Please come on in for the discussion of baseball trades, free agency signings, and all that other fun stuff until spring comes back!
The Braves have signed RA Dickey to a one-year deal.
Yankees are looking to trade Brian McCann, and Houston and Atlanta are rumored to have interest.
I’m kinda shocked that the Cubs didn’t pick up Jason Hammel’s option.
Bartolo Colon has signed with the Braves.
That gives the Braves what has got to be the oldest pair of teammates in quite some time.
Toronto signed Kendrys Morales, the slugger most famous for breaking his own leg celebrating a home run, a 3-year deal for $11 million a year. Morales was not given a qualifying offer by Kansas City, so this does not cost Toronto a draft pick.
Acquiring Morales strongly suggest the Jays will go cheaper in 2017 by letting Edwin Encarnacion go. (Encarnacion has declined a qualifying offer, since he isn’t insane.) This is a pretty significant downgrade in terms of talent, so it’ll be interesting to see if or how they can make this up elsewhere. Technically they don’t have to let Edwin go - they could have Morales DH, play Encarnacion at first, and dump Justin Smoak on someone - but it seems pretty likely that’s not gonna happen.
Since both of the not-insane Jays sluggers (Buatista and Encarnacion) turned down qualifying offers, whoever signs either of them will have to give up a first round draft pick. The Red Sox have been rumored to be interested in them, but I think I’d rather not. I’d rather fill the DH role in house. I’d also see what the market looks like for Jackie Bradley Jr.
Apparently a lot of teams are chasing Chris Sale. Not sure if he’s more valuable now than he was at the deadline or why the Sox would be more willing to part with him.
Boston has a rather extensively stocked farm system and acquiring Encarnacion would fill a huge hole. I can understand the trepidation at giving up a draft pick, but Boston is a contender that is prepared to win it all right now, they need a DH, they have lots of money, and Encarnacion instantly solves their problem AND they take him directly away from the best opponent in their division. An added bonus is that Encarnacion can play first base, so you can shift Hanley Ramirez to DH if you want.
Prospects are great, but a first round sandwich pick is a crapshoot. The upside of acquiring Encarnacion in the short term is huge. (Past a couple of years it probably will turn out badly, as contracts to over-30 1B/DH types almost always do.)
A cheaper DH option would be, of course, Jose Bautista, assuming Bautista is okay with DHing.
The Giants need a closer and are talking to Mark Melancon.
Cory Seager is the unanimous choice for NL ROY. In other Dodger news, both Justin Turner and Kenley Jansen have decided to test out the free agent market on the off season.
I’ve heard faint noises about a Jackie Bradley Jr. for Kyle Schwarber trade, which sounds insane at first. But Dexter Fowler may be moving on from the Cubs. JBJ is an awesome defensive CF and not so different offensively. And Schwarber plugs that DH hole for Boston, potentially for a long time.
I think that it’d have to really knock Theo Epstein’s socks off for them to trade Schwarber. They had people who called about acquiring him during the season, when he was injured.
I would assume Fowler is gone as he rejected the qualifying offer. A very intriguing deal - but I think the Red Sox would have to throw in more than Bradley.
IIRC Fowler refused the qualifying offer last year too, and ended up back with the Cubs - but he had a much better year this year.
Astros are supposedly in the mix for Encarnacion, and also potentially the top-flight starters on the trade market (Sale and maybe Greinke?)
I’m in favor of freeing Schwarber from having to play the field ever again.
I would have voted Sanchez over Fullmer for rookie of the year. (Would have voted the other way if they were the top two candidates for MVP but I think rookie awards should be less heavily weighed toward time played).
Only other award that really interests me at this point is AL MVP - I don’t really know who will win the Cy Youngs, but that’s because there really aren’t any huge standout candidates this year. Betts should win the MVP by the established criteria, but it seems like Trout is being talked up a lot this year.
And the Giants, needing a closer, are interested in Jansen.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Boston sign Encarnacion. It’s not as though the Red Sox can’t afford to spend a lot of money, or as though they have a long-standing aversion to the free agent market. On the contrary, they have a lot of cash, they routinely have among the highest payrolls in the majors, and they spend freely on free agents.
If they do indeed see DH as a hole that can’t easily be filled from within the system, I would expect them to try to buy a replacement for Ortiz rather than to try to trade for one, and EE certainly seems like he’d fit the bill.
Congrats to Francona and Roberts, managers of the year. Hope they enjoy the honor while anyone remembers. I could tell you who won MVPs and Cy Youngs and ROYs for quite a few years since I’ve been a fan, but I have just about no recollection of any MOY winners. Funny how that works…
Francona for AL MOY was a no brainer. I would not have been shocked to see Maddon win the NL, but gald to see it go to Roberts. There’s something comforting about the Francona/Roberts connection.
Rumor has it that the Yankees accumulated all of those prospects in an attempt to trade for Mike Trout.
Dave Roberts and Cory Seager both deserve their wins. Now let’s see what they can do next year.
I can’t even imagine what that package looks like. Everything they got for Chapman and Miller plus Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge? Plus more?
The article speculates that the Yankees would package 4 out of the 5 prospects.
Anything more than that, I couldn’t say. It doesn’t seem like enough to me, and I suspect that they would have to really wow Anaheim. Not just because of the talent involved, but because the Angels fans would revolt against the team for trading their best player AND arguably the face of the sport.
There’s no way Gary Sanchez isn’t a part of that. Which basically means there is no way this deal happens.