TORONTO — They’re all off the table: David Price, Zack Greinke, Jordan Zimmermann and even second-tier free agents such as Jeff Samardzija. So expect the focus to be on position players when the winter meetings begin this week in Nashville, what with the likes of Jason Heyward, Alex Gordon and Yoenis Cespedes on the market – plus the usual spate of trade rumours.
Here are the teams I’ll be watching:
Boston Red Sox
The idea for the longest time among the game’s deep thinkers was to assemble young, cost-effective starting pitching and spend money on position players. But something happened once steroids started to get out of baseball – it became more than ever a young man’s game and the future seems to belong to teams with young position players. The Red Sox are an example. Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr. all have a little more than a year’s service time; Xander Bogaerts and Brock Holt a shade over two years. So even after adding Price, the Red Sox can do some business, maybe even using a prospect to entice a team into dealing for Hanley Ramirez, and with their outfield depth they might be able to extract, say, a Carlos Santana from the Cleveland Indians.
Cincinnati Reds
Closer Aroldis Chapman is a year away from free agency and if you’re a big money team not only could you be getting him to pitch for you in 2016 but you’d essentially have a full year of exclusivity to work out a contract. There’s value in that, and along with Zack Cozart, Jay Bruce and Todd Frazier apparently being available, the Reds can jumpstart their rebuild in a hurry this winter.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Losing Greinke to the Arizona Diamondbacks was a body blow and it is widely expected that their reaction will be to overpay for Johnny Cueto or somebody like Mike Leake, or perhaps adding Chapman to go with Kenley Jansen and go all Kansas City Royals-nuclear at the back end of the bullpen. General manager Andrew Friedman would have looked a lot smarter going all in on Cole Hamels at the trade deadline.
New York Mets
Free-agent Ben Zobrist would be the perfect fit for them on many levels. They need offence and can’t afford to rest on their success of 2015 in a division that includes the Washington Nationals.
St. Louis Cardinals
They thought they had Price; he thought he’d be going there. With John Lackey gone, the Cardinals are looking for a veteran capable of giving them 200 innings. R.A. Dickey would look good here, no? Re-signing Heyward would seem like a no-brainer.
Washington Nationals
Closer Jonathan Papelbon seems untradeable, but my guess is new manager Dusty Baker will settle down this clubhouse. Zobrist would be a huge asset, both for what he brings on the field and his stabilizing influence off it.
BLUE JAYS WEEK THAT WAS
Some observations after another week to try the soul …
I don’t know if former GM Alex Anthopoulos would have given Price a contract offer matching that of the Red Sox’s – or, more importantly, been able to get ownership to sign off on it – but I can corroborate that the topic of Price signing with the Jays before hitting the market was broached some time around the Blue Jays’ road trip to Anaheim in August. There was no exchange of parameters by either the Blue Jays or Price’s agent, Bo McKinnis, but the door for further talks was very much open. I’m led to believe that even back-channel discussions stopped at the end of the month, around about the time that Mark Shapiro was named president and CEO of the team.
I’m willing to give Shapiro and GM Ross Atkins all the time they need, but somebody really needs to whisper in their ears that name-dropping John Farrell, whatever they may think of the work he did for them in Cleveland and whatever they think of him personally, doesn’t endear them to anybody in this city. On the flip side, hearing Atkins mention Marco Scutaro as an influence earns a massive thumbs up from me.
It was interesting to hear Atkins talk about the importance of being in position to be a “sustainable winner,” but I wonder how close or far away he thinks this organization is from being in that position – or, if in fact it’s already there. That’s the nut of this whole thing, isn’t it?
Hearing Atkins and Shapiro talking about “complementary” pieces doesn’t exactly scream blind ambition, does it? My guess is unless there’s a deal in the works that will see one part of Toronto’s aging core dealt away for a younger (read: cost-effective) pitcher or player ready to help at the major league level, this is pretty much the team the Blue Jays will take with them to spring training. When Atkins spoke about the “15 players” the Blue Jays needed to make last year’s moves, I was left with the idea that replenishing the farm system is going to be a priority effective immediately.
As for the new prohibitive favourites in the AL East? Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez made an interesting observation to the Boston Herald’s Scott Lauber this weekend about the impact Price would have on Rick Porcello and maybe even Clay Buchholz: he will give them some space to breathe. You can probably add the Red Sox’s enviable core of young position players to that mix, too.
QUIBBLES AND BITS
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith will retain his award as the least-sexy signal-caller in the NFL. The Chiefs continued their surge to the post-season Sunday with a win over the Oakland Raiders, with Meh-thod Man Smith going 16-for-22 with no interceptions. Smith is the third QB in NFL history top attempt 300-plus throws in a row without a pick, joining Tom Brady (358) and Bernie Kosar (308).
Kyle Lowry’s four steals against the Golden State Warriors on Saturday extended his streak of games with at least one steal to a career-high 24, going back to April 11, 2015. It’s the longest streak by a Raptors player since Sportsnet analyst Alvin Williams had a steal in 32 consecutive games from Feb. 21 to Nov. 2, 2001. The only other Raptors player with 50-plus steals after 20 games is Doug Christie, who had 52 in 1998. The NBA record is 108 games, set by Chris Paul ending on Christmas Day, 2008.
There will be deals made at the winter meetings this week and there are still free agents available, but there will not be a deal that alters a division the way that the Arizona Diamondbacks’ signing of Greinke turned the National League West upside down. Not only does it makes the Diamondbacks better, it stole a key piece away from the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants and might be a body blow in particular to L.A. Much like the Red Sox, the Diamondbacks have a base of cost-effective performers such as Paul Goldschmidt, A.J. Pollock, Patrick Corbin and David Peralta, who will earn something in the neighborhood of $13 million. That’s huge for a team that has budgeted for a $100-million payroll, even with Greinke.
THE ENDGAME
Heard Don Cherry going off about how it’s silly to see superstar players fighting, but – I don’t know – that was kind of the way it used to be back in the day, no? Every team had tough guys, but before Wayne Gretzky came along many stars wouldn’t think twice about dropping the gloves. I mean, until fighting is eradicated from the game – and that time is coming, folks – it seems to me that a fight between two really good players as a natural outgrowth of competitiveness or a hit or from the run of play is a lot more organic and legitimate than a fight between two fourth-liners of no measurable talent.
