2021 MLB offseason - news and notes

YTF

Member
SoSH Member
I heard it suggested last week on SiriusXM, reasoning being that Baltimore’s gm was in Houston’s front office when he was drafted. Definitely sounds reasonable they could have interest
The big question would be is Correa interested? The other biggies would be is the offer front loaded, does Correa want to win and what years do the options begin?
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,743
Man, if the O’s kicked it to top Seager’s deal, I think he and Boras would almost have to take it.

If this is real, it’s almost like the rest of the owners put Angelos up to this as a punishment for the sign stealing scandal.
It would be a larger version of when Pudge Rodriguez signed with DET after 2003, a tent pole veteran to build a young core around and to put everyone on notice that they’re back on the road of trying to be competitive.
 

moondog80

heart is two sizes two small
SoSH Member
Sep 20, 2005
8,105
You know, I think Baltimore makes sense. They have traditionally been an above-average spending team (top 10 in payroll in 2016 and 2017), but currently have virtually nothing on the books for long term payroll so it won't keep them from adding other pieces, there are some decent pieces in place, and they have on of the top farm systems in baseball, including the consensus #1 prospect in Adley Rutschman. Very easy to see Correa still being an all star when the youngsters start to gel. Maybe it would be better to do this in a year or two, but now is when the opportunity is in front of them.
 

Wingack

Yankee Mod
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 14, 2005
34,372
In The Quivering Forest
It would be a larger version of when Pudge Rodriguez signed with DET after 2003, a tent pole veteran to build a young core around and to put everyone on notice that they’re back on the road of trying to be competitive.
I was actually having a little deja vu, weren't they bad when they laid out big money for Miguel Tejada?
 

ookami7m

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
5,657
Mobile, AL
It would be a larger version of when Pudge Rodriguez signed with DET after 2003, a tent pole veteran to build a young core around and to put everyone on notice that they’re back on the road of trying to be competitive.
or jayson werth with the nationals. A sign that the team was ready to push to compete.
 

moondog80

heart is two sizes two small
SoSH Member
Sep 20, 2005
8,105
I was actually having a little deja vu, weren't they bad when they laid out big money for Miguel Tejada?

Yes, and they continued to be bad. Signing Miggy helped them get from 71 to 78 wins in 2014, but then they never won more than 70 until after he was gone.

Pudge and Werth are good comparisons, but you don't have to go back nearly that far -- Corey Seager and Marcus Semien to the 60 win Rangers.
 

DisgruntledSoxFan77

Member
SoSH Member
Jun 12, 2015
1,885
Quincy
The big question would be is Correa interested? The other biggies would be is the offer front loaded, does Correa want to win and what years do the options begin?
I’m sure any contract would have a couple outs in it so a couple years making as much as a small nation, followed a couple years later by a return to a winner, would probably sit just fine with him and Bora$
 

dynomite

Member
SoSH Member
2/1/21 - Trade away Nolan Arrendo's remaining 6/$209M, paying $51M to Cardinals
3/16/22 - Sign Kris Bryant to 7/$182M

Talk about whiplash.
The Rockies confuse me. If someone can explain their organizational philosophy that would be great.
Don’t forget that this is the same team that didn’t trade Trevor Story, CJ Cron or other players with expiring contracts at the deadline last season in one of the most bizarre moves in recent seasons.

View: https://twitter.com/samueladams_12/status/1504222419757662209?s=21
 

bosox188

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 11, 2008
2,923
Marlborough, MA
Don’t forget that this is the same team that didn’t trade Trevor Story, CJ Cron or other players with expiring contracts at the deadline last season in one of the most bizarre moves in recent seasons.

View: https://twitter.com/samueladams_12/status/1504222419757662209?s=21
Even more baffling with Jon Gray. Not only did they not trade him at the deadline, they didn't even extend him a qualifying offer to get the extra draft pick. You'd almost have to actively try to hurt yourself this much.
 

Murderer's Crow

Dragon Wangler 216
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
23,482
Garden City
I really would have expected more. $150/5 with something like a mutual option for a 6 is really not horrible. I don't know why the Yankees would have walked from that if he signs with the dodgers there.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,743
It looks like Freeman's people overplayed their hands, they lost NY and TOR before the end who pivoted to Rizzo and Chapman. Happy to not have him in the division...
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,743
I really would have expected more. $150/5 with something like a mutual option for a 6 is really not horrible. I don't know why the Yankees would have walked from that if he signs with the dodgers there.
You also need to look at the one year AAV number since NY is not so far from their likely ceiling of 270M this year, 5/150 is $30M per, 6/160 just under $27M per. Rizzo and Manaea (if they can get him) will make $26M between them this year, and adding Manaea without subtracting anyone would put them around $262M. Freeman at $27M plus Manaea would put them around $273M, moving Voit would get them back under but not much wiggle room without also moving Green and/or Gleyber (and still not a lot).
 

DeadlySplitter

Member
SoSH Member
Oct 20, 2015
33,260
Or Heyman's been spoonfed a lie by Freeman's agent since the original asking price was rumored to be 6/200+, and Freeman had to come down when no team came close to that.

I don't trust Heyman any more, sorry.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,743
Or Heyman's been spoonfed a lie by Freeman's agent since the original asking price was rumored to be 6/200+, and Freeman had to come down when no team came close to that.

I don't trust Heyman any more, sorry.
I don’t either but TOR’s payroll is only at 162 now, they could have made Vlad fulltime DH and Freeman is a Canadian citizen, both his parents are from there, so I think it’s pretty likely they topped 6/162, maybe NYY too.
 

EvilEmpire

paying for his sins
Moderator
SoSH Member
Apr 9, 2007
17,184
Washington
Heyman is often full of shit, but Freeman focusing on getting the biggest deal possible from LA and leaving some money on the table seems plausible enough.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 23, 2009
20,676
Maine
Or Heyman's been spoonfed a lie by Freeman's agent since the original asking price was rumored to be 6/200+, and Freeman had to come down when no team came close to that.

I don't trust Heyman any more, sorry.
Either he's being spoonfed, or he's trying to justify his rumor-mongering about the Rays and Red Sox. No one else seemed to be pushing either one as serious contenders for Freeman.

With Freeman seemingly taking less than expected, is it possible that the mistake he made was waiting out the lockout? Could Correa and Story be in the same boat? I understand the logic of waiting and hoping that teams would have more money to spend with an raised luxury tax threshold (kinda paid off for Bryant), but at the same time, the compressed time frame to get everyone signed and in camp perhaps led to teams sitting in the first chair they saw rather than race for the best chair when the music stopped. If this were still December rather than mid-March, would the Yankees have "settled" for Rizzo? Obviously it's more complicated than that, but it really seems like Freeman's options dried up because most teams were justifiably impatient to get into a prolonged negotiation/bidding war.
 

sean1562

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 17, 2011
3,620
I feel like a lot of teams were just wary about giving a 32 year old 1B a massive contract that will pay him well into his late 30s. Correa seems to be waiting for a contender to give him a massive deal, if that 10/300 deal from the Orioles is true, which doesn't appear to be happening. I have no idea what Story's market is like since he is a bit older. Story's contract will be a good comp for any Xander extension.
 

Kliq

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 31, 2013
22,673
What worries me about Story is that he has a career .752 OPS outside of Coors. I guess a lot depends on how much you believe playing at Coors is a disadvantage when hitting on the road due to the changes in conditions, but I'd be weary of signing him to a big deal.
 

B H Kim

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Oct 24, 2003
5,719
Washington, DC
Don’t forget that this is the same team that didn’t trade Trevor Story, CJ Cron or other players with expiring contracts at the deadline last season in one of the most bizarre moves in recent seasons.
On the subject of the Rockies not knowing what they are doing.

50232
 

BigSoxFan

Member
SoSH Member
May 31, 2007
47,094
What worries me about Story is that he has a career .752 OPS outside of Coors. I guess a lot depends on how much you believe playing at Coors is a disadvantage when hitting on the road due to the changes in conditions, but I'd be weary of signing him to a big deal.
For some context/comparison, Bogaerts has a career .755 OPS outside of Fenway. I think Story makes sense on a short deal. Certainly wouldn't give him a long-term one.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,743
Either he's being spoonfed, or he's trying to justify his rumor-mongering about the Rays and Red Sox. No one else seemed to be pushing either one as serious contenders for Freeman.

With Freeman seemingly taking less than expected, is it possible that the mistake he made was waiting out the lockout? Could Correa and Story be in the same boat? I understand the logic of waiting and hoping that teams would have more money to spend with an raised luxury tax threshold (kinda paid off for Bryant), but at the same time, the compressed time frame to get everyone signed and in camp perhaps led to teams sitting in the first chair they saw rather than race for the best chair when the music stopped. If this were still December rather than mid-March, would the Yankees have "settled" for Rizzo? Obviously it's more complicated than that, but it really seems like Freeman's options dried up because most teams were justifiably impatient to get into a prolonged negotiation/bidding war.
I think this all really misunderstands the specific situation. Seager and Semien and Baez and Bryant just wanted the most money they could get, the specific situation didn’t matter much to them. Freeman pretty clearly wanted to pick his team, and he did, playing near where he grew up as part of an absolutely loaded lineup. We’ll see about Correa and Story.
 

NYCSox

chris hansen of goats
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
May 19, 2004
10,446
Some fancy town in CT
Heyman is often full of shit, but Freeman focusing on getting the biggest deal possible from LA and leaving some money on the table seems plausible enough.
I kind of find it hard to believe he would take less money for the privilege of being battered by California's insane income taxes.
 

EvilEmpire

paying for his sins
Moderator
SoSH Member
Apr 9, 2007
17,184
Washington
If he did leave money, it probably wasn't very much. Being close to home and playing on a loaded team were probably bigger factors.

I doubt taxes figured into it much at all.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

has fancy plans, and pants to match
Dope
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2001
24,548
If he did leave money, it probably wasn't very much. Being close to home and playing on a loaded team were probably bigger factors.

I doubt taxes figured into it much at all.
Neither do I. He can make that up in endorsements or a million other ways.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,743
Freeman has something like $130M career earnings before this new deal, I’ve always been surprised more star athletes don’t focus on fit more than max deal offered, especially in the NBA where taking less could/should mean you end up with more talent around you.
 

dynomite

Member
SoSH Member
On the subject of the Rockies not knowing what they are doing.
This entire Defector piece is worth reading since it begins with an extended Simpsons reference -- Marge's line at "Itchy and Scratchy Land" when the robot Itchy displays the circuits in its head and Marge says to Homer "See all that stuff in there? That's why your robot never worked."

But contains details I didn't know... like the insane detail that other teams apparently didn't even know who to call in the Rockies front office to discuss a trade last season:

The Rockies have been more bad than good over the last two decades, but their most distinguishing aspect in recent years has been how inert they are. Front-office jobs are passed through an inner circle of devout executive mediocrities, all of whom mostly just transmute the strange whims of ownership—which sometimes wants to win, if never enough to listen to anyone who might know more than them, but always demands prompt service—into a baffling, passive, heroically confounding approach. Things sometimes happen but mostly don’t, and attrition gnaws away at all of it; years pass like this. The organization is broken and bad in the ways that poorly run family businesses are broken and bad, and it is like that because they are run by the grumpy-goofy scions of a very rich family in precisely the way those men choose to run it.

Gone are the days when this led to things like signing shortstop/outfielder Ian Desmond to play first base, or sprinting through a furious Supermarket Sweep-style spree on middling middle relievers; more recently, the management style has been “do as little as possible.” At last year’s trade deadline, teams interested in discussing trades didn’t know who in the club’s ultra-atrophied front office they would even talk to in order to do that; players on expiring contracts, who were not going to return, simply played out the end of those deals and left. When the team hired Scott Van Lenten away from the Nationals in September to head up their research and development department, that department consisted of one person. “I wanted to make sure they were going to provide the resources, make sure they were going to be supportive and have a real vision and are going to have the resources to do it the right way,” Van Lenten said at the time. When the team fired him last week, for what The Athletic’s Nick Groke described as “significant differences of opinion,” the department remained one of the smallest in the sport. The team announced that the position Van Lenten vacated would not be filled.
...
If there is anything noteworthy about the Rockies, it is how committed they are to leaving the shell empty, how important it is that they do the absolute least they can everywhere and every time they have the chance to do it. With Saturday’s signing of José Iglesias apparently marking the end of Trevor Story’s time with the team, it can now be said that the Rockies haven’t even bothered to tank in a way that aligns with contemporary best practices. They just let another generation of homegrown players walk for nothing at all in return, and for reasons that the people in charge either weren’t capable of explaining or simply didn’t feel obligated to do so. What is there to say, really?
https://defector.com/the-rockies-are-doing-less-than-the-least/

Great signing at a bargain, and given the Giants track record, I fully expect them to coax a solid season out of Boyd who flashed upside in Detroit and has a wicked slider.
 

jon abbey

Shanghai Warrior
Moderator
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
70,743
This reads like an onion article about a dad who went to get "cigarettes" and never came back....
I think there's a good chance they will bring him back once they have finished other moves and have a 40 man spot for him. He would love to be back and is presumably waiting for NY instead of signing elsewhere, NY's 4th OF candidates are currently guys like Locastro and Ender Inciarte, both of whom can go to AAA, so I think it's pretty likely.
 

Trlicek's Whip

Member
SoSH Member
Feb 8, 2009
5,607
New York City
View: https://twitter.com/SNYtv/status/1504495375834624005


This reads like an onion article about a dad who went to get "cigarettes" and never came back....
The optimism that a team other than the Yankees wants Brett Gardner is wild. His numbers are in consistent decline and he turns 39 in August. He's a lefty bench bat or depth signing. All he's got left is True Yankee™ intangibles maybe as a player-coach type for the FA's and youngsters.
 

Yo La Tengo

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 21, 2005
913
Any interest in Trevor Rosenthal? He had thoracic outlet surgery and then hip surgery last year and missed the whole season. I can't get a good update on whether he is ready to pitch at this point.
 

DeadlySplitter

Member
SoSH Member
Oct 20, 2015
33,260
Thoracic outlet has a lot of evidence of killing pitchers' effectiveness. We saw it with Tyler Thornburg.

Pass.
 

Rovin Romine

Johnny Rico
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jul 14, 2005
23,721
Miami (oh, Miami!)
I can't find the full text for free and the wording is a touch confusing, but that study also notes: "Pitching metrics demonstrated that pitcher ERA remained inferior postoperatively compared to baseline preoperative performance (3.66 vs 4.50, p = 0.03)"
I agree the wording is not clear, and would like to see the full numbers myself, but this is the conclusion.

Conclusion: 74% of professional pitchers who undergo surgical intervention for TOS are able to return to play at the MLB level. With regards to performance, the majority of metrics were unchanged from prior to surgery, indicating return at a similar functional level.
Of the pitchers that got through rehab (or chose not to retire), and made it to live MLB games, we'd obviously expect performance to vary somewhat post-surgery, given that performance varies post any surgery.
 

DeadlySplitter

Member
SoSH Member
Oct 20, 2015
33,260
Buster has a paywall article up on ESPN. The crux of it (reading others' account of the article) is that Freeman's camp gave an ultimatum of one hour for the Braves to take 6/175 (just over 29M AAV) or 5/165 (33M AAV). The Braves instead pivoted to Olson, and Freeman's market never got up to those demands in the end.

Additionally, it is now out that 57M of Freeman's Dodger contract will be deferred from 13 years after the contract ends, from 2028-40. According to the tweet (Feisand) the present-value of the contract decreases to about 140M, making Freeman's agents (headed by Casey Close) look even worse in the whole ordeal.

View: https://twitter.com/Feinsand/status/1504922319608815631