5 ways to heat up MLB’s slow-burning hot stove
After an encouraging start, Major League Baseball’s offseason has stalled out, kind of like an unwanted weather pattern.
Its winter meetings produced a pair of semi-blockbuster deals for Kyle Schwarber and Pete Alonso, yet a lot more of the groundwork-laying more associated with the general managers’ meetings one month earlier.
Sure, those chats and texts can bear fruit, evidenced by the run on relief pitchers continuing in the hours after the meetings. Yet industrywide momentum will prove elusive until a handful of situations are settled or franchises move definitively in a certain direction.
Let’s take a look at five agenda items that can go a long way toward producing a winter wonderland of transactions as the holiday season continues:
A destination for Kyle Tucker
Yeah, that’d be nice. It’s not often the postseason works in a top-down fashion, though it’s also not out of the question that the winter’s consensus top free agent signs before, during or shortly after the winter meetings (See: Juan Soto in 2024, Shohei Ohtani in 2023).
There’s been precious little smoke on Tucker, however, other than the decreasing likelihood that the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers will be in play for the slugging corner outfielder. And for some clubs, such as the Toronto Blue Jays, Tucker — who has been worth between 4.6 and 5.3 WAR in every full season of his career — doesn’t necessarily represent an either/or proposition. They can simply shift around what they have — think Addison Barger, Ernie Clement and Co. — without any major adds.
Yet for some clubs, engaging with Tucker and either succeeding or failing in that pursuit might determine several other paths. Which brings us to …
The Yankees: Do something?
GM Brian Cashman was generally both coy and vague (cague?) in his media briefings, exiting the meetings by noting that there was “not a lot of the inventory I’m interested in coming off the board yet,” and owner Hal Steinbrenner seems to indicate both that the Yankees are still at the forefront of player investment while also warning that the till may not be totally open.
Still, there’s always time for the biggest-market team to put together a stealth attack on a player like Tucker, who won’t command Soto money yet will still end up with a larger guarantee than, say, Aaron Judge. (Inflation these days, right?)
Closer to home, though, a Tucker resolution would also provide a lot more clarity for Cody Bellinger, whom the Yankees would like to retain, though not necessarily at a boutique price. Agent Scott Boras’s thinly coded assessment of Bellinger’s robust market indicates there could be a flock of very serious suitors, and it stands to reason exploiting the Tucker losers would maximize the return for his client.
The Yankees say they both need to close the gap on the Blue Jays yet are quick to note they won the same amount of games — 94 — in the regular season before Toronto flattened them in the ALDS. So it’s not a damn-the-torpedoes winter in the Bronx, yet things must be done. Right?
Starting pitchers: Who wants one?
Proving that there are no offseason absolutes, this was one market that did, in fact, unfold top-down: Dylan Cease’s $210 million pact with Toronto was agreed to before Thanksgiving, which one might intuit would spark a mini-frenzy in an area of import that’s always short on inventory.
Yet since then, nada — unless Michael Soroka to the Diamondbacks warms your hot stove.
A semi-informed decision: The next two pitchers on the board, left-handers Framber Valdez and Ranger Suarez, aren’t the sort of arms a club would necessarily build its offseason around. Their markets will percolate and finally heat up, but it might not be until other clubs have exhausted other options or areas of greater need.
For instance, the Orioles might engage more furtively with Valdez now that Alonso has been secured for five years and $155 million. And once Valdez and Suarez go, the rest should follow with some rapidity, from the Zac Gallens and Michael Kings all the way down to fortysomething horses Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.
Homes for Munetaka Murakami and Tatsuya Imai
Hey, finally some hard and fast deadlines!
The slugging Murakami and the right-hander Imai are the biggest prizes posted from Japan this season, and the clock is ticking on their 45-day windows to sign with a major league club. Murakami must sign by 5 p.m. ET on Dec. 22, and he shouldn’t have a problem finding a fairly large deal with a club willing to bet his 246 home runs in eight seasons in Japan will translate nicely to the big leagues.
Imai should face an even more robust market. Teams have until Jan. 2 to reel in a 27-year-old who struck out 178 batters in 163 2/3 innings, with a 1.92 ERA, in what figures to be his last season in Japan.
Sure, that’s a ways out still. But at least there’s a defined endgame looming for both these guys.
The Cardinals: Trade somebody?
St. Louis and Nolan Arenado are staging a stirring remake of The Long Kiss Goodbye, starring a third baseman with a no-trade clause who can’t find the right fit. The Cardinals thought they had him dealt a year ago, then played another season with the 10-time Gold Glover. At this point, nobody’s waiting with bated breath for this deal.
Brendan Donovan? Now, that’s another story.
A 2025 All-Star second baseman who can toggle to two or three other positions with two years remaining before free agency? No wonder the Cardinals were popular with several teams at the meetings, particularly those who might want to plug a second base vacancy without the long-term commitment to slugging Ketel Marte.
The Cardinals certainly got the ball rolling on their tear-down by dealing pitcher Sonny Gray to the Boston Red Sox. Now, if they can find a landing spot for Donovan (and the Giants, Mariners, Astros and others have kicked the tires), that could greatly stimulate the trade market.
