For those of you who completely freak out after the World Series and wonder what you’re going to do with yourself all winter long, the hot-stove season is a warm, comforting blanket. So having said that, let’s throw a couple of logs on the fire, shall we?
1) What’s next for the New York Mets?
The Mets’ starting pitching jackpot of Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz and Zack Wheeler means that New York may have some $1bn worth of future-free-agent hurlers on their roster. Syndergaard and Matz are under control for the long-term. Wheeler and deGrom will be a free-agent to 2020, Harvey in 2019, and he’ll get his first arbitration bump this season. You’re never, ever, ever going to be able to keep all of them, so why not deal Harvey now?
Yes, he put together a Game 5 World Series performance that was an inning away from becoming an iconic New York sporting moment, and yes, you may be trading away Tom Seaver. But his value may never be higher, and with Daniel Murphy, who received a one-year $15.8m qualifying offer last week, and Yoenis Cespedes possibly heading out of town, Harvey represents a chip that could bring back a big young bat back, at least. How about a deal for Manny Machado, who could serve as a linchpin of the infield for at least three seasons playing shortstop while also serving as a backup at third base for the ailing David Wright? There’s no guarantee that Harvey would even be enough to get Machado, who posted a 7.1 WAR this season, but Baltimore haven’t had an anchor ace since Mike Mussina left, and in their yard, finding offense is much easier.
If not, and for whatever reason GM Sandy Alderson said he “can’t see it happening”, the Mets have some serious off-season shopping to do to shore up their potentially Cespedes-less offense. If they won’t pay for the Cuban outfielder, will they plunk down the dosh for a Justin Upton type, especially when they already have $92m committed to next season? It’s unlikely, so a blockbuster trade makes much more sense.
2) Can the Kansas City Royals repeat?
Even as winners pile onto each other, spray champagne and talk to presidents, there are those who begin to wonder about what the World Series champs are going to look like the following season. Isn’t that a bit sick? Can’t they just be-here-now and enjoy the moment?
The good news for Kansas City Royals fans is that most of the biggest players in their band won’t be breaking away anytime soon. However, the future of Alex Gordon is by far the biggest issue for KC heading into the offseason: he had a $13.75m player option for 2016, but dumped that chump change to look for a longer term deal. Does a 31-year old with Gordon’s credentials get a nine-digit, five-year deal from the Royals? He should, because if you’re KC, after back-to-back World Series appearances, you’re crazy to disrupt any of that mojo.
Starter Johnny Cueto is likely gone, but that shouldn’t matter with their bullpen - we’re talking about a team that had just one starter with an ERA below 4.00 who made 20 or more starts and KC still won 95 games. Fill out the rotation with replacement player-esque types, and throw some more money at multi-skilled utility man Ben Zobrist, who will be even more important if Gordon goes. Add a front-line starter at the 2016 trade-deadline and viola, they’ll be back-to-back champs.
3) Will Pete Rose be welcomed back?
So let me get this straight: MLB have advertising on their network promoting a fantasy sports organization that the State of Nevada has deemed a gambling product, an entity being investigated by the FBI, and Pete Rose (or Shoeless Joe Jackson) can’t be re-instated after his own gambling-induced exile? Rose made huge mistakes, and followed those up with more huge mistakes. However, it must be seen as just a touch hypocritical to keep baseball’s hit king in the darkness considering their players are now being used as fully fledged gambling pawns, rooks, bishops, well, you get the point. Rose left Fox’s World Series coverage for a card show he previously committed to – that was just the latest act of bad judgement, But the guy has to make a living, since he’s been banished from a sport that served as his main source of income for a good portion of his life, so what’s he supposed to do? Commissioner Rob Manfred has kept his cards close to his chest regarding the status of Rose’s bid to get back into the games good graces, but odds are very much against him.
4) Will Montreal be awarded a franchise?
Baseball in Canada is booming right now, mostly thanks to the resurgence of the Toronto Blue Jays. Couple that with the extraordinary grass-roots movement to re-establish Major League Baseball in Montreal and the largest market sans baseball in the US and Canada is ripe to be filled.
Commissioner Rob Manfred recently said “I’d be interested in another team in Canada,” while Montreal’s Mayor Denis Coderre recently penned a letter to all 30 MLB teams along with Stephen Bronfman, a former minority owner of the Expos from 1999 to 2004, whose father Charles owned the team from its founding in 1969 to 1999, to “prove we’re serious to all these people.” A likely location for a new stadium has been identified, while the Mayor, a key pro-baseball ally, currently enjoys a 72% approval rating. That won’t last forever, and if he ever is jettisoned, efforts to bring baseball back to la belle province could be halted.
MLB wants growth and Montreal is a key component: that’s why MLB should award the franchise right now, with a caveat: the movement must prove they can have owners and a new stadium in place by a deadline decided by its 30 current owners. If it happens, MLB can open up a competition for another city (itself a challenge: no other city is as ready as Montreal), bringing the circuit up to 32 teams, eliminating the need for Interleague play every single day. The timing is right to do it now...plus the Montreal-born ex-Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos suddenly needs a job.
5) When will the FBI finish their investigation of the Cardinals?
Remember that whole thing where someone (or two, or five...) from the Cardinals front office allegedly broke into Houston’s proprietary database, perhaps to see what their old boss, Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow was up to? Well, the story that the FBI was investigating the Redbirds broke way back in mid-June and it’s more or less been crickets since. So far only Cards scouting director Chris Correa has lost his job, while we’re told that MLB will only take action after the FBI concludes it’s investigation. Meanwhile legions of Cardinals haters, a group who grew up hearing about an organization has the best “way”, fans, stadium, hot dogs, players, socks, logos and history, bathrooms, whatever, wait patiently for their ultra-clean, do-gooding mystique to unravel before their very eyes.
6) What’s the plan in LA?
-What Don Mattingly didn’t say Photograph: Bryan Smith/ZUMA Press/Corbis
When you have a payroll of around $300m, you’re partially owned by Magic Johnson, have a free-agent pitcher such as Zack Greinke, and are hiring a manager, well, you get a lot of attention. LA dispatched of Don Mattingly “mutually” after he led the team to three consecutive post-seasons and now team President Andrew Friedman and GM Farhan Zaidi have a line out the door to become the new skipper. Candidates include: Kirk Gibson, Bud Black, Bob Geren, Ron Roenicke, Dave Martinez and Tim Wallach, Darin Erstad, Gabe Kapler and Dave Roberts. That enough? Of course, they could always employ a manager-by-committee system like the Chicago Cubs did in 1961.
Where will Greinke end up? Well, folks seem to think that he wants to stay in the NL thanks to a hitting fetish. That could mean LA plop down the over $100m or so it will take to wrap-up the 32-year-old for another five years or so. The Cubs could give them a run for their money - the playoffs showed they need to make contact and that they’re short a pitcher. The San Francisco Giants also need to shore up their once vaunted staff, while the Boston Red Sox badly need an ace to boost a rotation that showed progress down the stretch in 2015.
This is the start of year two of Friedman’s work in Los Angeles and he’ll have some calls to make to help LA win their first World Series since 1988. Yasiel Puig is a trade chip: if he can somehow get a decent return while packaging him with Carl Crawford and his two years at over $40m, that would be tough to turn down. LA need a second baseman, and Daniel Murphy, who just burned their best with multiple NLDS home runs is available. The bullpen remains an issue - Baltimore Orioles middle reliever Darren O’Day could go a long way in fixing their bridge to Kenley Jansen.
7) Who are the top free-agent hurlers and where will they go?
Really, that’s a two-part question, and if I knew the answer to the second part I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this. We already mentioned Geinke, and that leaves David Price, Jordan Zimmermann, Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzjia as the other top available arms. Toronto used Price about as oddly as possible in the playoffs, but they badly need him back to maintain the momentum building in Ontario. It’s more likely that Dave Dombrowski and the Red Sox beat them to it and wrap up an AL East veteran who has already proved he can win in Boston. The Yanks could take a stab at Samardzjia, a move that’s guaranteed to blow up. Zimmermann could be a back up for the Dodgers if they lose Greinke and I can see Cueto could go to the Cubs, or serve as a backup for Toronto if Price can’t be inked. Then there’s the lower-tiered arms, like Baltimore’s southpaw Wei-Yin Chen, Seattle’s Hisashi Iwakuma, D.C.’s Doug Fister, the St Louis’ John Lackey, Texas’ Yovani Gallardo, Toronto’s R.A. Dickey and Marco Estrada, Houston’s lefty Scott Kazmir and Minnesota’s Joakim Soria, to name a few. That’s quite a lot of third-ish starters who could have serious impacts on teams thirsty for pitching, like the Giants, Tigers, Mariners, Orioles and Diamondbacks.
8) Who are the top free-agent hitters and where will they go?
Chris Davis went bananas down the stretch, adding zero upon zero to his future deal with his future team: he’s got about seven coming to him in a $100m plus deal for about five years. The Orioles, who already made him a qualifying offer, really need to have him back, especially after losing Nelson Cruz after the 2014 season. Chances are however that he winds up in Houston or in Seattle where they have a collection of expensive stars waiting to win. Signing Davis will cost a team a draft pick, which could help the O’s as they scramble to keep their star. The deep group includes the Mets’ Cespedes, St Louis’ Jayson Heyward, San Diegos’ Justin Upton, D.C.s’ Ian Desmond, KC’s Gordon and New York’s Daniel Murphy, many of which have already received qualifying offers. The Cards should ink Heyward, who they seemed to like in right field. The Mets will never shell out for Cespedes, it’s not in their DNA, but he’s a perfect fit for the run-starved Angels. New York have a better shot at retaining Murphy, whose contact hitting style is Royal-esque, even if his defense isn’t. Gordon should stay home, while some pundits pick Ian Desmond to be a Met and already have Upton in the Yankee outfield.
9) Dusty Baker? Really?
By all accounts, the Lerner family who owns the Washington Nationals completely botched the hiring of Bud Black to be their manager, lowballing him with a one-year deal worth about $1.6m. Blacks’s thanks but no thanks rejection means that Dusty Baker, who was a finalist for the position, gets the gig, and MLB doesn’t suffer through the embarrassment of not having a single black manager in 2016. Just ask the Mets: sometimes it’s the deals that don’t get done that are the best, and landing Baker makes sense in D.C. While the Nats have shown themselves to be mostly dysfunctional as a unit, Baker will calm the dugout, and Jayson Werth will never, ever, step to him and say something like the “when exactly do you think you lost this team” as he did to the departed Matt Williams...although the occasional dugout fight is still a possibility. Baker commands respect, even if his shelf-life is about three years, which is the window for this team to win anyway.
10) How do the Yankees get interesting again?
It’s pretty clear that without Alex Rodriguez, the New York Yankees would be just about the most boring team in the northern hemisphere. Jacoby Ellsbury? Snooze. Brian McCann, baseball’s unwritten rules enforcer? Zzzzz. Brent Gardner? Come on. Mark Teixeira? A boringly brash bully. Young Luis Severino and Greg Bird arer talented but vanilla. Masahiro Tanaka? Eh.
No, there’s only one thing to do, and that’s start grooming A-Rod to become baseball’s first player manager since, you guessed it, Pete Rose himself. It’s a Mets town right now, and looks it’s going to stay that way for a while, so the Yanks need a gimmick to stay relevant until Bryce Harper comes to the Bronx in 2019. Just this week Yankees hitting coach Alan Cockrell said Rodriguez was basically a baseball savant. So give Joe Girardi one more season and if he can’t bring home title 28, let Rodriguez run the show, which is just about enough to keep fans flocking to the Bronx until the Harper era arrives.
