2017-2018 Hot Stove

freddy galvis to san diego for a double-a pitcher

Sources: phillies agree to deal with Carlos Santana

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 15, 2017

so i guess that makes rhys hoskins an outfielder?

zack cozart to the angels

looks like the Angels are all in, immediately

if only they could bring themselves to dfa prince albert

that would help

@JeffPassan
The consensus on Carlos Santana's $60M deal with the Phillies: It bodes awfully well for free agent hitters. Santana is four years older than Eric Hosmer. A seven-year, $175M ask no longer seems beyond the pale. Good news for Logan Morrison and other available first basemen, too.

i don't follow this logic. i'd much rather have three years of santana at $20m/year than seven years of hosmer at $25m/year, no matter what the age difference is

hosmer was at or below (fangraphs) replacement level in two of his last four seasons ffs. steamer has him at 2.6 WAR next season, meaning he *might* almost be worth $25m in the first year of his contract, god forbid we talk about the other six. (steamer has santana at 3.1 in 2018 fwiw)

Yankees and pirates are continuing to talk about Gerrit Cole. Clint Frazier would likely be part of package, if it happens.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 15, 2017

oh good

I like that deal for Santana for the Phillies. He's a fairly durable and consistent player. I was thinking the only drag might be that he was the DH quite a bit with Cleveland but he played 140 games at first last year.

Signing Cozart to play third seems kinda weird, but the Angels should have pretty good infield defense

Matt Kemp to the Dodgers for Adrian Gonzalez, Scott Kazmir, Brandon McCarthy, and Charlie Culberson!

desperate for that valuable Kemp-sized -1.3 WAR.

on top of that,

Sources: Kemp unlikely to play for #Dodgers. Strong candidate to be traded or released.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 16, 2017

weird

I don't understand anything about this game beyond what actually happens on the field.

idgi. dodgers save a tiny bit of money but some of those guys might conceivably have been useful next year

40 man maybe

also CC back to the yanks pending a lol physical

matt moore to the rangers, who i guess really want to throw nothing but lefties against the astros and angels next year

it's all likely about the luxury tax, according to mlbtraderumors

however, idgi either tbh

This has to be one of the strangest trades ever, even if it is a luxury tax thing. There wasn't a single other MLB team willing to take on any of those players in exchange for a minor prospect and some salary relief?

If the Jays are hell-bent on acquiring a washed-up outfielder in his early '30s, I think I'd rather have Kemp than Carlos Gonzalez.

Cargo can play his position, at least. Kemp’s defense is so bad that he has to be an outstanding hitter to make up for it, and he’s been merely slightly above average for a while now

I look at those typically awful home-road splits for Gonzalez, though, and I think I'd rather stick the non-fielder in left and hope for the best. It's not much of a choice.

Atlanta is going to get rid of Adrian Gonzalez. I wonder if he is done or could bounce back if healthy etc.

i'm sure someone will take a flyer on him when he's dfa'd

hope it's the red sox

I was thinking the Tribe might be an interesting destination for Adrian Gonzales.

Gallardo back to the Brewers was unexpected

Sullivan on Kemp trade

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/dodgers-trade-debt-to-braves-in-exchange-for-debt/

xp maybe he was real cheap and they figured they could get him back to halfway decent form? worked for Jeffress, I guess. glad to see him back but *looks at stats from last two years*...yikes

Is Mitch Moreland worth $13 million for two years? Karl Malone can break that down by WAR--he seems eminently replaceable to me for a lot less money than that.

he's a league-average hitter and reasonably good fielder -- totally worth it for that kind of money, if he stays healthy

also it would suggest that they're out on hosmer, which is probably a good thing in itself

With Red Sox cash, they can afford to take Moreland around as just a bench player for another year, which he would be handy if expensive.

Not sure how much a market is Hosmer really going to have? Most of the money teams already got a guy at first.

i don't know, he's league-average hitter when you compare him to all position players, but he's below average when you just look at first basemen (25th out of 28 qualifying 1B last year by wRC+)

i do think it makes sense to consider the amount of WAR/$ when evaluating contracts, but it's not everything. theoretically you could create an entire team full of players that are a relative bargain, but if they're all 2.0 WAR players it won't be enough to make the playoffs, even if each of them is playing at league minimum. i definitely don't want hosmer on the cardinals and think some team is going to get screwed, but maybe he makes a little more sense for a team like the red sox that can afford to overpay? he probably won't come close to "earning" his contract, but he's probably also a good bet to outperform mitch moreland, right? i don't know

I was also thinking he was less than league-average when you consider position and park. (And a 1.0 oWAR means a game above replacement level, no? Which must be below league-average.) Throw in his age, and that seems like a very generous contract.

But, as pointed out above, the Red Sox can throw as much money around as they want.

I figure the Red Sox are mostly signing Moreland to start around 100 games and then try other things at first. If the RedSox could get Todd Frazier to play supersub, that would be a decent player to make up a platoon at first and would be handy to user elsewhere.

I think the big thing is I doubt Boston will put any other big long deals out probably leaving open to get in the sweepstakes next free agent year.

Jose Abreu is still out there and if the Red Sox don't get him now, they could always pick him up later. White Sox will probably try to move him at some point, earlier the better I would figure.

So did they buy well? Smyly is money team gamble considering he probably won't pitch this year.
The rest of these guys I really don't know.

12/7/17 Chicago Cubs signed free agent RHP Tyler Chatwood.
12/12/17 Chicago Cubs signed free agent RHP Brandon Morrow.
12/12/17 Chicago Cubs signed free agent LHP Drew Smyly.
12/16/17 Chicago Cubs signed free agent RHP Steve Ciscek

morrow and ciscek seem like good moves. i don't know much about chatwood

Cubs might be hoping for an mini-Arrieta situation there, his WAR numbers are good and his home/road splits indicate a guy whose overall line has been misleading.

chatwood has promise, away from coors. he also has command issues

smyly won't be pitching for another year bc he just had tommy john, so he's an investment at this point. i'm not sure about chatwood, but he can't really be much worse than john lackey was this past season. morrow and cishek make sense because the bullpen was weak last year too. i'm really hoping they're still working on landing another starting pitcher bc the back-up plan is mike montgomery, who is fine, but not an ideal replacement for arrieta. i thought they were working on getting alex cobb but when i checked in on that yesterday i saw stories saying that his price had escalated and so the cubs might as well work on getting darvish instead.

Not a trade or a signing, but a nice story:

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/21808118/cole-hamels-texas-rangers-wife-heidi-donate-94-million-mansion-charity

Reds don't look like they got much going on, really their roster is mostly set. I kinda think they need to get another starter one that you know you are going to get 30 starts out of, but those cost more than they can afford.

Looking at the rumors, I figure this talk of signing Craig Stammen out of the Padres bullpen seems kinda likely. Stammen has the injury discount, I'd figure he wants 2 years or more even at 33. The guy is from outside of Dayton and the Reds got a history of getting guys from the general area, so it seems like the kinda guy they might want. If he is as good as last year, could be handy and make their bullpen a bit deeper but we are not talking a brash bros. type signing here.

I got to think the Reds would be ok with dealing Billy Hamilton. He seems to be the player getting the trade rumors. Jessie Winker seems ready to hit in the bigs, thing is that he is really more of a left fielder type. I'm guessing if they do deal Hamilton, the idea will be to use Scott Schebler and rookie Phil Ervin in a mix. Ervin is a true CF, Schebler plays one on TV.

BREAKING: #Rays have traded Longoria to #Giants

— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) December 20, 2017

rays get denard span (which i guess keeps the giants under the luxury tax), top sf prospect christian arroyo, two low-level prospects

longoria is great, but he's also 32, coming off his worst season, and owed $81m over the next five seasons. and i don't think the giants really needed to get older

slippery rock legend matt adams to the nats

Not too many chances to see a true franchise player--i.e., the franchise's best player ever--traded.

@DCameronFG

Matt Adams got 1/$4M to be a backup. Eric Hosmer is probably getting $100M+. So I’ll just share these career numbers and walk away.

what're the odds?

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-mets-shouldnt-blow-this-opportunity/

sandy alderson extended btw