Marco’s Baseball Blog-O-Roonie 2023:
the Mad Free Agent Scramble
You can’t tell the players without a program so here are the teams who are wealthy enough to afford to hire a high priced free agent or two this winter. Every team wants Ohtani but only one can have him. Everybody wants the exact same thing...a starting pitcher and a power hitter. Shohei is the only baseball player who can fill both needs.
TEAM BANKROLL
METS infinite (owner Cohen is a multi billionaire)
YANKEES not infinite but certainly ENOUGH to procure multiple big players and their contracts
DODGERS very rich and have skillfully trimmed their big contracts to get ready for this season
GIANTS have a wad of money because they haven’t been
able to sign any stars lately
CUBS can make one big splash
BRAVES They are ready to win but they need one Ace pitcher to go with Spencer Strider. The Braves locked up their young stars with sucker contracts: that’s why they have the coin.
JAYS Toronto wants to be considered a big market club...they’re not. One bullet in the chamber.
PADRES They shot their wad last two years of big trades and acquisitions. Now it’s just noise. If they had money they wouldn’t have let Soto go.
BOSTON posturing but are penny pinchers at heart.
And now the Objects of Adoration...the principal free agents and trade bait.
Showtime Ohtani, Yamamoto from Kyoto, Cody Bellinger, J.D. Martinez, Josh Heder, Blake Snell, Corbin Burnes, Tyler Glasnow, Jung Hoo Lee, Shane Beiber
These are the big names….the potential game changers.
The Yankees warmed up the winter meets by completing the deal that everyone knew was coming: Soto from the Padres to the ballpark designed with hitters like him in mind...Yankee Stadium and that short porch in right.
Funny how long it took the pinstripers to figure out that their stadium has ALWAYS been a left hander’s paradise. Now they have Aaron Judge and Juan Soto back to back in their order and if some of the injury prone and aging complimentary players can stay healthy they might have an offense again.
Soto was withering on the vine at Petco. All that offense the Pads brought in...wasted. They had to start undoing because they don’t have enough cash left to pay their superstars. At least they got some promising young pitchers from New York. But how long will it take for them to mature? About the same time as when the brass have to trade their next star?
The lynch pin of the whole free agent market is Ohtani, of course. Once he decides where he is going, everybody else will scoop up the leftovers. I was hoping the Boston Red Sox were Destiny’s Darlings but I should have known better. I doubt they can even compete for Yamamoto, who looks like a scary-good pitcher.
Ohtani will go to the Dodgers because he doesn’t want to leave the coast. He likes it warm. The Dodgers wanted him when he was in high school! They cleared the roster so they could give him the $600 million contract he actually merits. The Dodgers want to win...NOW. Betts and Freeman will help Ohtani have fun. Most of all...Ohtani
will wind up going to the Dodgers because manager Dave Roberts is half Japanese!
I think Yamamoto will take Steve Cohen’s money and sign with the Mets. The Yankees will pick up Tyler Glasnow. Corbin Burnes to the Braves for prospects. Beiber to St. Louis. Blake Snell to the Giants (and another arm surgery with that funky high shoulder whip ) Heder might wind up in Texas.
J.D. Martinez goes back to Arizona. Bellinger back to the Cubs. Boston will climb out of the wreckage and sign Jung Hoo Lee to little acclaim and Lee (25) will be an All Star.
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