MLBTR Originals

Here’s the roundup of all the original content from the MLBTR writing team through the holiday season…

• The offseason’s biggest news continues to be the relative lack of news on the free agent front, with most of the top names on the open market still looking for new teams as we head into 2018.  Back on December 19, Jeff Todd noted that only 17 of the names on MLBTR’s Top 50 Free Agents list had signed new contracts.  Since that date, only three additional players (Wade Davis, Yonder Alonso, Jhoulys Chacin) have signed, with Davis being the only member of the top 10 to find a new deal.
• Two of the remaining notables were subjects of the “Free Agent Profile” series, with Kyle Downing profiling Logan Morrison and Tim Dierkes looking at Lance Lynn’s market.
• Lynn is one of a large number of free agent pitchers who have undergone at least one Tommy John surgery, so Tim’s list of the 20 biggest contracts signed by TJ patients will certainly look quite different after this offseason is complete.
• The Phillies’ surprise signing of Carlos Santana inspired Tim to look at five recent instances of a seeming non-contender making a big free agent splash.
• In the latest edition of Free Agent Faceoff, Steve Adams asked the MLBTR readership whether they would rather sign Yu Darvish or Jake Arrieta.  60.23% of readers polled chose Darvish in the battle of the winter’s top free agent starters.
• In other polling news, Connor Byrne asked the readers where Eric Hosmer will sign, Tim made the same query about Arrieta’s next team, while Kyle wondered if any of the top free agents could sign a one-year “pillow contract” rather than a longer-term deal.
• The “Taking Inventory” series lists the potential remaining trade chips on rebuilding teams, with Steve looking at the Tigers and Kyle focusing on the White Sox and the Marlins.
• Speaking of Miami, J.T. Realmuto could be the latest Marlins star to be shipped out of town, as Kyle runs through the potential trade market for the catcher.
• Mark Polishuk outlined each team’s weakest position from 2017 (by bWAR) and what each club has so far done (if anything) to upgrade that position for next season.
• Several managers and front office executives are known to be entering their last guaranteed year under contract, and Jeff has the breakdown of these teams that could be weighing a change in leadership in 2018.
• We just passed the two-year anniversary of the trade that sent Aroldis Chapman from the Reds to the Yankees.  Jeff looked back on that deal, which generated quite a bit of off-the-field controversy and ultimately generated more top tier young talent for the Yankees (via their subsequent trade of Chapman to the Cubs) than it did for Cincinnati.