13 to move from third to second in the NL East and into a tie for the second wild card spot. It is all out there for them to secure a place in the postseason (unlikely as that may have seemed two months ago).

After the completion of this weekend series with the Phillies there’s three games in Atlanta against the Braves Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. But this much is already clear: A team that was supposed to be in a transition year while waiting for the money from the departed Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander to come off the books, became a second half force due in large part to baseball operations chief David Stearns’ financially conservative acquisitions of Luis Severino, Sean Manaea, Jose Iglesias and Luis Torrens among others.

And yet, as much as Mets fans are clamoring for playoff baseball at Citi Field for only the second time since 2017, they have to know it increases the likelihood they will not be pursuing Juan Soto in the offseason. There are a lot of reasons for this, starting with Stearns, an analytics-heavy baseball exec who after eight years of running the small market Brewers, has been weaned on fiscal responsibility — and one of the principal tenets of analytics is to eschew long-term multi-million contracts taking players deep into their 30s.

I believe Mets owner Steve Cohen learned his lesson on the crazy money Scherzer and Verlander contracts and moving forward, with Stearns as his guiding light, will see the reasoning in not investing $500-600 million on one player when his team is already pretty damn good — especially when you can invest half of that on a No. 1 starting pitcher in Stearns’ former Milwaukee ace Corbin Burnes and another bat on the free agent market. Soto is already just adequate defensively in the outfield and scouts have always questioned how his body will age when he reaches his 30s.

And there is also the matter of Pete Alonso, the Citi Field favorite you would think Cohen needs to sign, making a $50 million-a-year contract for Soto even more prohibitive. On top of that, all of the Mets’ top prospects — Jett Williams, Drew Gilbert, Ryan Clifford, Nick Morabito, and even probably Ronny Mauricio now — are outfielders. You can see the case Stearns can lay out against signing Soto.

Even the Yankees are privately conceding the 12-year, $500-600 million contract Soto’s agent Scott Boras is seeking is a bad investment, but unlike the Mets, they need the player — and in truth Soto needs them just as much. Where else can he go with Aaron Judge hitting behind him and the guarantee of almost every year playing in the postseason? Before he holds out — as Boras is wont to do — for every last dollar, he might want to consult Robinson Cano.

IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD

Suffice to say while the Mets were surging with Francisco Lindor on the sidelines, Shohei Ohtani, in one historic and phenomenal game, ended all debate over the National League Most Valuable Player last week. What Ohtani did on Thursday in becoming the first player in major league history to attain 50 homers and 50 stolen bases in the same season, was simply not to be believed: 6-for-6, three homers, 10 RBI, four runs, two stolen bases and a total of 17 total bases. The three homers enabled Ohtani to break the Dodgers’ all-time season record of 49 by Shawn Green in 2001 while the 10 RBI were the most in one game for a Dodger since RBI became an official stat in 1920 and likewise the most out of the leadoff spot by any player since 1920. Was it the greatest game by a hitter ever? The three best comps the Elias Sports Bureau could come up with were the Reds’ Scooter Gannett (5-for-6, 3 HR, 10 RBI, 17 total bases) in June 2017, Anthony Rendon (6-for-6, 3 HR, 10 RBI, 16 total bases) with the Nationals in April 2017 and Green (6-for-6, 4 HR, 6 RBI and 19 total bases) in May 2002 with the Dodgers. But none of them had any stolen bases.…

Both the Dodgers and the Orioles were forced to come to grips with costly mistakes last week, neither of which should have been surprises. The Orioles announced they had designated deposed closer Craig Kimbrel for assignment after the 36-year-old former All-Star was battered for a 13.94 ERA over his last 11 appearances and had an overall 5.33 ERA and six blown saves. But even though Kimbrel had 23 saves before the All-Star break, he was not nearly the dominant closer of 5-6 years ago and there were plenty of raised eyebrows when Orioles GM Mike Elias signed him for $13 million last winter as a stopgap replacement for Felix Bautista, who’s out for the season following Tommy John surgery, after three teams, the White Sox, Dodgers and Phillies all found him wanting in recent years. At the same time the Orioles were cutting ties with Kimbrel it was announced by the Dodgers that Tyler Glasnow, who hadn’t pitched in a month, was out for the season with a sprained elbow. It can now be said the Dodgers decision to give Glasnow a five-year, $136 million extension after they acquired him from the Rays last winter was one of the dumbest contracts ever, if only because Glasnow has been one of the most oft-injured pitchers in baseball with an assortment of injuries that have prevented him from surpassing 120 innings in any season before this one. At the time, Dodgers GM Andrew Friedman said: “We spent a lot of time looking into that and that’s a bet we’re making.” A really bad bet as it turns out. Glasnow has since cleared out his locker at Dodger Stadium, with his nameplate removed, and left the team without informing manager Dave Roberts where he was going.

But lo and behold came the second-half Francisco Lindor-fueled Mets surge, and in the midst of the September stretch this is no longer looking like a transitory year but instead possibly a historic one for the Mets, with a wild card berth now theirs for the taking.

Considering they were 28-37, 17 ½ games behind as late as June 11 and only finally went over .500 a week before the All-Star break, there were plenty of flaws with this Mets team, but little by little Stearns has been able to address them, at very little cost and without sacrificing any of their top prospects from the farm system. It began last winter when Stearns was tasked with finding at least two frontline starting pitchers and, perhaps out of necessity, chose not to engage Scott Boras for either Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery, opting instead on modest short-term deals for Luis Severino ($13 million) and Sean Manaea ($14.5 million, plus a $13.5 player option).

In Manaea’s case especially, it was duly noted by Stearns and his top aide Eduardo Brizuela that he had become a much more consistently effective pitcher the second half of last year after adding a “sweeper” to his repertoire. And even though both Manaea and Severino will be free agents after the season, with the Scherzer and Verlander contracts off the books, Stearns has the means to re-sign either or both.

When the season opened, Stearns knew the Mets were lacking a middle-of-the-order bat and after Boras waited all the way to the end of March in a vain effort to secure a long-term deal for J.D. Martinez, Stearns leaped and got himself a designated hitter for $12 million. Stearns’ other major offseason acquisition was center fielder Harrison Bader who a lot of rival execs felt was an over pay for $10.5 million, but that, too, has looked like a bargain with Bader supplying superior outfield defense with the second highest home run and RBI totals of his career so far.

From there it was on to filling in roster depth with the signing of 34-year-old Jose Iglesias last winter to a $1.5 million minor league deal now looking like a master stroke as the much-traveled infielder was recalled at the end of May and immediately took over as a clubhouse leader with his OMG enthusiasm while having the best offensive season of his career.

The total cost of Stearns’ offseason upgrade, including the $564,000 for Danny Young, the left-handed reliever Buck Showalter never had last year, came to just under $60 million — which has since been partially offset by the $17.5 million they now aren’t going to have to pay Verlander because he failed to reached the necessary 140 innings with the Astros for his 2025 option to vest.

Come June, there was still one other major fix that had to be made with the Mets and that was the catching where the combination of mostly Omar Narvaez and Tomas Nido had been a woeful 7-for-66 throwing out opposing baserunners. To remedy that, Stearns reached out to the Yankees to buy Luis Torrens, another veteran journeyman with excellent defensive skills who almost singlehandedly has transformed a critical liability into a source of strength, having thrown out 13 of 21 baserunners as of Friday.

When it came to the trade deadline, Stearns addressed two other needs — an established reliever in Phil Maton and another left-handed bat, Jesse Winker, again for next-to-nothing from out-of-contention teams that were only interested in unloading salaries of players coming into free agency. So far you have to say Stearns has done a remarkable job turning this Mets season into something potentially magical, all the while acting as a small market Milwaukee Brewers-type GM.

The question now is, will he abandon this obviously successful conservative approach and go gung ho on a 12-year, $500-plus million contract for Juan Soto — even though the Mets farm system remains stocked with high level prospects in Jett Williams, Drew Gilbert, Ryan Clifford, Carson Benge and Ronny Mauricio, not to mention Brandon Sproat and Christian Scott for the rotation next year? If I’m Steve Cohen, I’m asking Stearns, does Soto, especially at that exorbitant price, make us that much better — a World Series sure shot — than what we already have?

IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD

With all credit I just lavished on David Stearns, what can still not be dismissed was his shabby treatment of firing Buck Showalter without even so much as a face-to-face. Stearns’ first hour as Mets head of baseball ops was definitely not his finest. … As maddeningly inconsistent as the Yankees have been these last couple of months, it’s becoming increasingly clear the Orioles don’t have the stuff to catch them — and that is largely the fault of GM Mike Elias’ failure to develop any pitching all the while the Orioles were subjecting their fans to four miserable years of tanking from 2018-2021. It’s a good thing Elias was able to trade last winter for Corbin Burnes (who will probably be leaving as a free agent after the season) because the rest of the Orioles’ rotation has been mediocre at best with their No. 2 Grayson Rodriguez (who was drafted by Elias’ predecessor Dan Duquette) sidelined since July 31 with a shoulder injury that apparently has not improved. In addition, Elias failed to secure an adequate closer replacement for Felix Bautista, who went down last season with Tommy John surgery. Going into the weekend the Orioles were 18-20 since Aug. 1. Their 4.09 bullpen ERA was the 10th worst in the majors, although Elias may have finally found a closer solution in Seranthony Dominguez, who he acquired from the Phillies at the trade deadline. Dominguez had been largely unimpressive in a middle relief role with the Phillies but after twice yielding walk-off homers to the Mets last month, he’d registered six straight saves going into this weekend. But besides the pitching, the prime culprit of the Orioles’ inconsistent play has been their catcher and team leader Adley Rutschman, the crown jewel of their tanking who they took first overall in the 2019 draft over Bobby Witt Jr. Since July 1, Rutschman has dropped nearly 40 points off his average and hit just three home runs. Even when they drafted Rutschman there were questions about his throwing arm, and according to Baseball Savant, his 17% caught stealing percentage as of Friday ranked 39th among MLB catchers.

Kranepool, who was 79 (born Nov. 8, 1944), played his entire career with the Mets, eight times reaching double digit home run totals, and is the team’s all- time record holder for games (1,853) and pinch hits (90). On  May 7, 2019 he was given a new lease on life when, after battling diabetes that caused him to have two toes amputated and two inches of bone removed from his left foot, his two-year vigil for a kidney transplant was  answered.

A lifelong New Yorker whose father was killed in Saint-lo France in World War II before he was born, Kranepool was raised by his mother, Ethel, and first gained national attention when he broke all of legendary Hank Greenberg’s home run records at James Monroe High. The Mets had just been formed as a National League expansion team and one of their first priorities was to sign the powerful left-handed hitting first baseman to an $80,000 bonus upon his graduation in June 1962 that included an additional $1,000 if he reached Double A, $3,000 if he reached Triple A and $7,500 for the major leagues. He hit all of them, arriving in the majors as a September call-up by the Mets in ’62, appearing in three games.

“They didn’t have to recruit too hard,” Kranepool said. “I wanted to be with my hometown team and I knew I would have a chance to play right away.”

The following year, Kranepool made the Mets out of spring training, but besides proving he clearly wasn’t ready, he quickly earned a reputation for brashness. One day at the Polo Grounds, Duke Snider, the veteran future Hall-of-Famer whom the Mets had purchased from the Dodgers at the end of his career, spotted Kranepool spraying balls to left field and center during batting practice and chided him for not using his size and strength to go for home runs by pulling the ball – to which Kranepool famously retorted: “You’re not going so good yourself.”

By early July in ’63, Kranepool’s average was down to .190 and the Mets shipped him back to Triple A Buffalo where he batted .310 with five homers the rest of the summer before being called back to the majors in September. It was much of the same in ’64 when Kranepool drew criticism for showing up to spring training out of shape, pulling a hamstring, and seemingly failing to hustle. He again got off to a slow start and was optioned to Buffalo with a .139 average on May 13. This time, however, the demotion lasted only two weeks and when Kranepool returned, he started every game at first base the rest of the season and finished at .257 with 10 homers and 45 RBI.

He was the Mets’ semi-regular first baseman for the next four years, earning his lone All-Star nomination in 1965, but in the Mets’ miracle season of 1969, Kranepool found himself benched in favor of Donn Clendenon, the righthanded power hitter they’d acquired at the trading deadline. Kranepool started only one of the ’69 World Series games against the Orioles, nevertheless making his presence felt with a solo home run in the eighth inning of Game 3 (the only one that had been started by an Oriole righty) off righthanded reliever Dave Leonhard to put the Mets up 5-0. “I couldn’t stop grinning,” Kranepool said. “It made up for all those cold losing years with the Mets and all the ridicule we’d taken. I had hit a home run in the World Series and nobody could ever take that away from me.”

Largely because of constant platooning, Kranepool’s later years with the Mets were marked by acrimony with his managers and salary disputes with the front office. On June 23, 1970, he was hitting .118 with only 34 at-bats when the Mets sent him back to Triple A, where he hit .310 with seven homers in 47 games and was brought back to serve mainly as a pinch hitter. Then in the spring of 1971, he found three first basemen ahead of him in the lineup pecking order, Clendenon, and fellow lefties Art Shamsky and Mike Jorgensen, and, in frustration, lashed out at Mets manager Gil Hodges. “I hope they trade me,” he said. “Something may happen. Something could happen to one of them. But I don’t see (Hodges) changing his opinion of me. He’s got about as much confidence in me as I have in him.”

The Mets never did trade, instead keeping him around as a valuable backup first baseman and one of the most proficient pinch hitters of his time (90-for-324, .278 with 6 HR and 55 RBI).  But after hitting a career high .323 in 1975 and .292 in ’76 he got into a bitter contract dispute with Mets GM Joe McDonald in the spring of ’77 that resulted in him going over McDonald’s head to team president M. Donald Grant to get a three-year contract and a $10,000 raise.

”I didn’t like Joe McDonald. I didn’t respect him. He didn’t know anything about baseball,” Kranepool said. “There were termites who ate away at the organization by then and he was one of the termites.”

Kranepool assumed when his three-year contract was up, McDonald wouldn’t renew it and he was right. It was a bitter ending as, at the end of the ’79 season, the Mets had a day for Cardinals’ future Hall-of-Famer Lou Brock on his final visit to Shea Stadium – but had nothing for him. Instead they simply released him.

In his post career, Kranepool remained a public figure in New York, working in a number of businesses and serving as a Mets good will ambassador until a falling out with the organization in 2012 when he got into a verbal argument with COO Jeff Wilpon at a team banquet. Six years later, the Mets reached out to patch things up and Kranepool was invited back to throw out the first pitch at a game at Citi Field In August 2018.

But beginning in 2016 he had begun to suffer from serious kidney issues. Now in his mid-70s, he was forced to sell off much of his memorabilia to cover his medical bills as he waited two years for a kidney transplant.  It was deemed Kranepool’s “second miracle” (after 1969) when Deborah Barbieri, the wife of a Nassau County volunteer fireman had hoped to donate her kidney to her husband only to find they had different blood types and weren’t a match. She was a match for Kranepool, however, and on the same day Kranepool received her kidney, Barbieri’s husband, Al, was also able to receive a kidney from a Port Authority police officer Brian Cooney. From that day, they all considered themselves a family.

Kranepool is survived by his second wife. Monica, and two sons, Darren and Keith, and a daughter, Jamie, from his first marriage.