NEWSLETTER
There’s been all kinds of additional Kris Bryant smoke/news today, particularly with respect to the Nationals (among a few other teams), and Jon Morosi has a notable bit on the timeline.
Sources: Kris Bryant is unlikely to be traded before Wednesday’s 8 pm ET deadline to tender contracts, but his marketplace is likely to become clearer after that. More activity is expected across @MLB industry beginning Thursday. @MLBNetwork
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) November 30, 2020
We will remain on relatively high-alert, particularly because Bryant isn’t the only Cub on the trade block, but with word in place that the Cubs plan to tender Bryant on Wednesday, it’s less urgent to put a deal together ASAP. The Cubs are telling the world that they don’t *have* to trade Bryant in the next few days, and *can* fit him into the 2021 budget if it comes to that. (Thank goodness.)
Mets Prefer Free Agency
Jon Heyman listed the Mets, Giants, and Blue Jays alongside the Nationals as teams potentially interested in trading for Kris Bryant, and each makes plenty of sense, if not for financial reasons alone – indeed, the Mets, Giants, and Blue Jays are the three teams most expected to spend this winter, and the Nationals have that big void at third base and a quickly closing window with their rotation.
But as it relates to the Mets and any potential deal for Bryant (or Francisco Lindor or Nolan Arenado, for that matter), team president Sandy Alderson is trying to pump the brakes:
“We expect to be somewhat active in the free agent market as opposed to the trade market. We don’t want to give up our young guys,” Alderson said, noting that the Mets plan to “recommit to our farm system and try to stay away from…our really prospects in significant trades.”
“There are only two currencies in baseball: players and money,” Alderson said. “Right now, especially in the upper levels of our system, we don’t have the players. We have some money at this point. So, we’re going to sort of balance those two things.”
We’ve heard this song and dance before, so take it however you will, but I suspect this is largely about preserving flexibility. The Mets would love to trade for (and probably try to extend) Lindor or Bryant, no matter what they say. Maybe even moreso Bryant, for whom much of the acquisition is paying the salary.
James McCann’s Market
James McCann has been pretty fantastic for the White Sox over the last two years (116 wRC+, 25 HRs, 2019 All-Star, 2020 Gold Glove finalist), but he’s on the market alongside the current “best catcher” in baseball, J.T. Realmuto, and the former “best catcher” in baseball, Yadier Molina. So with that in mind, you might expect him to sign somewhere after Realmuto comes off the board.
Here’s his market:
James McCann has received interest from the Yanks, Mets, Cardinals and Angels in addition to the White Sox. Phillies also believed interested if they lose Realmuto. McCann is coming into his own with a 144 OPS plus last year. White Sox like him, but realistically, he’s a starter.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) November 30, 2020
As you can imagine, there are a LOT of intertwined webs here, but I don’t think we need to get out the red string. In all likelihood, Yadi is going to return to St. Louis to finish out his career, taking one catcher and one team off the board.
THEN, Realmuto will pick between the Yankees, Mets, Angels, and Phillies (and probably one dark horse team, because #offseason). After that, the remaining teams will be left with a decision: Sign McCann and hope his late career offensive explosion is real enough to earn a starter’s share of the innings behind the plate, hit the trade market and pay a *premium* for a star-level catcher like Willson Contreras (if he’s available), or ride with whatever you got. I don’t think anyone will pony up what it’ll take to get Contreras and his two years of remaining team control (now with pitch-framing!), so don’t stress, but there will likely be rumors, and I think that’s how it’ll play out.
Yu Darvish Trade Mention
Since you already hate me for bringing up Kris Bryant *and* Willson Contreras trade possibilities in one post, I might as well burn every remaining bridge. Although this isn’t quite a rumor, Thomas Harrigan (MLB.com) calls Yu Darvish a “potential trade candidate,” which is not a wholly novel suggestion to us.
It’s probably not worth getting as far into it right now as we could, but suffice it to say, there is a legitimate (and self-evident) argument to trading a 34-year-old starter, when that 34-year-old starter is at something close to peak value, while also being owed $60 million over the next three years, when one of those years (2021) could be a planned competitive break. There’s also the small fact that this market is starved for top-end starters. Like it or not (I don’t!), this arguably is a pretty good time to trade Darvish *IF THE CUBS GO THIS ROUTE.* And Jed Hoyer has said the Cubs have to try to be opportunistic when looking at the long-term right now.
Again, it’s more nuanced than that, but I had to bring it up.
KBO Slugger Sung-bum Na
Ha-Seong Kim isn’t the only Korean baseball player heading to the states this offseason. Scott Boras client and slugger Sung-Bum Na, 31, will soon be posted and made available to all 30 teams in MLB:
Na appeared in 130 of 144 games this year, and batted .324/.390/.596 with a career-high 34 home runs and 112 RBIs. It was a nice bounceback season after Na missed most of 2019 with a knee injury. He split his time at right field and designated hitter in 2020.
If Na had stayed healthy in 2019, he would have completed his seventh full season and become eligible for posting. Instead, he only played in 23 games — a player must be on the active roster for 145 days to qualify for a full season — and had to wait another season to be posted.
A 10th overall pick out of college in the 2012 draft, Na has a lifetime .317 batting average in 937 games, along with 179 home runs and 729 RBIs.
It’s a shame he was hurt in 2019, because being posted before last season, when he was a year younger and the market was more financially stable, but he responded with a monster year at the plate and any team looking for an affordable DH could probably make use of him.
Andrew Benintendi
Although the Red Sox weren’t one of the rumored teams in on Kris Bryant according to Jon Heyman, they were connected to the Cubs third baseman by Mark Gonzales late last week, who revealed that these teams discussed such a deal over the summer, as well.
And since we’ve sort of laid out this “post-hype” player concept as a theoretically fair and attractive return for Bryant, I thought this article about Andrew Benintendi’s diminishing trade value was fairly interesting. And as it turns out, a lot of people see this former top prospect’s value at an all-time low:
“I think his trade value is pretty limited at this point,” said one evaluator. “[A] willingness [by the Red Sox] to sell at this low point of value would suggest that the people who know him the best don’t see a dead cat bounce coming, which would give me a lot of pause, because every metric is pointing down.
“He’s young enough that it seems unlikely that he should be toast as a player, but I wouldn’t want to bet heavily that he’s going to turn into a good player again.
Remember, the Cubs front office reportedly loved Benintendi in the 2015 MLB Draft (taken two spots before Ian Happ), and he is the model of post-hype players who could use a change-of-scenery. Unfortunately, while he’s still quite young (26) he also comes with just two more years of team control. Obviously, the hope would be to catch lightening in a bottle and keep him long-term, but that does raise the stakes (by shortening the window for success) a little bit.
But again, we’re talking about a mid-20s, former No. 1 prospect (BA – 2017), who was a 4.4 WAR player with 16 homers, 21 stolen bases, and a 122 wRC+ in 2018. And it isn’t like this conversation HAS to be about Kris Bryant. Maybe the Cubs could just see about targeting Benintendi as a separate matter?
Get a bounce back in that strikeout rate to where he was a couple years ago, and that’s a mighty compelling addition for this Cubs lineup, eh?
Victor Robles
Speaking of post-hype types who could be available … someone give me a Victor Robles, please. And if were aren’t clear on his “post-hype” status, just check out this paragraph from NBC Sports Washington:
Robles was one of the worst regulars in Major League Baseball in 2020. That’s a sentence no one expected to type or read, yet it’s true. Among the 142 players to qualify for leaderboards, Robles was 139th by fWAR. He couldn’t hit and his fielding took a bizarre negative turn. Robles showed up at Nationals Park bulkier than past years and lost at the plate. Neither served him well.
But about that “available” part … NBC believes “he won’t be traded” after just one terrible year. Then again, they seem to imply the same thing for Carter Kieboom, largely because they believe it can’t possibly get worse. Well, guess what? It can! Just sayin’!
I always figured Robles had more trade value than Kieboom, given his prior success at the big league level, but the Nationals are pretty clearly in need of a third baseman like Bryant *this* season. And since trading Bryant for Starlin Castro is literally laughable, they’ll have to get serious about a return if they actually want something to get done.
Another Deal for the Royals
First, the Royals sign my guy, Mike Minor, and now they’ve added Michael Taylor:
Major league deal. One year, $1.75m. And $1m in incentives. https://t.co/GXTjUHPa70
— Tim Brown (@TBrownYahoo) November 30, 2020
I wonder if the Royals have officially spent (net) more on free agents this offseason than the Cubs have over the last three offseasons combined (including this one). I think the answer is going to be yes, pending how much Minor gets.
Brett Taylor contributed to this post.
