MLB Hot Stove: The malaise before and even with movement

The MLB Hot Stove has been quiet, aside from a brief flurry of activity.

As the MLB hot stove season crawled past Thanksgiving, lines from the old poem for a holiday on the horizon could be applied to free agents and hungry MLB teams. For the free agents: “all thro’ the house, / Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse….” As for any team not called the Boston Red Sox (and their fans), “the stockings were hung by the chimney with care.”

By the Monday after Thanksgiving, those stockings were basically empty. Only four free agents had found their 2019 teams, according to ESPN.com. CC Sabathia would be finishing his career with the Yankees. Jung Ho Kang, perhaps sober, would rejoin the Pirates, and Trevor Rosenthal would be with the Nationals. The Blue Jays had picked up the option on Justin Smoak.

These players are not what makes this MLB hot stove season hot; only two of the four were ranked as free agents by ESPN. Sabathia was no. 27, and Smoak was no. 26.

The Winter Meetings were on the horizon as well, Dec. 9-13 in Las Vegas, as turkey leftovers dwindled. Baseball fans, however, were hungry for Machados and Harpers and Corbins now. Speculative articles multiplied like bunnies, but the stockings just hung there.

Some of those speculative pieces were produced by the industry mouthpiece, MLB.com. Cyber Monday saw one such piece on seven “stars” who could be traded before the first big free agent shoe drops. Or maybe they’ll move after that shoe-drop, or not at all – who knows? The MLB hot stove season always involves a certain amount of waiting for the market to be “set.”

The seven industry-designated stars with trade value were Zack Greinke, Whit Merrifield, J.T. Realmuto, Corey Kluber, Nicholas Castellanos, Corey Dickerson, and Carlos Santana.

Seven Stars?

The interesting thing about this list is that many might say only two or three of these players are stars as such. Perhaps there are three stars here, and Greinke is expensive and pretty old in baseball terms.

The third star, past Greinke and Kluber, you may pick.

Merrifield? Nice player, three years into a career, but is he at his peak now? He led the AL in hits in 2018, with fewer than 200. Realmuto may be the best catcher in baseball. That will be clearer in about three years. He’s never hit 25 home runs or driven in 75.

Castellanos hit 26 homers in 2017 when he also had 101 RBI and 10 triples. In ’18 those numbers dropped, but his batting average almost touched .300. He may be that third star or a star-in-the-making.

Dickerson has hit .300 or better three times, but why is he traded so readily? If he moves, it will be to his fourth team in seven years. Santana has turned a nice, if infrequent, batting stroke into millions and millions of dollars. He (sigh) walks a lot, but has a lot of respect among players.

All of these players are within four years of their contacts’ expiration dates. All but Greinke and Whitfield have one or two years to go, and all of those five are currently eligible for arbitration or have contracts with options for the coming season.

Maybe a cup of holiday cocoa would pass the time waiting for a move.

Breaking Non-News and Some Real News

The cocoa hadn’t even begun to cool when news broke about the Phillies. Sort of. Apparently, the team had discussions with the Diamondbacks about Paul Goldschmidt, but according to Corey Seidman, who cited another reporter, “talks ended when the Phils tried to include first baseman/occasional third baseman Carlos Santana.”

Well, this may have been either good or bad, depending on what you think about Goldschmidt’s value (very high), his age (31), his remaining contract year (a bargain at $14.5 million), or the Phillies decision to hire first basemen two years in a row instead of using Rhys Hoskins there (sort of dim).

Goldschmidt is a genuine star. Presumably, neither the Arizona nor Philadelphia negotiator hung up with “Don’t call me ever again, you clown!”

The cocoa was almost gone. It was 1 o’clock.

And there was more news when everybody was supposedly too busy ordering stuff on-line. Ken Rosenthal reported by tweet  Josh Donaldson had reached agreement on a one-year deal with the Braves. Donaldson was the eighth-ranked free agent by ESPN.

More cocoa was needed for the verification of this deal, but it came quickly. A “reported deal” story appeared on the Braves official website shortly after 3 o’clock. Atlanta would be paying a 33-year-old third baseman $23 million the year after he’d only played 52 games, assuming he passed the physical Rosenthal mentioned.

Eureka! Somewhat real MLB hot stove news before December! Before 9 o’clock that evening, the Braves announced the signing; MLB.com’s story on Atlanta’s website was updated with a minor change in language to begin the piece and the disappearance of Rosenthal’s name. There was no indication the club was touting the deal as a good Cyber Monday deal.

Cyber or Giving Tuesday

The following day ESPN initially refused to give Donaldson his Braves cap on their free agents chart. Perhaps they take physicals very seriously in Bristol, which is kind of charming in a rigorous way. No other names had been added to the signed column either. The MLB hot stove season suddenly seemed as sluggish as Uncle Oscar after dinner the previous Thursday.

In the lull of activity, Manny Machado’s remarks made the previous week, lost in holiday festivities, were discovered. ESPN’s no. 1 free agent had clarified his infamous Johnny No-Hustle remark made before the MLB hot stove season started: “When I was asked that question, I was definitely on the defensive, and I was wrong to answer it the way that I did, because looking back, it doesn’t come across how I meant it. For me, I was trying to talk about how I’m not the guy who is eye wash. There’s a difference between fake hustle for show and being someone who tries hard to win. I’ve always been the guy who does whatever he can to win for his team.”

Machado clearly knows November and December are about making money. The real question now is whether a new nickname for the infielder will trend on social media. It didn’t immediately appear so. Twitter returned nothing on a search for #NotJohnnyEyeWash.

MLB.com reported “multiple sources” said Madison Bumgarner is available.

More or less mid-afternoon, “Connections” Rosenthal reported the Pirates had signed Lonnie Chisenhall for $2.75 million for a year. Like Kang and Rosenthal, Chisenhall had not been a ranked free agent by ESPN.

Then, in Philadelphia, a mainstream, respected reporter wrote that Patrick Corbin was in town to talk with the Phillies. He credited a fan for tipping him off. An hour and twenty minutes later, the story hit MLB.com.

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.”