The MLB Winter Meetings are upon us! It’s time for teams to start spending gobs of money in an effort to construct a winner for 2024.
This past season was a fun one for a number of reasons, but chief among them was that we saw the Texas Rangers win their first World Series title in franchise history, while perennial contenders like the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals missed the playoffs entirely, and the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves were served early exits.
Every team in baseball has big question marks on their roster that need to be addressed. Some need another bat or an arm. Others need to fill out a rotation to get them through a season due to injury concerns with their current crop. This years’ MLB Winter Meetings should be active and filled with headlines.
Chief among those headlines will be where Shohei Ohtani could be planning to sign his next contract.
Related: San Francisco Giants seen as favorite to land top MLB free agent as MLB Winter Meetings open
San Francisco Giants need a star to wish upon
The Giants aren’t in the playoff mix every year, but they sure would like to be. The brand of baseball they’ve been putting out there has the fanbase nearly in revolt, and this winter it’s the job of Farhan Zaidi and his front office to get people excited about Giants’ baseball in 2024 and beyond.
Jon Morosi of MLB Network said just a few days ago that the Giants are all in on the two biggest free agents on the market. “Sources tell me the Giants are set, they are devoting their full heart and finances to landing one of Shohei Ohtani or Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the coming weeks.” This is the right path forward for the franchise, but it’s hardly a surprise that they’re going to be playing at the top of the market again. The team has tried to land Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa in recent years to no avail.
This winter, the Giants need to make a splash one way or another. Ohtani would obviously be the biggest get they could grab, but the team needs more than just Ohtani to return to being a World Series contender. If they were to sign Yamamoto, that would give them a third solid starting pitcher, which would be great, but it wouldn’t help the franchise as much in terms of the fan experience since Yamamoto is a pitcher that would make roughly 16 starts at home over the course of a season. They need to make a splash on the position player front, too.
If the Giants landed Yamamoto and one of Randy Arozarena of the Tampa Bay Rays or Luis Robert Jr. of the Chicago White Sox, that would be a huge boost not only to the roster, but to the morale of the fan base. Neither of those trades would be cheap by any means, but those are two premier players in MLB, and bring some swagger as well.
Related: Top 2023-24 MLB free agents
New York Yankees make play for Juan Soto at MLB Winter Meetings
The New York Yankees have had contact with teams about every major trade piece and have been rumored as a fit for every free agent. It’s time to actually make a move.
Their best bet would be going after Juan Soto (though the two sides are taking a break at the moment) and including Giancarlo Stanton in the deal. Then they could add a bunch of other prospects. Which ones? It shouldn’t matter too much to New York. They’d literally be trading for Juan Soto. Do you want to be the one to tell the rabid Yankee fan base that they couldn’t come to a deal because they just couldn’t part with Clarke Schmidt?
The Yankees need a left-handed bat like Soto’s, and even though he’s only under team control for one more season, they would also be able to floor him with a contract offer to sign him long-term. Given that he’s only entering his age 25 season, they could offer him a 12 year deal at $35 million per season, or $420 million total, and that would be a pretty decent starting point. It’s uncertain how well he’ll age, but that would a problem for the 2032 Yankees. Their goal this decade is to actually make, if not win, a World Series.
In trading away Stanton, the Yankees would be at roughly even money in the deal, and San Diego would get an impact bat to replace the star they’d be losing. It’s an interesting idea for a deal at the very least, with the Padres adding a number of prospects to their system as well. The whole point of moving Soto however is to get his salary off the books, and this deal wouldn’t quite accomplish that goal. It could help them rebuild either the bullpen or the rotation with the departures of Josh Hader and Blake Snell via free agency, however.
Whether it’s Soto or another move, the Yankees need to make something big happen soon.
Related: Juan Soto trade to New York Yankees receive big update ahead of MLB Winter Meetings
Chicago Cubs continue active offseason
The Cubs started the off-season with a bang, hiring Craig Counsell away from the Milwaukee Brewers and shockingly firing their own manager, David Ross, in the process. The Cubs are going for it, and they need to keep adding to the roster to plant their flag.
Chicago could be set to lose Cody Bellinger, Jeimer Candelario, and Marcus Stroman to free agency, so there is some work to be done to even remain as good as they were in 2023. The Cubs are one of the finalists for Ohtani, and that would obviously be their best-case scenario.
One complication for the Cubs could be that two teams that are potentially wide open for business may not be so ready to make deals with them. The Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago White Sox are apparently both open to trading just about anyone on their rosters. The Cubs just signed Counsell away from Milwaukee which means Corbin Burnes may be off the table, and trading with a cross-town rival is always a little complicated, which could take them out of the Dylan Cease and Luis Robert Jr. trade talks.
They could go after Matt Chapman or Eduardo Rodríguez on the free agent market, but they both come with some question marks. The Cubs need to make a splash. And if it’s going to happen, we should see it before long.
Related: Chicago Cubs reportedly targeting major trade for a fast-rising star from American League
San Diego Padres look to cut payroll
After a number of big-time acquisitions and signings, the rumors swirling around the Padres are more about how to remove people from the roster as opposed to how to add to it. Sure, San Diego missed the playoffs. But they also ran into some historically bad luck in one-run games. This team still has Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts, Fernando Tatís Jr., Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove to build around. They can still be competitive in 2024 and beyond, and it would be silly to throw in the towel at any point in time with all of these players signed to long, expensive deals.
The trade route may be their best path forward if their intention is to keep payroll where it is. In the aforementioned Soto deal with the Yankees, they could nab Stanton (and hope he stays healthy) along with any necessary additions for the 2024 roster, then go after someone like Tyler Glasnow of the Rays for a big move, or Paul Blackburn for a smaller splash that would add a league average arm to the rotation.
A.J. Preller is a madman when it comes to making deals, and he’s very creative in how he constructs a roster. Leave it to him to find a solution that will keep the Padres’ payroll where it needs to be, but also re-tool for another run in 2024.
Related: Seattle Mariners could emerge as surprise suitor for Yoshinobu Yamamoto
Seattle Mariners find superstar at MLB Winter Meetings
The Mariners already needed to make a move, but after trading Jared Kelenic, Marco Gonzales, and Evan White to Atlanta in a salary dump that saved them $29 million in player salary the fan base isn’t terribly happy. Seattle apparently also sent some amount of money over in the deal. In return, Seattle got Cole Phillips, a right-hander that has yet to make his minor-league debut after getting Tommy John in April of 2022. He’s 20-years-old and would have been a first rounder in ’22 if not for the surgery. The M’s also received Jackson Kowar, a 27-year-old righty with a career 9.12 ERA across 74 big-league innings. The Mariners are pretty good at fixing pitchers, but trading away Kelenic for a project is just a curious move.
Mariners GM Jerry DiPoto likes to do this. He’ll make one trade that has everyone scratching their heads, and then the other shoe will drop that has everything make a little more sense. The Mariners have a number of young arms to deal from on the trade front, and they have opened up some cash to spend with this deal, and the Eugenio Suárez trade that saved them $11.3 million earlier this off-season.
It feels as though Seattle is readying a deal with the Tampa Bay Rays, who look to be ready to trade a few big pieces of their own. Here is a scenario: The Rays trade Arozarena to Seattle for one of the M’s young pitchers. Tampa then trades Tyler Glasnow for a bat that they like. The Rays get to save some money while not really taking a step back, the Mariners get a big bat that they’re desperate for, and some unknown team gets Glasnow.
That may not be the exact trade that happens (Seattle has also been linked to Issac Paredes), but that seems to be what Seattle is going for. With money coming off the books in Sunday night’s trade, they could also be open to spending a little more on the free agent market. After missing the postseason by one game, they need to make some tweaks because this team has too much talent to spend October at home.