NEWSLETTER
The MLB offseason has always been much hotter after Thanksgiving. Everyone knows and accepts this. But *TYPICALLY* the period after Qualifying Offers are sorted, but before Thanksgiving, is good for at least a few notable trades or signings. By this time last year, we’d already seen Rafael Montero, Robert Suarez, Edwin Diaz, and Anthony Rizzo sign, among others. There had also already been a number of trades, too, including guys like Teoscar Hernández, Jake Odorizzi, Giovanny Urshela, and the one and only Miles Mastrobuoni.
This year, there has been NOTHING. I mean NOTHING. The biggest move is probably last evening’s trade that sent Abraham Toro from the Brewers to the A’s for depth arm Chad Patrick. You may vaguely recognize Toro’s name from his many previous trades, but he spent just about all of 2023 at Triple-A being serviceable. That’s, uh, not a major move.
So what’s the deal? Why nothing happening so far this year?
A few thoughts on why it might be …
The Earlier Non-Tender Date
Tomorrow is the deadline to tender players under team control a contract for 2024 (aka, the non-tender deadline). That means, a whole bunch of additional players could become free agents tomorrow, which might impact the way teams proceed in the offseason. In years past, the deadline was December 2, so you would see some earlier offseason moves – teams weren’t going to wait around a month to do anything. But waiting an extra few days? Maybe that’s doable.
A Particularly Thin Free Agent Class
On the positional side anyway. If you’ve got a class this thin on the positional side, you probably have teams (and players) being all the more choosey, and also teams doing a lot more trade-talkin’. Since trades can be more challenging to pull off, maybe it’s just taking longer to hammer things out.
Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto
Individual free agents don’t ENTIRELY hold up an offseason on their own, but these two guys are such extreme outliers that the teams that want them most might be putting everything else on hold until they get a gauge on whether they have a chance. That doesn’t mean the whole offseason is held up until they both sign, but maybe a big chunk is held up – waterfall effects and such – until a number of teams know they are out.
Hopefully we get a little something cooking over the next week. I just want some moves to discuss, Cubs or otherwise.
