So Josh Johnson is gone, the Toronto Blue Jays never having engaged the towering right-hander in a meaningful way after declining to extend him a qualifying offer, their promising relationship having run its unhappy course.
OK then, now what?
That’s a commonly asked question around baseball these days, even after the slow trickle of movement this week that included catcher Carlos Ruiz re-signing with the Philadelphia Phillies, right-hander Tim Hudson joining the San Franicsco Giants and Johnson hooking up with the San Diego Padres for one year at $8 million with another $1.5 million to be made in incentives (a price that would likely have been significantly more expensive for the Blue Jays).
The real action has yet to begin this off-season, and there’s a school of thought within the industry that the market—both in trades and free agency—is being held up by two key factors: the uncertainty over whether Major League Baseball will reach a posting process agreement with Nippon Professional Baseball, allowing phenom Masahiro Tanaka to be put up for bid; and where Robinson Cano ends up landing.
To what extent that’s happening is open for debate, some sources feeling a significant number of teams are being slowed by the process, others believing only a handful of clubs are affected.
Alex Anthopoulos and the Blue Jays are among those sussing out the alternative possibilities while waiting for the big shoes to drop, and there’s an expectation the logjam may not open until the Dec. 9–12 winter meetings in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
Needing at least one if not two starters, the pitching market is of prime concern to the Blue Jays and they may be feeling some Tanaka fallout. By now teams thought they would know whether the right-hander, who went 24-0 with a 1.27 ERA for the Rakuten Golden Eagles this past season, would be up for post or not. But an offer from MLB owners to their NPB counterparts was revoked last week when Japanese officials didn’t reply in time, and now both sides are making noise about seeking more concessions. The longer the matter drags on, the longer it will take for the market to develop for other pitchers available as free agents and in trade, because key suitors like the New York Yankees may hold off on other plans in order to take a run at Tanaka.
The Yankees are crucial for everyone here, as top-tier free agents like Matt Garza, Ervin Santana and Ricky Nolasco will want to have the Bronx Bombers bidding to drive up the price. But the Yankees are thought to be most interested in Tanaka because the amount they spend on a posting bid wouldn’t count against their payroll for luxury tax considerations, only the actual contract would. That’s especially helpful as they aim to reset their tax rate by getting under the $189-million threshold.
Teams with no designs on pursuing Tanaka wouldn’t mind holding out for a better posting deal with the NPB, since, as MLB’s chief operating officer Rob Manfred put it last week, “the concerns with the (current) system were that it’s a blind bidding process that led to inflated numbers, and that those inflated numbers make that market unavailable to a broad cross-section of our teams.” Estimates on where the posting for Tanaka could go range from $50–$100 million, and the higher it goes, the more of an edge the Yankees have.
Still, the resulting stasis means clubs motivated to sign free agents are left to wait for the posting issue to be resolved, while teams looking to trade pitchers (potentially David Price, Max Scherzer or Jeff Samardzija) could hold off on their moves until GMs who fall short on both Tanaka and the open market come calling.
Of course, all that strategizing could go out the window with a single bold signing or blockbuster deal, and at this point the Blue Jays (who sniffed around on Ruiz) appear intent on making their moves via trade. And while they must sit on their hands until potential trade partners are ready to move, the uncertainty around Cano could end up helping them in the long run.
Jay-Z, the superstar second baseman’s agent, reportedly met the New York Mets this week, although the prevailing industry opinion still seems to be that Cano will re-sign with the Yankees. Yet it was only two winters ago that the Los Angeles Angels stunned the baseball world by luring Albert Pujols away from the St. Louis Cardinals, and it’s possible another upset could be in the works right now.
Losing Cano, who is seeking a contract worth $310 million, would likely force the Yankees to make a dramatic move or two in response, perhaps pushing them into the market for someone like second baseman Omar Infante. They’d also need to adequately replace the lost power, and with them competing in free agency for the few impact bats around, a hard-hitting Blue Jays outfielder like Colby Rasmus or even Jose Bautista might take on a new value.
Those scenarios are, however, several ifs away from taking place, but they also help explain the tepid pace of action thus far. Millions of dollars in new TV money kick in next year and extra funding is emboldening many owners to spend, putting more teams into the mix for more players. But with some uncertainty about who’s available and which teams are in on which players, everything is taking a while to develop.