MLB Hot Stove: The malaise before and even with movement
By Rick Soisson
The Next, Anonymous Days
And so the MLB hot stove season crawled onto Nov. 28, which had no nickname, without further free agent changes except for Josh Donaldson’s Twitter profile picture. That’s now the back of a Braves jersey with his name and the number 20 on it. Take that, ESPN. What are ya? The MLB hot stove police?
The Braves had “formally” introduced Donaldson in the middle of the previous day, but ESPN seemed determined to hold out on updating their free agents page on-line with his deal – or maybe the page mistress was on vacation.
MLB.com’s tracker, on the other hand, recognized not only Donaldson’s signing, but also that Brian McCann had joined Atlanta the same day as Donaldson and that Chisenhall had been signed. MLB.com’s information also involved six other players who had been signed, including two in October. Two of those players were on ESPN’s list as “top 50” players, Hyun-Jin Ryu (no. 12), who’s staying with the Dodgers, and Steve Pearce (no. 49), who’s staying with the Red Sox.
In other words, the only exciting thing happening was…well, no…ESPN being found lax in documenting another signed player isn’t very exciting. Even if he’s “no. 12.”
But there’s nothing like finding a better tool for tracking the comings and goings in the MLB hot stove season. (The hell with whoever’s taken physicals or whatever’s going on at ESPN.)
And then, just like that, ESPN.com caught up – maybe they copied MLB.com’s list, because the Google machine certainly didn’t return anything that indicated Donaldson had passed a physical. However, maybe they didn’t just copy because they also now listed former Cubs reliever Jesse Chavez (ranked no. 28) as returning to the Rangers for $8 million for two years. This is a nice deal for a 35-year-old reliever once drafted in the 39th round, and later in the 42nd. The numbers argue he’s improving with age (1.059 WHIP in 2018, well below his career average figure).
Rumors and speculation continued – the Phillies may want Andrew Miller as well as Corbin, according to Matt Gelb (according to two others). The first response to Gelb’s tweet on this subject was perhaps the best: “The Phillies wish list = all of the 2018 free agents.”