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Surprise! We’re doing a newsletter every day this week during the Winter Meetings. We don’t have any good “mystery team” intrigue, but how do we feel about a “mystery location” for an MLB GM? Plus notes on Soto, Mookie Betts’ position change and contenders that aren’t spending like contenders. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to the Windup!
Where was Blue Jays’ GM Ross Atkins?
Ross Atkins, GM of mystery. Kinda. (Kevin Sousa / USA Today)Look, am I going to make too big a deal of this? Absolutely. I’m admitting that up front. But yesterday, while the rest of the baseball world meandered around the Opryland Temple of Southern Excess, Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins held his meeting with Jays reporters via Zoom.
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Asked where he was, Atkins opted to deflect. Here’s the money paragraph from Kaitlyn McGrath’s story:
“Due to scheduling conflicts, I was able to be on this call, which I am grateful for your adjustment to be here with me today. I wanted to make sure that I was with you and Zoom permitted that to happen,” Atkins said while sitting in front of a nondescript white wall that offered no clues to his whereabouts.
A baseball GM being elsewhere during the Winter Meetings is enough to create a bit of intrigue. But refusing to say where he is? Now that is interesting, especially given the level of secrecy surrounding the Shohei Ohtani free agency proceedings. Factor in the reports that the Blue Jays are one of the teams still in the running, and now we have a full-on Winter Meetings Christmas Mystery on our hands.
Kudos to Atkins for not just straight-up lying about it, though. He could have said he was ill, or that a family member had turned into a bug like that one Kafka story and he needed to stick around to find a bug vet. Instead, he chose to be — well, not forthcoming, exactly, but at least he wasn’t dishonest. He threw us all a bone, and now it’s time to gnarl on that thing until someone figures ou–
Ah, right. Ken reported late last night that the Blue Jays met with Ohtani at the team’s spring training complex in Florida on Monday. Well, that was fun while it lasted. Let’s see what else Ken has for us …
Ken’s Notebook: Why Padres are driving a hard bargain
From my column last night on the talks between the Yankees and Padres on Juan Soto:
Anyone want to consider the Padres’ side of this? Or are we just going to accept the Yankees’ well-publicized position, that the Padres’ demands for Juan Soto are outrageous and unreasonable and every other negative adjective that comes to mind?
The determination of whether a trade package is “reasonable” is in the eye of the beholder. The current impasse between the Yankees and Padres is standard for a negotiation of this magnitude. But while the Yankees’ argument continues to receive traction in the media, the Padres’ case at least merits consideration.
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Essentially, that case is this: Soto, 25, is on a Hall of Fame track. He will be extremely motivated in his walk year while targeting a $500 million contract in free agency. Thus, he represents less of a risk than, say, free-agent outfielder Cody Bellinger, whom MLBTradeRumors.com projects will receive a 12-year, $264 million deal.
The Yankees and other interested clubs, naturally, have their own view. They know their chances of signing Soto to an extension, as the Dodgers did with Mookie Betts after acquiring him, are extremely slim. Soto is represented by Scott Boras, who generally prefers his clients to establish their values on the open market. Soto also turned down a 15-year, $440 million offer from the Nationals, which is what prompted his trade to the Padres in the first place.
Still, whatever happened to the notion that no one-year deal is a bad deal? Two free-agent right-handers who are not exactly world beaters, Luis Severino and Kyle Gibson, signed contracts for $13 million and $12 million, respectively.
Granted, Soto’s projection in his final year of arbitration is $33 million. But the team that acquires him will be getting a hitter with a career .946 OPS, the third highest among active players with a minimum of 3,000 plate appearances, behind Mike Trout and Aaron Judge. Given all that Soto has at stake with his pending free agency, he’s certainly a reasonable bet to succeed.
Mookie Betts, full-time second baseman
Mookie Betts has a new(ish) position. (Dale Zanine / USA Today)When Mookie Betts began playing second base for the Dodgers in 2023, it wasn’t the first time he’d played the position. It was a novelty, sure, but he’d played 15 games at second base from 2014-2018 with the Red Sox and another 15 from 2020-2022 with the Dodgers.
Last year, however, Betts played 70 games at the position (and another 16 at shortstop), allowing the team to play their other four outfielders (one at DH) to bolster their lineup.
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News broke yesterday that the Dodgers are planning to move Betts to second base full-time in 2024. The decision was made now for a few reasons:
• They need a second baseman. Miguel Vargas hit just .195 in 81 games at the position last year, and a mid-season trade for Ahmed Rosario helped a bit, but he hit just .256 with a .709 OPS and is now a free agent.
• It allows the Dodgers more flexibility — or as manager Dave Roberts put it on Monday, “optionability” — when constructing their roster this winter. It’s a little easier to find a good outfield bat than a solid everyday second baseman, and there are more free-agent options available.
• It gives them more flexibility if they want to make a trade, too — as Fabian Ardaya says in the linked story, the Dodgers could now conceivably include Vargas (who is still just 24) and Michael Busch (26), should they wish to acquire a starting pitcher to help bolster a rotation that was beset by injuries last year.
More Dodgers: Former Rays, Pirates and Twins pitcher Chris Archer has been hired as a special assistant in Los Angeles.
Mariners, Guardians aren’t spending
We touched on this in yesterday’s Windup, but until we know which moves are coming next for the Mariners, Sunday night’s trade involving Seattle and Atlanta still feels a lot like dismantling a machine that was only one or two parts away from humming. Parting with Jarred Kelenic (who is still just 24) and Eugenio Suárez — along with the free agency of Teoscar Hernández — are significant subtractions from a lineup that only barely missed a repeat trip to the playoffs, despite finishing 12th in the league in runs scored.
As Ken reports here, the team is checking in on possible acquisitions — Randy Arozarena and Isaac Paredes of the Rays are named, specifically — but it sure does feel like a situation in which they could have used those guys in addition to, not in place of, the players they’ve dealt away.
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For a team that finished 10th in attendance last season, while paying around the 18th-highest payroll in the sport (the official numbers aren’t known yet), it doesn’t appear to be a lack of funding, just a lack of willingness by ownership to spend. For now, we’ll wait and see.
Similarly, in Cleveland, the Guardians at least have an excuse: the uncertainty surrounding their TV rights deal with Bally Sports has left them unsure exactly how much money they will be bringing in next year.
The Guardians had baseball’s fourth-rated farm system before last season, according to MLB’s official site. That dropped to 15th by mid-season, thanks to the promotions of players such as Tanner Bibee and Logan Allen (this one, not this one).
In an AL Central that has perpetually been eminently winnable, it’s a shame that a team with such a good pitching staff will likely have to trade from that strength to bolster their lineup, rather than spend some free-agent dollars. After all, their payroll last year was only around $89 million — 25th-highest in the league. As Zack Meisel reports, it’s expected to be around the same this year.
Handshakes and High Fives
For up-to-the-minute information on all the goings-on here in Nashville during the Winter Meetings, here’s our live tracker.
Jim Leyland was voted into the Hall of Fame on Sunday night, but one other manager fell one vote short (yet again) — Lou Piniella. As Tyler Kepner reports, Piniella belongs there eventually.
Ohtani to the Braves? Why not? No really, Dave O’Brien tells us why not (but also includes the “for” argument). OK, how about the Giants, then? The Cubs?
Any time you get “… and hoping for the best” in a headline, it is a good indication that what will follow is not, in fact, going to be the best. Anyway, the Angels are committed to Anthony Rendon in a full-time role next year.
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Astros GM Dana Brown said yesterday that the team has no intention of trading Alex Bregman. Chandler Rome looks at what could be next.
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(Top photo: Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)
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