This was predictable, so if you didn’t buy a helmet and some goggles that’s on you. With the ratification of the CBA, the off-season has restarted in earnest. It’s been pretty packed too. There have been just about every kind of transaction, or as Jerry Dipoto calls it, transacting, you can think of! Describing it makes me feel like a used car salesman on cable access. “There have been big free agent signings, small free agent signings, big trades, little trades, we got every kind of transaction at Crazy Rob’s House of Ballplayers!” Anyway, yeah, it’s been quite the few days.
To catch you up, here are some of the biggies and what they mean for the teams involved.
After a billion rumors, the A’s finally decided to make a move. They traded Matt Olson to the one team nobody thought would need to deal for him, the Atlanta Braves. The A’s actually did pretty darn well in this trade, getting back premium prospects Cristian Pache and Shea Langeliers, as well as a few smaller guys. Both prospects are ranked in the FanGraphs Top 100, so to get both for two seasons of a first baseman, that feels like a good haul.
The big news there though is what it says about a guy who wasn’t even involved in the trade, now former Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman. Freeman won the NL MVP two seasons ago and helped lead the Braves to their first World Series since 1995 last season. It was assumed by many including me that he would re-sign in Atlanta, but nope. Instead two teams got younger and Freeman needs to find himself a new home.
The A’s teardown has been rumored for a while, but getting an MLB ready catcher and an MLB ready center fielder in the deal, has to help speed things up a bit. This is a bit of the Rays model, where a team sells players they can’t (or won’t) sign long term for young prospects. In this case, because Olson was good enough, they got substantial prospect capital back.
The Braves should be about as good with Olson as they were with Freeman. Olson is five years younger, a better fielder, and probably has more power than Freeman, though he doesn’t have Freeman’s on-base ability. Still, over the next five years, as good as Freeman is, you’d probably rather have Olson, and now the Braves do. The fact that they signed him to a team-friendly eight year contract after the trade is just icing on the cake.
Elsewhere, the Reds are in teardown mode as well, though it’s hard to have the same optimism about their journey as that of Oakland. Cincinnati dealt starter Sonny Gray to the Twins for recent first round pick, high school starter Chase Petty, and then dealt outfielder Jesse Winker and third baseman Eugenio Suarez to Seattle for some mediocre prospects mostly as a vehicle for getting out from under the $34 million still owned Suarez over the next three seasons.
The Mariners got better as Winker is an underrated and very good hitter (though he has lots of trouble with same sided lefty pitching) but Suarez is a weight around Seattle’s neck. He was an MVP candidate a few years ago, but has been brutal offensively and not particularly good in the field either since. It’s possible the Mariners see a way to help Suarez reach the high high peaks of above replacement level, but if not, they’ll have eaten some bad production and a lot of money to add one good hitting corner outfielder for two years.
The Reds are clearly willing to ship out anything not nailed down, which, ironically, is the motto of the Jerry Dipoto school of GMing. Unlike Dipoto though, the Reds seem more interested in getting out from under long term contracts (that they themselves gave out) than getting anything to actually help them win baseball games in return. It’s a tough time to be a Reds fan.
The Twins are interesting as well. They traded Jose Berrios to the Blue Jays last year at the trade deadline under the assumption they couldn’t get him to sign a contract extension, something he did almost immediately upon reaching Toronto. Oops. So the Twins were left with a few iffy ex-Jays prospects and no ace starter. They tried to rectify that a bit at least by adding Gray from the Reds. Gray is an underrated starter, and one who will be at least superficially helped by leaving the driving range that is Cincinnati’s ballpark for the huge expanse of Minnesota’s.
The Twins didn’t stop there, though. They engaged in a bit of the ol’ Cincinnati teardown as well, shipping third baseman Josh Donaldson and the $50 million remaining on his contract to the New York Yankees and getting back Gary Sanchez and Gio Urshella. Urshella has some positional versatility and can get on base well, so when he’s healthy he’s helpful. Sanchez is potentially a different issue. He’s almost unplayable at catcher despite a strong arm, and while he’s thought of as a good power hitter, he’s actually only been an above average hitter once in the last three seasons.
If the Twins can help fix Sanchez behind the plate, say take him from his current level to just bad, he can help them. If their plan is to move him to DH or try to make him a part time first baseman or something, that would be misguided. Sanchez is a good hitter for a catcher, but he’s not a great hitter for a catcher, nor is he a good hitter for any other position.
So are the Twins appreciably better than they were last year before dealing Berrios? No, not really. But it’s a new season, and perhaps luck is in the air. That’s not something to depend on, but it is something to hope for.
In the meantime, we’re still waiting for Carlos Correa to pick a team and the only team he’s been connected to recently is his old team, the Astros. That’s odd because the Astros could have signed him any day for the last seven years and never did it. In fact, the Astros most recent offer to Correa came before he officially reached free agency, and it was comically small to the point where I would’ve been surprised if Correa bothered to even reject it. But maybe it’s a new day, I guess.
Lastly, does nobody want Kris Bryant? There have been almost no Bryant rumors and Spring Training has started. There’s no time like the present, but other than the Rockies bizarrely making a push to sign the ex-Cub star, the rumor mill has been silent on Bryant. That will no doubt change at some point soon, but it’s strange. Perhaps Bryant will have to take his talents to Colorado, but you’d hope not. Nothing against the state or the city of Denver, but that team doesn’t know which direction is up. I’d hate to tie my career to them and I don’t imagine Bryant will do so unless there’s no other option. Here’s hoping the Giants have their cell phones charged.
Orioles Analyst
Matthew Kory is a Orioles / MLB Analyst for BSL. He has covered baseball professionally for The Athletic, Vice Sports, Sports On Earth, FanGraphs, and Baseball Prospectus. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, two boys, and his cats, Mini Squeaks and The President. Co-Host of The Warehouse.