ICYMI: Max with the story about how there were “Four Royals named Silver Slugger finalists”. Of course, so did Anne Rogers at MLB and Jaylon Thompson at The Star.
Another story that both outlets wrote about
was Vinnie Pasquantino being a player correspondent for the World Series. From the MLB story:
Pasquantino was the correspondent for Media Day on Thursday and will fill that role for Friday’s Game 1 in Toronto, where he’ll produce content on MLB social channels, provide behind-the-scenes access to the Fall Classic and be a part of social media takeovers. Known for showcasing his humor, Pasquantino’s personality will be on full display as he interviews friends, players and celebrities, appears on MLB Network, and shares his insights on the matchup between the Dodgers and Blue Jays…
Pasquantino has been on the receiving end of two of the three fastest pitches that Ohtani has thrown in his career: a 102.0 mph fastball during the 2023 World Baseball Classic that Pasquantino whiffed on and a 101.7 mph pitch on June 28 this season that resulted in a double play. (Ohtani also threw a 101.7 mph pitch against the Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber last month.)
Pete Grathoff wrote about it for The Star:
“Yeah, he keeps doing that to me,” Pasquantino quipped after the game. “I just saw that the fastest pitches he’s ever thrown in his career, two of them, are against me, his two hardest throws. I need to talk to him.”
I went back and looked and I don’t think this was mentioned earlier this week. Scott Sharp is no longer in the running for the Rockies GM job:
Reports emerged a few days ago that the Rockies were entering the finalist stage of their search for a new front office leader, and the field has now been whittled down to perhaps just two names. The Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli and Ken Rosenthal report that Guardians assistant GM Matt Forman and Diamondbacks assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye are under consideration for the job, though it is possible another unknown finalist may also still be in the mix. Former Astros GM James Click and Royals assistant GM Scott Sharp had been candidates for the Rockies job but are no longer in consideration.
Old friend Richard Loveland re-signed with the Mets.
How about some listicles?
At CBS Sports, RJ Anderson lists the Top 25 free agents for 2026:
25. OF Mike Yastrzemski
Potential suitors: Guardians, Reds, Royals
Here’s a tidbit to chew on: Yastrzemski has tallied more Wins Above Replacement than Kyle Schwarber since debuting in 2019. Schwarber has an edge in expected payday all the same and it’s for good reason. Yastrzemski, historically a solid most-days starter, has shown signs of decline as he enters his age-35 season, at least as it pertains to physical markers (like sprint speed). He can still mind the zone and put a stick on the ball, but the margins are thinner for a player of this caliber. Between the modest ceiling and heightened crater risk, he may end up having to settle for a one-year arrangement.
Also at CBS Sports, Scott White listed his top 40 SPs for 2026 Fantasy baseball:
12 Cole Ragans Kansas City Royals SP
The guess here is that Ragans will be a tough sell for many given that he missed most of 2025 with a strained rotator cuff and ended up delivering just a 4.67 ERA. But the small sample is responsible for the outlandish ERA, which is betrayed by some jaw-dropping strikeout numbers that reveal him to be, in no uncertain terms, an ace of the highest standing. Twelfth may be too low, honestly.
ESPN’s David Schoenfield “Rank[ed] the best World Series matchups since 2000”:
23. 2014: San Francisco Giants over Kansas City Royals, 4-3
(read article for more information)
12. 2015: Kansas City Royals over New York Mets, 4-1
The Royals proved their 2014 World Series appearance was no fluke, winning 95 games with a better team that included trade-deadline additions Ben Zobrist and Johnny Cueto. The Mets won the NL East behind a young, powerful rotation that featured Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom. It was a fun matchup of teams trying to avoid lengthy title droughts — 30 years for the Royals, 29 for the Mets.
Actual World Series: C+. It only went five games, but the Royals won the opener in 14 innings, won Game 5 with a three-run eighth inning and then won the clincher in 12 innings — after Mets manager Terry Collins’ ill-fated decision to leave in Harvey to start the ninth with a 2-0 lead.
Blogs?
David Lesky ($) pitches Maikel Garcia as an extension candidate:
So the first question to ask is if a player like Garcia makes sense for an extension. My gut is yes, but there are reasons to say no. He’ll be 26 next season and is under team control through 2029, which means they already have Garcia tied to the Royals through his age-29 season. At least offensively, he’s only been above average once in his three full big league seasons. What happens if it turns out this year was a fluke? I think the underlying stats support the breakout continuing, but we’ve seen guys have one good year all the time. If you fall in the camp that you’re fine paying a little bit more year-to-year if he breaks out even more, I totally get it. I think I disagree with it, but I get it.
The reason I disagree is that you’re not paying for his bat only. You’re paying for his ability to work a count and play defense and be a positive on the bases. He put up an 85 wRC+ in 2023 and was still worth 2.2 fWAR. This is not a hard and fast number, but if you consider 1 WAR to be worth $8 million, that’s a $17.2 million player. He was terrible offensively in 2024 and was worth 1.2 fWAR. That’s worth $9.6 million. You’re not wanting to pay full free agent freight on a contract extension, but his non-offensive ability leads to a fairly high floor, at least when it comes to value. That said, nobody wants to be paying eight figures for a utility man. So, again, I do get it.
Blog Roundup:
- Darin Watson at U.L.’s Toothpick: This Date In Royals History–1985 Edition: October 23 –
The Royals find themselves on the brink of elimination as St. Louis wins Game Four - Hunter Samuels at Swinging Bunts: Unwarranted Seizure (a scary explanation of his absence)
- Caleb Moody at KOK: Royals’ shocking representation among Silver Slugger finalists sets table for 2026
- Oliver Vandervoort at KOK: Ideal Royals trade targets represent big swings this team must make this offseason
I know I said I would do this next week. But we’re all just waiting around for the World Series to start and it’s been a while since I’ve done a good rant, so…
Halloween is next Friday so we’re talking Halloween candy.
First off, prices have gone insane. I’m the primary grocery buyer in our house and, as such, I’m the couponer-in-chief. If you were diligently monitoring sales, you could easily get even your favorite candy for less than 10c per piece a couple of years ago. Now it’s almost impossible to find candy for that price. At least not without getting tiny portions (no, minis are not fun-sized so stop trying to pass them off like they are) or in a mixed bag with a lot of mediocrity.
“But, SI, inflation is all around us and prices are up”. Not like this. And, since it’s me, you know that I’ve got some numbers to back it up:
Halloween candy prices are actually outpacing inflation.
The increase in Halloween candy prices from 2023 to 2025 was more than 3.5 times greater than the increase from 2020 to 2022, according to a FinanceBuzz study.
The average price for a 100-piece bag of candy is $16.39 in 2025, up $7.20 compared with 2020, when 100 pieces of candy could be purchased for $9.19. That’s a 78% increase, which is more than triple the national rate of inflation, 25%, over that same time period.
That lines up exactly with what I’ve seen: average price went from 9.1 to 16.4. And it’s been particularly egregious the last couple of years. At least that last part makes some sense: I know our Halloween traffic was way down in 2020-22 due to COVID. For the last couple of years, Halloween has been in the middle of the week. Now we’re back to weekend days with 2025 on Friday and 2026 on Saturday.
So, what’s to blame for that?
- A number of this year’s stories talk about tariffs, which makes sense as we aren’t in the cacao belt
- Many of this year’s stories also talk about the high price of cocoa due to drought in 2024 and flooding in 2023
- Stories from 2023 were about sugar and increased shipping prices
- 2022? Sugar and flour
- Oh, and remember how candy companies were ginning up a fake “we won’t be able to meet demand for 2022 Halloween” stories?
- And the persistent menace of shrinkflation?
Notice how all of those stories also talk about how candy is “outpacing inflation”, as above? That’s weird – it’s almost as if there’s a new cover story every year. I’m sure it’s not the expensive acquisitions, failed buyouts, and stock buybacks that need to be paid for by the consumer in an ever less competitive marketplace.
* * * * *
In my mind, there are four major candy holidays: Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Easter. Back when I was much younger and had more time than money, I used to love the day after those holidays. I lived in a certain college town just to the west of Kansas City, and I would hit up every grocery store, drug store, discount store, etc. to get cheap candy at 50% off or more.
That’s all but gone, too. Many retailers seem to be supplying just enough to get to the week of Halloween now so there’s nothing left to clearance. From Reddit, so take it with a boulder of salt, but there were people talking about how some retailers ship it around the week of Halloween from one lower-performing store to a higher one (yay, JIT inventory?) and other retailers “donating” it to Goodwill and the like for a tax write off.
Purely anecdotal, but here’s what I’ve found over the past couple of years. I visited the big name “box stores” – you know the large blue one and the large red one – those had a very limited selection and it was moved to an obscure corner of the store with minimal discounting. Still, people were buying up the mediocre candy with a middling 10-20% discount. Our couple of large grocery stores left them in the seasonal area, but they didn’t mark them down much either, like 25%. Finally, the couple of large drug store chains – the space seems most important to them – and they were both at 50% off. However, their candy was also marked up the highest to start with so the discount was less impressive than it seemed.
I always liked these sales. It was a chance to stock up on my favorites that aren’t in the variety packs: things like Take 5 or even Butterfinger. You’ll rarely find those in the “mixes”. The other thing I liked to do was try out some of the wacky flavors. And that’s just not around much anymore, which leads me to…
* * * * *
We have been cheated out of Halloween candy variety. There just used to be more choices. At least I think there were.
However, I am open to the idea that I have Super Bowl Commercial-type bias. What do I mean by this? Think about that loud coworker who always has to be right about everything. He talks about how the Super Bowl ads suck. Every. Single. Year. This isn’t a legit complaint like “there are too many dot com ads this year” or “I think the mean tone of ad A, ad B, ad C, and ad D was off-putting”. No, no – every year, he makes some grand statement like “This year’s ads suck. Why don’t they make ads like they used to?” and his examples are three of the best ads of the 90s. Like not from one year – his entire childhood.
I feel so many Halloween flavors have come and gone. At some point or another, seemingly every candy had a dark chocolate variety. Remember back when people (purposely) misread that chocolate cures cancer? Every vapid local news reporter ran with the story. Yup, go ahead and eat that 500-calorie milk chocolate bar loaded with sugar and cocoa butter! That is definitely good for you! Even some legit organizations reluctantly agreed that dark chocolate can be good for you, with caveats. And so the “dark chocolate is healthy” era began.
There were also eras of mint, pumpkin spice, caramel apple, glow in the dark, and more. I kindof like the Ghoulish Green ones that we’ve had for a few years now. But that’s just food coloring for a single brand and no special flavor. Also, we’re not talking international candy – was just trying to limit it to the USA – but if you’ve never fallen down the Japanese KitKat rabbit hole: is this your first day on the internet? But my memory isn’t great so I wanted to look on the internet to see what flavors others missed. But I could hardly find a whisper amongst all the SEO garbage.
I’m sure this will get better as AI-created slop gums up the works even more. My searches kept pointing me back to a site called “freshrecipes.net”. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of free clicks. However, their AI is so bad that it’s worth laughing at. Like this story about “Discover the Joy of Frozen Whipped Coffee”? Only the graphic says “Qucce wceld thie the’ Firzoiney Wih(unknown letter)ipped Coffee” and the picture further down where the Coffee jar uses the less common “Caffree” spelling.
But the real reason I ended up there is because they showed up in an image search for “pumpkin spice Snickers” with this horrible AI barf of “Snickers Strawberry Cheesecake”. I can’t even tell if they made such a thing. I… think they might have, but I can’t get any confirmation from a real source. All the links are to Facebook or TikTok or Pinterest. Snickers doesn’t have it on its product page. So this is what I’m dealing with.
The other tactic I took was to search for discontinued Halloween candy. But even with “Halloween” as a required term, I just got the same non-Halloween items on listicles. Over and over and over again. Getting past the complete disregard for my “Halloween” search term, how many cut-and-paste lists are there with Wonka Bars,
How many times can you cut-and-paste the same list with Wonka Bars, Altoids Sours, and that Chicken candy from the 20s? No one missed the short-lived Bubble Beeper Gum and Berries and Creme Starburst like the people who needed padding for their listicles. I’ll at least give this list credit for half of it being Halloween or fall-themed candy.
In the end, I started this list because I miss Butterfinger Crisp and Butterfinger BBs; the latter was on a number of these copied lists. I was reminded of a few other fun things I had forgotten like the Gatorade Gatorgum, Life Savers Holes, and Dweebs (the squishy version of Nerds, for those who don’t remember). But, hey, if this quote doesn’t sum up the whole endeavor:
Hershey’s had a massive hit with Kisses — a candy classic since 1907 — but took it too far with Kissables, colorful mini-Kisses that were basically like M&M’s with a different shape. They were pretty successful for a couple of years after their 2005 launch, but a 2007 cost-cutting reformulation (cocoa butter was replaced with cheaper fats and — surprise, surprise — people noticed) led to their 2009 demise.
In short, I gave up before I really found what I was looking for: a list of old, discontinued Halloween flavors. I’m fairly certain this isn’t a “Mandela effect” thing so much as a “few people cared to document this” thing. And the modern internet is making this impossible to find. I’d have a better chance of time-traveling back to 2003 and finding it on Geocities than I would now. Then again, the only place I’d find a lot of these flavors is 2003 (or 2006 or 2011, etc.) and they’re not coming back.
Finally, we’ll finish off with my favorite Halloween comic. Yes, there’s a little NSFW language, but it’s good stuff and gets at the true meaning of Halloween (or something like that).
For as much as I love this game, I’ve only revisited it a couple of times. From The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, this is the theme from Death Mountain, “Black Mist”:
