The Winter Meetings are the most exciting event during baseball’s off-season. Players, agents, general managers and reporters all swarm to one hotel, and teams lay the groundwork for potential deals, and many times end up pulling off big trades or free agent signings. This past week at National Harbor, Maryland saw a flurry of activity that will have a huge impact on the upcoming season and beyond.
The biggest deal of the Winter Meetings without a doubt was the Boston Red Sox acquiring Chris Sale from the Chicago White Sox in exchange of Yoan Moncada, baseball’s #1 prospect, along with a few other prospects. This move sent shock waves across baseball, and experts are already calling the Red Sox the “winners of the off-season.” That’s great and all, but the winners of the off-season rarely follow that up with winning when it counts. Look at the past few years. The San Diego Padres made a ton of trades and signings at their home Winter Meetings, and how’d they do? They ended up trading away many of their acquisitions because they didn’t translate on the field. It’s a similar story with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Last year, they signed top pitcher Zack Greinke and everyone projected a big year in the desert, yet the D-Backs finished in 4th place of their division. While the Red Sox look dominant on paper, let’s wait and see what really happens.
Another headline-grabbing trade was the Washington Nationals getting Adam Eaton while sending away two top pitching prospects that both made the Major Leagues last year in Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez. When I saw this trade, I couldn’t believe it. Two top pitching prospects for a good but not great outfielder is not something you expect to see. I feel like the Nationals overreacted to not winning the Chris Sale sweepstakes, and with it being their home Winter Meetings, they felt the pressure to make a splash. I just don’t think that’s the splash they needed. Again, like any trade involving prospects, you won’t know the result until those prospects have a few years to play in the Majors, but the Nationals are going to end up regretting this one big time.
The overall theme of the busy week of negotiations and discussions was the big boys of baseball showing their strength. The New York Yankees, as you may remember from a prior post, traded closer Aroldis Chapman to the Chicago Cubs for Gleyber Torres, a highly sought after prospect. Chapman went on to win the World Series with the Cubs, and then promptly signed back with the Yankees. People say you can’t have your cake and eat it too, but the Yankees just did. They knew they wouldn’t make the playoffs last year, so they traded Chapman for a great prospect, but what they also knew was that they were the only team that could spend the money Chapman would want in free agency. Small market teams wouldn’t dream of pulling off what the Yankees did, but that’s the Yankees.
Another example of these big market teams taking advantage of their situation is the Red Sox trade for Chris Sale. Yoan Moncada, the prospect that allowed the Red Sox to land Sale, was signed from Cuba on a massive $63 million contract. Under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, teams will have a more equal and balanced way of signing foreign players. But, that is in the future, not the past. The Red Sox, having money flowing from everywhere, can afford to buy a star like that. Once again, teams like the the Yankees and Red Sox prove that they will always have an upper hand in trades and signings over small market teams that just can’t afford to do what the big boys do.
The only thing better than the Winter Meetings is seeing how the moves made there play out during the season. There is still a lot of moves to be made this off-season, but I can’t wait for Opening Day!