Reynaldo Lopez, Lance Lynn headed to new teams

Lance Lynn is going back where he started.

Two former White Sox pitchers agreed to terms on new contracts with new teams Monday.

Reynaldo Lopez is headed to the Atlanta Braves on a three-year, $30 million contract. Meanwhile, Lance Lynn is going to the St. Louis Cardinals. He's got a one-year deal worth $11 million, with incentives that could earn him as much as $14 million. The contract also includes an option for 2025 that could increase the value to $25 million.

Lopez, who turns 30 in January, bounced from the White Sox to the Los Angeles Angels to the Cleveland Guardians last season. After a rough start with the Sox, his final season numbers don't look too bad -- 3-7 with a 3.27 ERA in 68 games, with six saves. Lopez fanned 83 batters in 66 innings.

Feel free to insert the joke here about the Braves wishing to re-create the Sox bullpen. Lopez rejoins his former teammate Aaron Bummer, whom the Sox traded to Atlanta late last week.

But in a different twist, it appears the Braves are interested in possibly making Lopez a starter. According to a tweet sent Monday by Ken Rosenthal, Lopez will prepare this offseason as if he will be a member of the rotation, and Atlanta will explore the option in spring training.

Lopez hasn't been a full-time starting pitcher since 2019. That didn't work out for him in Chicago, but if he makes it work in Atlanta, that would justify the investment the Braves have made here. If Lopez is just going to be a seventh-inning reliever or something similar, you can find guys to do that role for less than $10 million AAV.

Lynn, 36, made 32 starts last season -- 21 with the Sox and 11 with the Los Angeles Dodgers -- but that's one of the few positives he can take from his 2023 campaign. He went 13-11, but had an unsightly 5.73 ERA. He had a -0.8 WAR and gave up a league-high 44(!) homers over 183.2 innings. 

The Cardinals know Lynn well. He pitched in St. Louis from 2011-17 and won a World Series there in 2011. No doubt, the club is hoping the veteran has at least one decent year left in his arm.

In other starting pitching news, a major name agreed to a contract over the weekend. Aaron Nola is staying with the Philadelphia Phillies for seven years and $172 million.

What might this mean for White Sox right-hander Dylan Cease, whose name has been mentioned in trade rumors? 

There are still some good free agent pitchers out there, including NL Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell, World Series champion Jordan Montgomery and Japanese import Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Nola has set the market for those guys by agreeing on a contract worth $24.5 million AAV.

Meanwhile, Cease is not a free agent. He's arbitration eligible with a suggested salary of $8.8 million. He has two years of team control remaining.

If Lynn can pull in $11 million in free agency coming of a rough year, then Cease is a tremendous value in this marketplace. Sox general manager Chris Getz should keep that in mind, if he is indeed entertaining trade offers for Cease.

Rangers slay Astros; Diamondbacks for Game 7

So, is it time to start talking about road-field advantage?

The Texas Rangers lost all three of their home games in the American League Championship Series, but they went 4-0 on the road. They knocked out the Houston Astros and advanced to the 2023 World Series with a 11-4 victory Monday night.

I have to admit, I wasn't feeling too good about Texas' chances after they lost Game 5 in dramatic fashion. Jose Altuve's 3-run homer in the ninth inning of that game lifted the Astros to a 5-4 win  -- and a 3-2 series lead.

But the Rangers answered big time as the series shifted back to Houston. They used a five-run ninth inning to blow open a tight game in Game 6, tying the series with a 9-2 victory. Adolis Garcia was 0 for 4 with four strikeouts until that ninth inning, when he delivered a grand slam that put the game out of reach.

Garcia continued his heroics in Game 7, going 4 for 5 with two homers and five RBIs. So, in his last six plate appearances of the series, he had five hits -- including three homers -- and nine RBIs. That's clutch.

Corey Seager and Nathaniel Lowe also homered for the Rangers in the deciding game. Texas scored three runs in the first inning, added one in the third and four in the fourth. The Rangers had an 8-2 lead by that point and never relinquished control.

Diamondbacks force NLCS Game 7

After the Philadelphia Phillies won Game 2 of the National League Championship Series, 10-0, I thought the Arizona Diamondbacks were dead.

I was wrong.

Arizona has since taken three of four games. The Diamondbacks tied the series at 3-all with a 5-1 victory in Philadelphia on Monday.

Phillies starter Aaron Nola had been 3-0 with a 0.96 ERA in these playoffs, but the Diamondbacks got to him for three runs in the second inning, highlighted by back-to-back home runs by Tommy Pham and Lourdes Gurriel Jr.

Arizona's Merrill Kelly tossed five innings of one-run ball, and four Diamondback relievers limited Philadelphia's offense to three singles over the last four innings. For a change, the Phillies did not homer, and that's the key to beating them -- keep them in the ballpark.

Game 7 is Tuesday night. Brandon Pfaadt is pitching for the Diamondbacks. The Phillies will counter with Ranger Suarez.

Philadelphia Phillies looking tough in NLCS

Anyone else feeling as though the Arizona Diamondbacks have run into a buzzsaw in the National League Championship Series?

The Diamondbacks have two quality starting pitchers in Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, and they had them lined up to pitch the first two games in Philadelphia against the Phillies.

The Phillies did not seem impressed. In Monday night's Game 1, Philadelphia hit three home runs in the first two innings off Gallen. Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos all went deep, and Gallen walked off the mound after five innings with his team trailing, 5-0.

The Diamondbacks, as they have done throughout the season, fought back with two runs in the sixth and one in the seventh, but the Phillies walked away with a 5-3 win.

Game 2 on Tuesday? It was no contest. 

Kelly didn't pitch poorly. He gave up only three hits over 5.2 innings, but the hits were all homers. Schwarber went deep twice, and Trea Turner homered in the first inning. And once Kelly left the game, Philadelphia absolutely pounded the Arizona bullpen and went on to an easy 10-0 victory.

The Phillies have two pretty good starters as well. Zack Wheeler pitched six innings of two-run ball to get the win in Game 1. Aaron Nola tossed six shutout innings to win Game 2.

I was thinking all along that the winner of the Division Series between Philadelphia and the Atlanta Braves would end up as the NL champion. The Phillies won that series, and now they head to Arizona up 2-0 in the NLCS.

The only saving grace for the Diamondbacks is they get to play at home now. However, they've already lost with their two best pitchers on the mound. They face a tough climb against a Philadelphia team that looks awesome right now.

Jacob deGrom, Blake Snell win Cy Young awards

Jacob deGrom

Here's a fun fact, courtesy of Sarah Langs' Twitter account, on NL Cy Young award winner Jacob deGrom:

"deGrom: MLB-best 1.70 ERA. Mets went 14-18 in his starts & he went 10-9

Lucas Giolito: 6.13 ERA, worst in MLB. He went 10-13 & White Sox were 14-18 in his starts

That’s the same number of pitcher wins and same team record ... for the best and worst pitchers in MLB."

How about that? If that doesn't show you that wins is a lousy way to evaluate a pitcher, I don't know what does.

No pitcher has ever won a Cy Young with fewer than 13 wins until now, but New York's deGrom is deserving despite having only 10 victories in 2018.

He is a true ace, having made all 32 of his starts, throwing 217 innings and striking out 269 against only 46 walks. In those 32 starts, deGrom allowed three runs or less in 31 of them -- there was one start in April where he allowed four runs.

He set records for quality starts and consecutive starts allowing three runs or fewer. It was a dominant season for deGrom, and he totaled 29 of a possible 30 first-place votes, win-loss total be damned. He had one of the best seasons I've ever seen from a starting pitcher in my lifetime. Too bad he played on a crummy team. He pitched well enough to win 25 games, at least.

Washington's Max Scherzer got the other first-place vote, and he was listed second on the other 29 ballots. Philadelphia's Aaron Nola received 27 third-place votes and finished third.

On the American League side, Tampa Bay's Blake Snell got the honor on the strength of a 21-5 record.

Snell is interesting, because he pitched only 180.1 innings, or 33.1 innings less than the second-place finisher in the voting, Houston's Justin Verlander. A good case can be made for Verlander because he, like deGrom, shouldered an ace workload for his team.

But, ultimately, voters liked Snell's 1.89 ERA and 221 strikeouts pitching in the offense-heavy American League East.

We can say this for Snell: He was really, really good against top teams. In 12 starts against the five AL playoffs teams (Boston, New York, Cleveland, Houston and Oakland), Snell went 9-2 with a 2.00 ERA.

Snell was not getting fat on crummy competition, and that most have impressed voters, who gave him 17 of the possible 30 first-place votes. The other 13 first-place votes went to Verlander. Cleveland's Corey Kluber finished third.