12 Days of What Now, Chilly State of the Market, More on Sasaki, and Other Cubs Bullets

Dec 12, 2023

Heads up if you’re doing your Christmas/holiday shopping right now – Fanatics has a site-wide sale today, up to 50% off here. So go over, peruse, pick up some gifts. #ad

I keep waiting for the announcement of the Dodgers acquiring Tyler Glasnow to drop. It just feels like that’s the next item in a very tough couple weeks for certain hopes. We’ll see. Glasnow remains a very good fit for the Cubs, but the same is quite clearly true for the Dodgers, and the latest buzz there kinda had the feel of something that may happen. Who knows.

Setting that deal aside, I wonder what the next big shoe is to drop in the market. We know why certain things were held up by Shohei Ohtani’s process, but is the same going to be true for Yoshinobu Yamamoto? It’s not hard to see why they might be, as discussed this morning. Now consider the fact that we were ALREADY expecting Cody Bellinger’s free agency to drag into next year – as with many Scott Boras clients, and he’s pretty much got all of the remaining best ones – and suddenly you can start to see a situation where a serious waiting game kicks in across many tiers of free agency. Historically, most free agent deals are done before Christmas (80-85% or so?), but without a rapid-fire wave of deals over the next 12 days, that isn’t going to happen this year. Hey, 12 days of deals! Can they do that? And can the Cubs get some golden rings and not geese laying eggs?

In all seriousness, I’ll keep saying it (to myself, if no one else) until it is no longer true: so many quality free agents and trade targets are still on the market. The Cubs CAN have a perfectly good offseason from here, and even if it’s just kinda not as much fun for some of us when it stretches out well into January and even February, this might be a year when patience is disproportionately necessary and valuable to maximize the value of your offseason.

This is a great thread on 22-year-old ace Roki Sasaki, who may or may not have asked to be posted, who may or may not have the right to demand to be posted, and who could possibly be coming over to MLB after this coming season:

There appears to be a real possibility that 22-year-old phenom Roki Sasaki is posted next year.

If that’s the case, Sasaki would initially miss out on hundreds of millions…but every single MLB team would be financially capable of signing him.

A repeat of Ohtani 2017 🧵 pic.twitter.com/wRZ1aXRAWQ— Yakyu Cosmopolitan (@yakyucosmo) December 11, 2023

Because the International Free Agent rules are attached to all foreign players who come over before they turn 25, Roki Sasaki could be signed only out of a team’s bonus pool money if he were posted after next season (like Shohei Ohtani back in 2017). And because most of that IFA bonus pool money for most teams is spoken for years in advance, it’s possible a number of teams would have almost nothing available to offer him unless they reneged on under-the-table agreements with players and handlers – a risky, risky thing to do, which can burn you for years to come. Some teams could have a few million to offer as a signing bonus. Some teams might have much less.

But, again, as Yakyu notes, Sasaki wouldn’t be doing it for the immediate payout, since he could just wait two more years after that and sign for $300+ million if he stays healthy. He’d be doing it, as Ohtani did, because he wants to get to MLB as soon as possible. Obviously the decision paid waaaay off for Ohtani, both in a competitive sense and a financial one, and it might well pay off for Sasaki, too. Stay tuned on this, because, yes, the Cubs would be involved. But so would 29 other teams.

Another great Home Run Derby video:

Acuña takes down Puig in the final round to win the Venezuelan Home Run Derby! pic.twitter.com/jvjtcf1FTu
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) December 12, 2023

I can’t deny that this will probably be incredibly cool:

MLB announces that ESPN will broadcast the Dodgers-Padres games on March 20-21 in Seoul, Korea.
This will be Shohei Ohtani’s first games in a Dodgers’ uniform.
Should be quite the scene.— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) December 11, 2023

This is humorous:

2024 salaries:
Ken Griffey Jr., $3.6 million
Shohei Ohtani, $2 million pic.twitter.com/mgXvW8Dz7z
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) December 12, 2023

This is also humorous:

$5 from every shirt sold will be deferred to a local charity TBD.

Link: https://t.co/ZrznadL1Y8 pic.twitter.com/NEIkTcRRe4
— OBVIOUS SHIRTS® (@obvious_shirts) December 12, 2023

This is just factual, and simply interesting to me:

In 2044, the Los Angeles Dodgers will pay a 50-year-old Shohei Ohtani $68 million.
— Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) December 11, 2023

But how much do you want to bet that the Dodgers’ current owners will have sold the team for $8 billion by then?

written by

Brett Taylor

Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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12 Days of What Now, Chilly State of the Market, More on Sasaki, and Other Cubs Bullets

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