I hate the qualifying offer, because it dampens the market for perfectly good players, and forces teams to choose between the near and long term, instead of trying to improve both at the same time…. Read more »
Free Agency
Jacoby Ellsbury and Robinson Cano are going to get the headlines. Treachery, real or imagined, wears well on a tabloid cover. The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees brought back some key players last… Read more »
A well-loved son of the Second City, Curtis Granderson chose something that felt like home over actually coming home. He signed a four-year deal with the New York Mets Friday, one that will pay him… Read more »
The Seattle Mariners agreed to a 10-year, $240-million contract with free-agent second baseman Robinson Cano Friday, opting for an exclamation point, not a period, at the end of baseball’s most frantic week of off-season activity in… Read more »
The second half of this week hasn’t lived up to the hype of Super Tuesday, but has still seen a number of moves, including a run of reliever contracts I’ll break down here. They include:… Read more »
Two of the lesser moves of baseball’s Super Tuesday involved left-handed hitters nearing the end of their careers finding new homes, and although neither deal has been terribly well-received by Baseball Twitter, I rather like… Read more »
No team fueled the madness that was Monday and Tuesday in the baseball world quite like the Oakland Athletics. Their general manager, Billy Beane, is arguably the game’s most aggressive, and with a roster in need… Read more »
Jarrod Saltalamacchia probably cost himself $30 million during the month of October. On a national stage, with the opportunity to make a statement about his potential to be an effective, even star-level catcher just as… Read more »
Seven years never means seven years. Any cursory reading of the Bible will tell you that. Seven is an allusion, a symbol, not a number on the same plane as, for instance, six or eight…. Read more »
Ricky Nolasco is a California native, pitched all but the last dozen starts of his big-league career in Miami and has a surname that sounds like it should triangulate a Manhattan neighborhood. As of Wednesday… Read more »
Carlos Beltran has always been a darling to saber-slanted baseball nuts like me. He’s a tremendous slugger, has consistently posted above-average OBPs, played great defense in center field at his peak and is one of… Read more »
They used to call a coffin a Chicago overcoat. It might be time to call an off-season spending spree a New York Yankees rebuild. The Yankees kicked off what they hope will be a big offseason… Read more »
As a thought experiment, consider a world in which ballclubs get a choice. Every November, they receive a three-option menu. They can take $10 million from a central fund, to spend as they please. They… Read more »
Free-agent outfielder David Murphy is dead. Cleveland Indians outfielder David Murphy has taken his place. Murphy signed a two-year, $12-million contract with the Indians Tuesday, adding another solid, left-hitting outfielder to a team that never,… Read more »
On the eve of the 2013 season, Joe Sheehan drew a lot of snark for his prediction that the San Diego Padres would win the National League West. That division was home to the defending champion… Read more »
Baseball’s Hot Stove activity tends to come in fits and starts. Roster deadlines, various meetings and the winter holidays punctuate the offseason in such a way that news tends to come, not in drips, but… Read more »
The best free agent in baseball this winter is neither a first baseman nor a starting pitcher. That’s becoming a rare phenomenon. Robinson Cano, heretofore a New York Yankee, and the best second baseman in… Read more »
Curtis Granderson received a qualifying offer (a one-year deal worth $14.1 million) from the New York Yankees Monday, ensuring that New York will receive a draft pick after the first round of the 2014 MLB… Read more »
