Uncategorized News & Rumors

The Winter Meetings have been four days of non-stop rumors, trades and mega-deals. Now that everyone has packed their bags and headed for the Orlando airport, what do we know that we didn't know a week ago? Here are a few developments:

• The Nationals have lots of money to spend – Not only did Washington sign Jayson Werth to a seven-year, $126MM deal, they are in on Cliff Lee and Carl Pavano, the best remaining starting pitchers. Plus, they're interested in a potential deal with Adam LaRoche. You can debate the way they spend their money, but you can't deny that the Nats have cash.
• It really will be a quiet offseason for the Mets – We're used to seeing the Mets spend. They've committed hundreds of millions to players like Jason Bay, Francisco Rodriguez, Johan Santana and Carlos Beltran in recent years, but their recent pickups, Ronny Paulino and D.J. Carrasco, cost them a total of $3.8MM.
• It's not a bad time to be a utility player – Just ask Miguel Cairo, Melvin Mora and Ty Wigginton, who all signed multiyear deals.
• The Pirates are being aggressive – Is this the year Pittsburgh's streak of losing seasons comes to an end? I don't think so and the Pirates probably don't either, but they willing to spend to improve upon the MLB-worst 57-105 record they had in 2010. Matt Diaz, Kevin Correia and Scott Olsen are all set to join the Pirates.
• Scott Boras can still negotiate a mega-deal – In case any doubt remained about Scott Boras' ability to get massive deals for his clients, the agent got $126MM for a player who has qualified for all of two batting titles and $10MM for a player who batted .196 last year.
• The Red Sox should have an elite lineup next year – Let's not assume anything, since the Red Sox experienced tons of injuries in 2010, but on paper Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez make Boston's lineup scary.

To say that the last few days have been busy would be a whopping understatement. The Red Sox and Nationals signed a pair of All-Star outfielders to seven-year deals, the Cliff Lee sweepstakes intensified and the Pirates, Diamondbacks and Orioles all made numerous moves. Here's a summary of the additions teams have made since Sunday: 

• Washington Nationals: Jayson Werth
• Toronto Blue Jays: Brett Lawrie
• Tampa Bay Rays: Adam Russell, Cesar Ramos
• Seattle Mariners: Miguel Olivo, Esteilon Peguero, Jack Cust
• San Diego Padres: Dustin Moseley, Jason Bartlett, Casey Kelly, Anthony Rizzo, Reymond Fuentes
• Pittsburgh Pirates: Kevin Correia, Matt Diaz, Scott Olsen, Cesar Valdez
• Philadelphia Phillies: Dennys Reyes, Brian Bass
• New York Mets: D.J. Carrasco, Ronny Paulino, Dusty Ryan, Russ Adams
• Minnesota Twins: Brett Jacobson, Jim Hoey
• Milwaukee Brewers: Shaun Marcum, Wil Nieves
• Los Angeles Dodgers: Trent Oeltjen, Tony Gwynn, Dioner Navarro
• Kansas City Royals: Melky Cabrera, Jeff Francoeur
• Houston Astros: Ryan Rowland-Smith
• Detroit Tigers: Chris Oxspring, Omir Santos
• Colorado Rockies: Ty Wigginton
• Cleveland Indians: Paul Phillips
• Cincinnati Reds: Miguel Cairo
• Chicago White Sox: Paul Konerko
• Chicago Cubs: Carlos Pena
• Boston Red Sox: Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez
• Baltimore Orioles: Brendan Harris, J.J. Hardy, Koji Uehara, Mark Reynolds
• Atlanta Braves: George Sherrill
• Arizona Diamondbacks: J.J. Putz, Melvin Mora, Kameron Mickolio, David Hernandez

Note: Teams are listed in reverse alphabetical order and the Werth and Gonzalez deals, which technically happened before the meetings began, are included. Deals that happened before Sunday, like the Adam Dunn signing, are not included. For even more transactions, check out the results of today's Rule 5 draft.

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Baseball's Winter Meetings are underway in Orlando, Florida, and MLB Trade Rumors is the only website you'll need to make sense of the mayhem.  We've got constant coverage through Thursday – there will never be a point where we don't have a writer tracking rumors and deals.

For a quick overview of the hard news, check out the Top Stories section on the righthand sidebar.  Below that we have a search box, followed by tons of features such as our new free agent tracker, Elias rankings, and list of Scott Boras clients.

Besides just refreshing MLBTradeRumors.com repeatedly, there are tons of ways to follow along.  We've got Twitter, Facebook, RSS, and an iPhone app.  We've got the Feeds By Team dropdown up top to take you to team-specific Twitter and RSS pages.  Also, team Facebook pages can be found here.  If you'd like to create your own topics, try the MLBTR Forums.

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Just a reminder that MLBTR has a sweet new free agent tracker you can use to keep track of all the signings and available free agents.  You can filter by team, position, years, and amount.

We at MLBTR are excited to announce our newest feature, a free agent tracker.  Filter and sort by team, position, contract years, contract amount, and signing status. 

We'll still be maintaining our free agent list in case you'd like to just see the unsigned players listed by position.

MLBTR keeps busting out awesome new features.  The latest is our non-tender tracker.  This chart lists all 200+ arbitration eligible players.  We'll update it constantly leading up to tonight's 11pm CDT deadline.  You can filter by team and/or the tender decision.  Enjoy!

MLBTR named 85 non-tender candidates back on November 2nd.  Since then, 23 of those players were cut loose early.  A couple more have signed new deals or been traded.  Here's an updated list of our speculative non-tender candidates for Thursday night's deadline.  Non-tendering a player makes him a free agent.  Be sure to bookmark our new non-tender tracker, as it will be constantly updated as decisions roll in.   

Position players

Willy Aybar
Travis Buck
Ryan Church
Jack Cust
Matt Diaz
Edwin Encarnacion
Josh Fields
Mike Fontenot
Kevin Frandsen
Alberto Gonzalez
Tony Gwynn
Scott Hairston
J.J. Hardy
Joe Inglett
Conor Jackson
Dan Johnson
Kevin Kouzmanoff
Fred Lewis
James Loney
Jose Lopez
Russell Martin
Jeff Mathis
Dioner Navarro
Wil Nieves
Augie Ojeda
Ronny Paulino
Brayan Pena
Jason Repko
Reggie Willits
Josh Wilson

Pitchers

Jeremy Accardo
Matt Albers
Blaine Boyer
Jared Burton
D.J. Carrasco
Todd Coffey
Clay Condrey
Lance Cormier
Kyle Davies
Manny Delcarmen
Zach Duke
J.P. Howell
Bobby Jenks
Jeff Karstens
Jensen Lewis
John Maine
Dustin McGowan
Dustin Moseley
Pat Neshek
Dustin Nippert
Hideki Okajima
Tony Pena
Glen Perkins
Chris Ray
George Sherrill
Joe Smith
Chien-Ming Wang

Type A relievers Frank Francisco and Jason Frasor were the only ranked free agents to accept their teams' offers of arbitration yesterday. Here's what we learned from last night's decisions:

The Facts

• 12 of 14 Type A free agents turned down arbitration (86%).
• 21 of 21 Type B free agents turned down arbitration (100%).
• In total, 33 of 35 ranked free agents turned down arbitration (94%).
• If you haven't done so already, click here for an explanation of how free agent compensation works, click here to check out our arbitration offer tracker and click here to read what we learned about the offers themselves.

What This Says About The Market

• It says teams are willing to spend and players know it. Players see lots of multiyear deals on the open market and are seeking long-term commitments instead of the security of a deal through the arbitration process.
• Though the market's generally good, Type A relievers still have a hard time convincing teams to surrender draft picks for them. Type A setup men like Juan Cruz have had trouble landing contracts in recent years, so Frasor and Francisco chose the security of their teams' offers.
• But one Type A setup man is taking his chances in free agency. Grant Balfour declined arbitration and told Marc Topkin of the St. Petersburg Times that he's confident his Type A status won't prevent him from signing a multi-year deal.

What To Expect In 2010 And 2011

• The supplementary first round will be longer than usual in 2011, a strong draft year.
• Some teams could be drafting early and often next June. The Padres and White Sox could gain three picks, the Twins could add four and the Red Sox and Blue Jays could pick up five extra selections apiece. The real winners could be the Rays, who stand to pick up as many as ten extra draft choices next year.

Today marks the deadline for the 35 free agents offered arbitration to decide whether or not to accept.  All of the decisions will be chronicled on the front page of MLBTR as well as in our handy free agent arbitration offer tracker.  Of the 35 offered, four unsigned players – Trevor Hoffman, Kevin Correia, Octavio Dotel, and Kevin Gregg, have already chosen to decline.  Another eight have new contract agreements: Jorge De La Rosa, Juan Uribe, Joaquin Benoit, John Buck, Jon Garland, Victor Martinez, Yorvit Torrealba, and Javier Vazquez.

That leaves 23 decisions for today:

Type A (12 players)

Grant Balfour
Adrian Beltre – lock to decline
Carl Crawford – lock to decline
Scott Downs – likely to decline
Adam Dunn – likely to decline
Frank Francisco – likely to accept
Jason Frasor
Paul Konerko
Cliff Lee – lock to decline
Carl Pavano – expected to decline
Rafael Soriano – lock to decline
Jayson Werth – lock to decline

Type B (11 players)

Randy Choate
Jesse Crain - expected to decline
Pedro Feliciano
Brad Hawpe
Aaron Heilman – may be leaning toward declining
Orlando Hudson – expected to decline
Adam LaRoche
Felipe Lopez
Miguel Olivo
J.J. Putz – likely to decline
Chad Qualls

As you can see, there about about a dozen decisions in question.  Type A relievers Francisco, Balfour, and Frasor have good cases for accepting, as they'll otherwise be saddled with the draft pick cost.  Konerko accepting would mean a one-year deal at a strong salary, something he may find appealing.

It's possible some of the Type Bs have handshake agreements to decline, as Vazquez and Hoffman did.  The only reason for a Type B to accept would be if they expect no multiyear offers and feel that they'd earn more in 2011 through arbitration than the open market.  Hawpe, LaRoche, and Qualls have to consider that route.