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Nationals Have Had Discussions With Jordan Lyles

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Nationals president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo said yesterday that the club plans to pursue rotation upgrades and it’s possible they have some self-imposed urgency in that search. Talk Nats reports that Rizzo wants to have a pitcher locked in before the end of the Winter Meetings, which conclude tomorrow. On a related note, Jesse Dougherty of The Washington Post reports that the club has had discussions with free agent Jordan Lyles.

The fact that the Nats are interested in starting pitchers is hardly shocking, given the uncertainty they have in that part of their roster. Stephen Strasburg has pitched just over 30 innings over the past three seasons combined and still isn’t sure what he can do in the future. Patrick Corbin still has two seasons remaining on his contract but has seen his ERA climb in four straight years, ending up at 6.31 in 2022. Apart from those two, the other rotation options are limited in experience and have concerns with either their health or performance. Josiah Gray has a 5.17 ERA through 219 1/3 career innings. Cade Cavalli made one MLB start before shoulder inflammation ended his 2022. MacKenzie Gore used to be the top pitching prospect in the sport but lost his command over 2020 and 2021. He got back on track in 2022 but then missed the second half of the season due to elbow inflammation.

Adding a stable veteran like Lyles into the mix would be plenty sensible, as that’s essentially the same role he just played in Baltimore in 2022. The rebuilding O’s had a similarly unclear rotation and signed Lyles to a one-year, $7MM guarantee with a club option for 2023. Lyles ended up making 32 starts for the club, absorbing 179 innings. His 4.42 ERA and 18.6% strikeout rate weren’t elite, but he limited walks to a 6.7% rate.

Those results are roughly in line with the numbers Lyles, now 32, has put up over his 12-year career. The O’s could have retained him for another season via a club option valued at $11MM but instead opted for the $1MM buyout, returning him to the open market. Most of the win-now teams will be focused on the starters with larger upside, with Jacob deGrom and Justin Verlander already off the board and Carlos Rodón seeming to have abundant interest. Back-end options like Lyles could wait around and see if those contenders will circle back to them later in the offseason, but some of them will also get some early interest. The O’s have already signed Kyle Gibson, effectively replacing Lyles as the veteran innings eater on the team. Meanwhile, the Rockies have re-signed José Ureña, the Tigers have added Matt Boyd and the Pirates have added Vince Velasquez. If the Nats like Lyles as their target for the stable vet, it’s possible for a deal to come together quickly.

Blue Jays Notes: Senga, Bassitt, Taillon, Reyes, Brantley, Gallo

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The Blue Jays are exploring several roster upgrades, with Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith reporting that the club has interest in such players as Kodai Senga, Jameson Taillon, Alex Reyes, and Michael Brantley.  “There doesn’t appear to be traction…at the moment” between the Jays and Chris Bassitt, though the right-hander is another free agent hurler at least under consideration for the team.

Starting pitching is Toronto’s clearest need, and as one agent told Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi, the Blue Jays are “all over the pitching market” right now.  To this end, it is fair to speculate that the Jays have at least checked in on basically every available arm, which has been the team’s strategy for the previous three offseasons.  Davidi adds that the Jays also “have some degree of interest” in Carlos Rodon, Nathan Eovaldi, and their own incumbent free agent in Ross Stripling.  Past reports have indicated that the Jays have extended an offer to Andrew Heaney, and they were interested in Kyle Gibson (before Gibson rejected Toronto’s one-year, $10MM offer to sign an identical deal with the Orioles), and even Justin Verlander, before Verlander joined the Mets.

Alek Manoah and Kevin Gausman have solidified the front end of the Blue Jays’ rotation, but there is a lot of uncertainty afterwards, given how Jose Berrios and especially Yusei Kikuchi struggled in 2022.  There isn’t necessarily a guarantee that Kikuchi will even get a clear shot at a starting role, since he could at best be competing with Mitch White for the fifth starter’s job, or perhaps even be relegated to the bullpen if the Jays end up acquiring two new starters this winter.

As noted by both Nicholson-Smith and Davidi, the fact that the Jays were considering getting into Verlander’s market (even on a short-term deal) is another sign of how aggressive the team is willing to be, and perhaps a sign of how far they’ll stretch the payroll.  Bigger spending may be somewhat inevitable given the rising costs involved in the pitching market this offseason, though it might be a reach to see the Blue Jays spend what it will take to sign Rodon or perhaps even Senga, considering how the Japanese ace is drawing a lot of attention from multiple teams.  Speculatively, the Jays’ relative lack of interest in Bassitt could have to do with Bassitt’s desire for at least four guaranteed years, which may be a tall order for a pitcher heading into his age-34 season.

Reyes represents another kind of pitching addition, as the former top prospect is an intriguing bounce-back candidate who would fit on a lot of teams.  That said, Reyes also carries plenty of risk given his long injury history, including a shoulder surgery that kept him from pitching whatsoever in 2022.  It will be interesting to see how Reyes’ market materializes, as the Blue Jays and other teams will naturally be weighing the injury concerns, but the sheer amount of interest could still lead to a decent payday for the right-hander.

Beyond the pitching market, the Jays are also looking for left-handed hitting outfielders.  A gap in the outfield emerged after Toronto dealt Teoscar Hernandez to the Mariners, and a lefty swinger could help add balance to a largely right-handed Blue Jays lineup.  Brantley is one possibility, and while he is a player the Jays reportedly came very close to signing in the 2020-21 offseason, health questions also surround Brantley’s market.  Shoulder problems that eventually required surgery limited Brantley to only 64 games last season, and he has missed a lot of time earlier in his career with other injury woes.

Such names as Brandon Nimmo and Cody Bellinger have also been linked to the Jays’ outfield search this winter, and agent Scott Boras told Nicholson-Smith and Hazel Mae (Twitter link) that Toronto indeed had interest in both of his clients.  Boras also said the Blue Jays had interest in another client in Joey Gallo, another left-handed hitter.

Gallo is coming off a thoroughly rough 2022 season, hitting only .160/.280/.357 with 19 homers over 410 plate appearances with the Yankees and Dodgers.  Gallo’s “three true outcomes” style will always limit his offensive productivity to some extent, yet he is only entering his age-29 season, and Gallo’s strikeouts haven’t stopped him from posting some big offensive numbers in the past.  As recently as 2021, Gallo posted a 4.2 fWAR season, and his ability to play a decent center field would also be of interest to a Jays team that would ideally like to give George Springer more time in a corner outfield spot.

With Gallo, Bellinger, and probably Brantley all in line to receive one-year bounce-back types of contracts, the Jays could be planning to address the outfield with just a shorter-term addition, and then focus on a longer-term addition for the rotation.  The Blue Jays appear to be open to all possibilities, however, and their pursuit of free agents is also obviously impacted by what they might do on the trade market, especially with their catching depth being in high demand.

Rangers Have Met With Carlos Rodon Since Signing Jacob deGrom

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One year after shocking baseball by signing both Marcus Semien and Corey Seager for a combined half-billion dollar, the Rangers appear to at least be considering a similar double dip into the deep end of the free-agent pool. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that the Rangers met with Carlos Rodon just one day after signing Jacob deGrom to a hefty five-year, $185MM contract.

With deGrom in Texas and Justin Verlander having agreed to terms with the Mets, Rodon is the lone free-agent ace left on the board. He’s reportedly been seeking a six-year deal worth more than $30MM annually — a weighty sum for a pitcher with a lengthy injury history that includes both shoulder surgery and Tommy John surgery.

That said, Rodon has left little doubt in recent years that he’s among the sport’s most talented pitchers. After signing a $3MM pillow contract with the White Sox in the 2020-21 offseason, he at last made good on the expectations associated with his name dating back to his No. 3 overall selection in the draft. Through the first four months of the 2021 season, Rodon was arguably the best pitcher in baseball and looked like the clear front-runner for the American League Cy Young Award.

Shoulder fatigue limited Rodon to just 28 innings in the season’s final two months, however, and when he did pitch down the stretch in 2021, it was often with reduced velocity. The White Sox were apparently wary enough that they declined to put forth a qualifying offer, and Rodon inked a two-year, $44MM deal with the Giants that allowed him to opt back into the open market if he reached 110 innings on the season.

Not only did Rodon reach 110 innings, but he did so while again putting himself onto the periphery of the Cy Young race. The lefty tossed a career-high 178 innings with a 2.88 ERA, held his velocity late into the season and averaged better than 5 2/3 innings per start as a member of the Giants. He led the National League in strikeouts and, since Opening Day 2021, leads all Major League pitchers (min. 200 innings) with a 33.9% strikeout rate. Rodon has done all that while pitching to a combined ERA of 2.67 with similarly excellent marks in FIP (2.42) and SIERA (2.88).

Onlookers may wonder just how the Rangers could even consider continuing to spend so aggressively in such a short period of time — particularly when so many teams have been averse to paying the luxury tax in recent seasons. The increased luxury tax thresholds in the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement surely play a role, as the first-tier threshold has climbed from $210MM in 2021 to $233MM this coming season.

The luxury tax, however, isn’t a major issue for the Rangers — at least not yet. Roster Resource projects that they currently have about $192.4MM of luxury obligations, meaning even signing Rodon at a $30MM AAV would still leave them with more than $10MM of breathing room from the first tier of penalization. It’s also worth noting that the penalty for first-time offenders is rather tepid — relatively speaking. The Rangers would owe a 20% tax on the first $20MM by which they exceed the $233MM threshold and a 30% tax on the next $20MM. Even shattering the luxury barrier by a means of $40MM would give the Rangers $10MM in penalties — about the price of signing a back-of-the-rotation starter in the current market.

Of course, signing Rodon would squarely set the Rangers up for a potential long-term status as a luxury payor. The combination of deGrom, Seager, Semien and Jon Gray amounts to $107.5MM on its own, and tacking on $30MM+ for Rodon would get Texas nearly 60% of the way to luxury territory even as far out as the 2024 campaign — and that’s not even including arbitration-eligible players and pre-arb players to round out the roster.

Texas, however, is enjoying the fruits of a newly constructed stadium that drew more than two million fans in 2022 and can surely anticipate that number will climb in 2023, with deGrom (at the very least) now on board. Ownership from all 30 clubs is also perhaps a bit more willing to spend after the league sold off its remaining 15% stake in BAMTech to Disney for $900MM, the spoils of which were divided among teams. Meanwhile, lucrative streaming deals with Apple and NBC/Peacock have only further bolstered revenues for the league’s 30 teams. Heading into the 2022 season, national television and streaming rights afforded all 30 teams approximately $65MM in revenue before factoring in local television deals, attendance, concessions and other sources of revenue.

Giants’ Offer To Aaron Judge Reportedly “In The Neighborhood” Of $360MM

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The Giants’ offer to reigning American League MVP Aaron Judge is “believed to be [in the] $360MM neighborhood,” reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The number of years on the contract aren’t clear, though recent reports have suggested Judge could push for a nine-year deal. That would put the potential average annual value on San Francisco’s offer in the $40MM ballpark, or perhaps in the $36MM range if they were comfortable extending the offer to a decade in length in order to mitigate some of the AAV and luxury tax concerns.

San Francisco has long been seen as the primary threat to sign Judge away from the Yankees, given their increasing urgency to field a winner, the team’s wide-open payroll outlook and Judge’s fandom of the team as a child growing up in Northern California. Judge has met with both teams in the past week, and outside of some loose connections to the Dodgers, there’s been no concrete reports of other teams involved in the mix.

That hardly means Judge only has two suitors, of course. Coming off a 62-homer, .311/.425/.686 season that netted him his first MVP win, it stands to reason that the majority of teams would at least inquire about the possibility of a deal. However, given the heights to which his market appears to be soaring, most clubs would surely balk at making a competitive offer.

Still, today’s revelation that the Padres offered Trea Turner a $342MM deal that would’ve given him the third-largest guarantee in MLB history — only to be rebuffed in favor of the Phillies — has at least served as evidence that another team is willing to spend at the very top end of the free agent market (albeit on a different player). There’s been no firm link between the Padres and Judge just yet, but with San Diego eyeing the corner outfield market and having displayed a willingness to commit an unprecedented third $300MM+ contract, it’s easy enough to speculate that the Friars could emerge as a viable third entrant in the bidding.

Heyman suggests that even with the Giants’ enormous offer, many in the industry still believe the Yankees to be the favorites. The Yankees, for their part, of course continue to hope that Judge will re-sign and spend his career in the Bronx, although recently extended general manager Brian Cashman told reporters last night that agent Page Odle has not given the Yankees any assurances that they’ll be afforded the opportunity to match or exceed an offer from another team before Judge accepts (link via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com).

The Giants have approximately $133MM in salary committed to next year’s books and are a projected $91MM shy of the first tier of luxury-tax penalization, so an AAV for Judge in the upper $30MMs or even reaching $40MM wouldn’t put them anywhere close to the tax line. Judge did reject the Yankees’ qualifying offer, however, so he’d cost the Giants their second-highest pick in next summer’s draft and also trigger a $500K reduction in their spending capacity on international amateur free agents.

Andrew Heaney Has Three-Year Offers, Wants Fourth Year

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1:16PM: The Giants and Rangers are also involved in Heaney’s market, Heyman tweets.

12:23AM: Free agent starter Andrew Heaney has multiple three-year offers on the table, but is looking for a contract that adds a fourth year, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The only known team to have made an offer thus far is a previously reported offer from the Blue Jays, per SportsNet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith, although it’s not known if that was a three-year deal.

Heaney has been drawing widespread interest in free agency with as many as ten teams showing interest, including the incumbent Dodgers (via Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic), aforementioned Blue Jays, as well as the Mets, Red Sox and others.

Although shoulder issues limited the left hander’s participation in the Dodgers’ season, he was very impressive when he did make it onto the mound, tossing 75 innings of 3.10 ERA ball. A new slider allowed him to punch out batters at a staggering 35.5% rate while walking them just 6.1% of the time. The long ball was still an issue, but there’s plenty there to suggest Heaney can be an incredibly effective starting pitcher moving forward, and clearly a number of major league teams think the same.

MLBTR predicted a three-year, $42MM deal for Heaney, and it’s probably not surprising that it appears teams are a bit hesitant to stretch to a fourth year. As mentioned, he missed three months this season with shoulder problems, while he’s also undergone Tommy John surgery in 2016 and landed on the IL twice in 2018 and ’19 with elbow inflammation.

There’s certainly some question marks over Heaney’s durability, as well as how his newfound success during ’22 with the Dodgers would translate to a new team, but a full season’s worth of Heaney’s output this year would give a new team a dominant, top-of-the-rotation arm, so there’s enormous upside there for teams as well.

NPB Posting Window Expanded From 30 To 45 Days

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The posting system that allows players to move from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball to the major leagues has been expanded from 30 days to 45 days, according to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com.

If a player in Japan wants to pursue a contract with an MLB club, the NPB team can “post” the player. In the past, this opened up a 30-day window where the player and his representatives could negotiate with all 30 major league teams. If they didn’t find a contract to their liking, the player would return to their NPB club. If they did find a deal, the signing team would also owe money to the NPB team, on top of what they pay the player. The amount of that fee would be relative to the size of the contract given, with 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars thereafter.

It seems that this system is all still in place, just with the window being extended from 30 days to 45 days. This year, this will impact at least two players: Masataka Yoshida and Shintaro Fujinami. It’s also perhaps worth pointing out that this will not impact another NPB player in Kodai Senga, as he has accrued enough service time to become a proper free agent that is not subject to the posting system. Yoshida’s window will reportedly start tomorrow and go until January 20. Fujinami was posted on December 1, meaning his window should be closing around January 15.

Assuming this is a permanent change and not a temporary exception, it will also have a bearing on all future NPB players who are posted in the future.

Orioles Sign Nomar Mazara To Minor League Deal

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1:09pm: Mazara will make $1.5MM if he cracks the major league roster, per Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner.

11:40am: The Orioles have signed outfielder Nomar Mazara to a minor league contract, per a team announcement. Presumably, he’ll be in Major League camp this spring. Mazara is repped by CAA sports.

Once considered one of baseball’s 20 to 30 best prospects, the now-27-year-old Mazara has settled in as a journeyman corner outfielder who’s played for four different big league teams over the past four seasons. Debuting as a 21-year-old back in 2016, Mazara belted 20 homers and hit .266/.320/.419 as a rookie with the Rangers but never advanced his offensive profile much beyond that point. He swatted exactly 20 homers in each of his first three MLB seasons and 19 in his fourth, but regularly did so with sub-par walk rates, on-base percentages and defense in right field.

Traded to the White Sox prior to the truncated 2020 season, Mazara bottomed out with a .228/.295/.294 batting line in 149 plate appearances with the South Siders. A 2021 stint with the Tigers didn’t yield much better results. He fared a bit better with the Padres in 2022, although this year’s .264/.316/.352 batting line in 171 plate appearances wasn’t exactly a standout showing. In nearly 2700 MLB plate appearances, Mazara is a .256/.315/.414 hitter  — including just a .235/.295/.324 slash since leaving Texas after the 2019 season.

The Orioles have been seeking left-handed bats who can potentially help them in the outfield corners, at first base or at designated hitter, and Mazara fits that description, even if he’s been a roughly average hitter in the big leagues at his best. He’ll have to earn a spot on the team this spring, and if he’s unable to do so, he could head to Triple-A Norfolk and serve as a depth option in  the event of an injury.

Orix Buffaloes Officially Post Masataka Yoshida

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12:55pm: The posting window has actually been changed from 30 days to 45 days, according to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. Feinsand adds that Yoshida’s window will officially open tomorrow at 8am Eastern and go until 5pm on January 20th.

12:20pm: The Orix Buffaloes of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball have officially posted outfielder Masataka Yoshida, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN. He’ll have 30 days to find a deal with a major league team or else return to the Buffaloes for 2023.

Yoshida, 29, made his NPB debut with the Buffaloes in 2016 and has since established himself as a key contributor at the plate. In 2022, he played in 119 games, hitting 21 home runs and producing an overall batting line of .335/.447/.561. That level of production and Yoshida’s age should lead to him garnering plenty of interest from North American teams. It was reported back in November that this posting was coming, but NPB contracts generally run until the start of December, which delayed the official move until now.

This year’s market for free agent outfielders isn’t huge in terms of quantity. MLBTR’s list of the top free agents featured Aaron Judge in the top spot and Brandon Nimmo at number nine. Those guys are both likely to receive nine-figure deals, but then there’s only a few guys capable of everyday jobs in the middle of the list. Joc Pederson accepted the qualifying offer to return to the Giants, leaving Andrew Benintendi, Mitch Haniger and Jurickson Profar as some of the few mid-market options. Then there are some guys likely to require less cost but with injury risks, such as Michael Conforto and Michael Brantley.

Teams will likely have wide variance in how they evaluate Yoshida, but it’s unlikely he will earn a contract that rivals the top-market guys. Seiya Suzuki was another highly-touted slugger who was posted a year ago and he eventually signed with the Cubs for five years and $85MM. He was 27 years old at the time, two years younger than Yoshida is now. That likely makes it difficult for Yoshida to beat Suzuki’s guarantee, though it’s possible some team values him significantly higher than the Cubs valued Suzuki. For the teams that miss out on the top free agent outfielders, Yoshida should add an interesting new option for the next tier of the market.

There will be a 30-day window where MLB clubs can negotiate with Yoshida’s representatives. If a deal is reached, the signing team will also owe money to the Buffaloes, with that amount being relative to the size of the contract given. Any big league team that signs him would owe the Buffaloes a fee equal to 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars thereafter. If he does not reach an agreement with an MLB team, he will return to the Buffaloes for 2023. Yoshida has already been connected to the Blue Jays, Mariners and Yankees, with plenty of other teams sure to emerge in the next few weeks.

Mets Sign Three To Minor League Deals

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The Mets have signed three right-handed relievers to minor league deals, according to their transactions tracker at MLB.com. Tommy Hunter, Sean Reid-Foley and Jimmy Yacabonis have joined the organization and will presumably be invited to major league Spring Training, though no formal announcement of that nature has been made.

Hunter is the oldest and most experienced of the bunch, as he’s currently 36 years old and has 494 MLB games under his belt. He has an even ERA of 4.00 thus far in his career, often succeeding with strong control. His career walk rate is 5.5%, well below this year’s MLB average for relievers of 9.1%. Outside of an injury-marred 2021, he’s never posted a rate higher than 6.9% in any single season. In 2022, he posted a 2.42 ERA but injuries limited him to just 22 1/3 innings. That’s been a recurring issue in recent years, as Hunter hasn’t reached 25 innings in a season since 2018.

Reid-Foley, 27, has pitched in the past five MLB seasons, the first three with the Blue Jays and the last three with the Mets. He came to New York from Toronto in the Steven Matz trade. He underwent Tommy John surgery in May and will miss at least part of the 2023 season. He was non-tendered by the Mets at the end of the season. He has a 4.66 ERA in 102 1/3 career innings, along with a 23.6% strikeout rate, 13.7% walk rate and 40.4% ground ball rate.

Yacabonis, 31 in March, put up an 8.36 ERA in 14 big league innings in 2022 but was much better in the minors. He tossed 33 2/3 innings down on the farm for various teams with a 3.21 ERA, 31.4% strikeout rate and 10.9% walk rate. He was outrighted by the Rays in November and elected free agency.

The Mets have a lot of work to do in rebuilding their bullpen as Adam Ottavino, Seth Lugo, Trevor Williams, Joely Rodriguez and Trevor May all hit free agency. Edwin Díaz was also in that group, though he was quickly re-signed. They will likely have more moves to come in bolstering the bullpen, but it’s understandable why they would look to add multiple depth options to the system.

Padres Offered Trea Turner $342MM Deal

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Dec. 6, 12:35pm: The Padres offered Turner a guarantee of $342MM, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post.

11:51am: The Padres’ offer to Turner was not only higher than the offer he accepted from Philadelphia but would have made Turner the highest-paid infielder in baseball, topping Francisco Lindor’s $341MM deal with the Mets, reports ESPN’s Buster Olney. The exact length of the contract, potential deferrals, etc. aren’t known at this time, but it’s a nevertheless jarring follow-up revelation in the wake of the Phillies’ deal with Turner. Lindor’s contract is currently the third-largest guarantee in Major League history.

While Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported in the aftermath of the Padres’ failed bid that the team is no longer pursuing shortstops, Olney writes that the Padres have at least been in touch with Bogaerts, echoing a similar sentiment reported last night by Ken Rosenthal and Dennis Lin of The Athletic.

More broadly, Olney reports that the Padres are “very serious about trying to do all they can” to win the franchise’s first World Series, which raises the question as to whether San Diego might emerge as a legitimate entrant in the bidding for Aaron Judge, Carlos Rodon and other top remaining free agents.

Dec. 5: The Phillies made the biggest splash of the offseason to date, agreeing to terms on an 11-year deal with Trea Turner this afternoon. Once finalized, it’ll make the two-time All-Star the 10th player in MLB history to land a contract worth at least $300MM.

Massive as the contract was, it apparently wasn’t the highest offer the shortstop had on the table. Matt Gelb of the Athletic reports the Padres made an offer which topped the one Turner accepted from Philadelphia. Specifics of the proposal aren’t clear, but Gelb adds the gap was wide enough San Diego’s offer would’ve translated into more money even after adjusting for California’s higher state income tax rate than Pennsylvania’s.

In the months leading up to Turner’s free agency, there was a fair bit of speculation about whether geography would play a role in his decision. He’s a Florida native who went to college at North Carolina State. His wife Kristen is from New Jersey. Turner reportedly expressed a desire to remain on the East Coast when the Nationals traded him to the Dodgers at the 2021 deadline, and while he downplayed geographic preferences in free agency, there seems to have been some truth behind the rumblings he could prefer heading back across the country. Turner also rejoins longtime Washington teammate Bryce Harper and hitting coach Kevin Long in Philadelphia.

On the one hand, losing out on a star player even after making the highest offer has to be a tough blow for San Diego. Yet it also illustrates the possibility for the franchise to continue pushing chips in as they aggressively seek to augment one of the game’s more talented rosters. One could argue shortstop is more of a luxury buy for the Friars anyhow, with Fernando Tatis Jr., Ha-Seong Kim and Jake Cronenworth all on hand as middle infield options. Yet San Diego was willing to put forth one of the largest contracts in league history to try to add another star to the lineup.

San Diego has also been tied to Xander Bogaerts this offseason. That they were the high bidder on Turner doesn’t inherently mean they’ll top the market for Bogaerts instead, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if they pivot in that direction now that their primary target is off the board. The Padres have exceeded the luxury tax threshold in each of the past two seasons, and they’d have to do so again to add any of the star free agent shortstops. Roster Resource estimates their CBT ledger around $3MM below the base tax threshold of $233MM, and signing Turner for an average annual value around the $27.3MM he received would’ve pushed them into the second tier of penalization. That’d have involved a 50% tax on the first $20MM — an extra $10MM — and further taxes from that point forward, but it was apparently a bill owner Peter Seidler was content to foot for another star. How or if they reallocate that money, either in a pursuit of Bogaerts or in more directly addressing areas of need like first base and the corner outfield, remains to be seen.

As for the Phils, they now anticipate looking to the pitching market after adding to an already loaded position player core. Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer tweets the middle of the rotation and back of the bullpen are target areas for the Phils, who now aren’t far off the base luxury tax tier themselves. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski told reporters this evening the club is looking for a setup-type reliever who could mix and match with Seranthony Domínguez, Connor Brogdon and José Alvarado at the end of games (via Alex Coffey of the Philadelphia Inquirer).

While the Phillies certainly aren’t taking their foot off the gas, Dombrowski downplayed the possibility of adding another player who’d rejected a qualifying offer. The Phils forfeited their second and fifth-highest picks in next year’s amateur draft plus $1MM in international signing bonus space for Turner, who’d turned down a QO with the Dodgers. They’d lose their third and sixth picks to sign another qualified free agent, and Dombrowski told Coffey and others the team doesn’t have “much appetite” for that kind of pick forfeiture.

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