From trades to free agents, MLB’s weirdest moves of the offseason

Red Sox trade Hunter Renfroe for Jackie Bradley Jr.

I had to put this one on here because I really don’t like it at all. JBJ is a great defensive outfielder and knows the landscape of Fenway Park well with seven seasons under his belt playing in Boston. But, he is coming off one of the worst hitting seasons you might ever see.

With the Milwaukee Brewers in 2021, he had a slash line of .163/.236/.261 for a .497 OPS and 35 WRC+. For players with at least 400 plate appearances, he by far had the lowest WRC+ with the next closest person being Kevin Newman at 54, 19 points higher (which is a lot in regard to WRC+). The next closest person in OPS was Andrelton Simmons at .558, which is still 60 points higher than Jackie.

Again just for a little more perspective on how bad he was last season. Per The Washington Post, pitchers in 2019 had a .131 batting average with a .329 OPS. He was only 32 points better by batting average and only 168 points better by OPS. The average hitter in 2021 had a .728 OPS.

I get the defensive ability he has but trading Hunter Renfroe, who is probably a below average defensive player but was good at the plate last season hitting 31 home run with an .816 OPS and 114 WRC+, just doesn’t seem like a fair move. Along with the fact that he has a cannon and you have Kiké Hernandez in center field to make up some of his lost ground.

This was a heck of a deal for Milwaukee to not only get off the money for Jackie Bradley Jr. but to also get a good player in return to add to your lineup. I hope Jackie can make some sort of comeback at the plate and this can work out for both Boston and him in the long term.

The Minnesota Twins shed salary to sign Carlos Correa

When Minnesota first traded off Mitch Garver to Texas for Isiah Kiner-Falefa, I thought it was a solid move. A very Twins-like move to get a shortstop on the low who will hopefully hit OK and still provide you some pretty good defense. Also to mention that he is pretty young, cheap and under team control for two seasons.

Then, just about two days later, the just-then-acquired Kiner-Falefa and Josh Donaldson are in a move to the New York Yankees that brought in some decent players in Gary Sanchez and Gio Urshela. Both of whom have had ups and downs in previous years, but more notably were a lot cheaper, roughly making a total of $14 million, a good bit lower in comparison to the outgoing Donaldson and IKF, which was about $28 million.

Then somehow we find out this was all done to clear extra salary to sign potential the top free agent that was on the market in Carlos Correa, completely out of nowhere.

One of the biggest reasons for this move being on here is that despite the Twins being more active signing free agents in recent history like the aforementioned Donaldson or even Nelson Cruz, they have never really gone out to sign the biggest names.

Also, we all assumed that a long-term deal would be in place for Correa, which is not what happened as he received a deal much like Trevor Bauer did last offseason.

Along with that, based on what the Twins situation looked like, no one really thought they would be of interest to a player like Correa, a player who is probably looking to try and win a World Series as fast as possible. Baseball is a weird sport though with so much relying on momentum and luck that, with the team they have and the moves they have made, there is definitely a way the Twins can win it all.

Just such an unexpected move that blew us all out the water.

Detroit gives opt-outs to Javier Baez and Eduardo Rodriguez

Before the offseason even started, there were many thoughts out on the internet and reports that the Tigers were going to be spenders. With top prospects in Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson probably coming up this season (congrats to Torkelson for making the Opening Day roster and hopefully Greene can get back soon!) and all the young pitchers already up the team could be in the running for the playoffs.

Detroit ended up signing Javier Baez as their shortstop of the future and Eduardo Rodriguez as the veteran leader of the rotation to help lead the young guns. I think we all would agree that these are pretty great moves to help the team build towards being a contender once again.

I don’t know if I love the Baez move as I wrote about in an article a couple months back. I really think they should have given Correa the money he wanted because I think he is simply just better than Baez. But, I do understand the argument against Correa in regards to his durability as he has had a good amount of injuries in his past and signing him to a long-term big money deal is scarier than doing it with Baez.

What I really don’t like about these moves and don’t understand about them is why they gave them opt-outs. You are signing these guys to be pieces that your future guys go around, so why are you giving them a chance to leave after two seasons? The Tigers could end up with a fantastic rotation and lineup, but both guys could choose to leave if they wanted to as soon as the team gets momentum.

I feel like both of these deals could have gotten done without putting the opt-outs in and it would have saved a lot of potential future problems. There obviously is no way for me to know that for certain, but with the opportunity the Tigers have plus the money they gave, it all seemed like a pretty good package already.

Padres already shipping out Adam Frazier

San Diego acquiring Frazier last season was an odd one for me to begin with, mainly because even I did not expect him to continue his All-Star level play with the Pirates all the way through the season. He definitely seemed to be overperforming and I figured there would be some regression.

His expected numbers with Pittsburgh were up and down though, meaning sometimes they were higher than his actual batting average and sometimes lower. However, we had never seen this type of play by Frazier before and half a season was not enough for me to believe that this change was permanent.

Despite all that, San Diego made the move to get Frazier and he regressed, as expected. He did play better in September, but he was still overperforming his expected numbers. I also thought the move was odd because he is predominantly a second baseman and they already had Ha-seong Kim and Jake Cronenworth trying to get playing time there, but the depth was good to have especially since he could play outfield as well. Plus, the Padres having a lot of injuries last season.

It is even weirder now as they decided to trade him away to Seattle so soon after acquiring him. He still could have filled a role on this team as they do have an opening in left field and even as a versatile guy that covers for people when they need breaks or are out with injuries would have be valuable.

A.J. Preller, however, decided to sell him off to the Mariners, getting back a far worse package at face value than what they gave up to get him from the Pirates.

The Yankees don’t sign any big names

This was one of the biggest free agent classes in recent history, with more than 20 of the available players being former All-Stars. The Yankees managed to resign a still pretty good Anthony Rizzo after missing out on Freddie Freeman, but he was the only “big name” player they signed who was on the market.

They were tied to many different players over the offseason, like Freeman as mentioned before, along with Starling Marte, Trevor Story, Carlos Correa, Javier Baez, Corey Seager, Seiya Suzuki, Michael Conforto, and Justin Verlander. Overall though it was reported that they were not really interested in signing any of the shortstops.

Throughout the offseason, the Yankees never gave off a vibe that they were really interested in any of the big names. Therefore, it appears that a lot of the rumors were exaggerated by the media or by fans. Freeman seemed like the one name they were into, but he made his way to the Dodgers instead.

They did end up with a likely stop gap option at shortstop in Isiah Kiner-Falefa and a new third baseman in Josh Donaldson coming off a good season with the Twins. The Bringer of Rain looks like a good get to bring in another solid bat to help the lineup and IKF is a pretty good defender.

With top prospect Oswald Peraza expected to be up potentially this season and Anthony Volpe probably just a couple years away, the Yankees didn’t appear to be too keen on spending a large amount of money on a shortstop when they have those young guys coming up.

However, the argument against that is this team has been in the playoffs and looking to win the World Series for years now. So why are they not doing all they can to help them win?

The reasoning behind this decision seems to be more of lack of interest in spending more money and creeping into the luxury tax rather than being mindful of their young talent. It’s very frustrating for fans to see one of the most valuable franchises in all of sports hide their incredibly large piggy banks.

The moves they made might work out well and the big name prospects could be up to help them soon  The Yankees can definitely win a World Series without those big names. It was just weird for them not push as much as they probably could have with the talent that was available

Texas signs multiple big names

What an offseason for the Rangers. This is weird because I doubt any of you reading this saw this coming. I know I certainly did not expect them to sign two of the biggest names on the market in Marcus Semien and Corey Seager, as well as bringing other guys like Jon Gray, Garrett Richards, Kole Calhoun, and Brad Miller.

In all, the Rangers gave out over $570 million this offseason. There were a lot of rumors leading up into the offseason that Texas was looking to spend and even that notion to me seemed odd given the state of the team. It didn’t seem crazy for them to get at least one big name, and that came to fruition with the Semien deal. But signing Corey Seager I think blew everyone out of the water.

The other weird part with the Rangers making all of these signings is that it still is hard to tell if they are even a playoff team. Obviously the big moves like Semien, Seager, and Gray are long-term, so it might not be fully about this season.

Part of making that push would be bringing top prospects up to help, but they won’t be able to do that with Josh Jung or Sam Huff just yet. Jung tore his labrum in February and will miss six months of action and Huff will need some time behind the plate in the minors after not catching at all last season due to recovering from knee surgery.

I am currently weary of some of the Texas players in the majors as I don’t know if I trust them to be big contributors to the team.

With Adolis Garcia looking like he overperformed, plus Nick Solak and Willie Calhoun underperforming based on a lot of expectations, there are good amount of holes in the lineup. Jon Gray and maybe Dane Dunning can be average to good rotation pieces, but we don’t really know how any of the other potential options will perform. Spencer Howard could be a good piece to look out for, but it will depend on if he can perform at the MLB level.

Overall, there were plenty of very unexpected moves from what appeared to be a dark horse destination for any of the big names out there, but the Rangers somehow pulled it off.