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On this week’s edition, MLBTR’s Zach Links, who is on site in Nashville, checks back in with Jeff to discuss the moves that have gone down at the Winter Meetings as well as how the remaining pieces might fall.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and please leave a review! The podcast is also available via Stitcher at this link.

The MLB Trade Rumors Podcast runs weekly on Thursday afternoons.

Recently, MLB Trade Rumors launched a brand new official Instagram account: @TradeRumorsMLB.  Each day, we’re sharing conversation-inspiring images about the hottest topics in baseball.  From there, we invite you to give us a like, weigh in with your thoughts in the comments section, and even share the link with a friend.

This week, we’re giving fans an early look at traded players in their new jerseys.  Here’s a glance at how Starlin Castro will look in pinstripes.  And how about Ben Zobrist in his new Cubs uniform?  Ditto for Shelby Miller who looks sharp in the D’Backs’ 2015 uni.

So, what are you waiting for?  If you don’t have an Instagram account, this is the perfect excuse to sign up and get one.  Follow us on Instagram today!

Host Jeff Todd covers the latest transactions leading up to the Winter Meetings and then welcomes fellow MLBTR writer Zach Links to the show. Zach will be heading down to Nashville to cover the meetings next week, and he joins to preview the major stories as that key event approaches.

Among the matters considered in this week’s episode: Zack Greinke’s coming contract, the biggest sellers, some surprising drivers of the market, and a still-quiet group of excellent free agent corner outfielders.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and please leave a review! The podcast is also available via Stitcher at this link.

The MLB Trade Rumors Podcast runs weekly on Thursday afternoons.

Former Orioles executive Andy MacPhail believed in the “grow the arms” philosophy because he felt that getting pitching was expensive and getting it any other way proved to be expensive.  After watching J.A. Happ ink a deal with a $12MM AAV, Steve Melewski of MASNsports.com agrees with the expensive part.  Happ, of course, finished the 2015 season with a stellar 1.85 ERA over 11 starts for the Pirates, but he posted a 4.64 ERA in his previous 20 starts for Seattle.  Happ’s overall track record is one of mediocrity and Melewski can’t quite understand why the Blue Jays paid that much for him.  He’s not alone in that thinking, either.

Here’s more on Happ and other items out of the AL East:

• Interim GM Tony LaCava says the Blue Jays inked Happ because he fills an urgent need for the club without forcing Toronto to give up a prospect, big leaguer, or draft pick, as John Lott of the National Post writes.  Overall, it sounds like LaCava is not even close to done.  “We’ve had dialogue with any number of (free agents), a wide net we’ve cast, and we still have conversations with various free agents and their agents and also with other teams looking at the trade market as well,” LaCava said. “I wouldn’t rule anything out right now, but certainly we did address some of the bigger needs that we had.”
• Jim Bowden and Jim Duquette of SiriusXM (audio link) see tons of red flags when it comes to the Blue Jays’ deal with Happ.  Bowden is troubled by the enormity of the contract, which appears to be based off of Happ’s small sample size of excellence.  The ex-GM expected Happ to command $20MM over a two-year deal, but a three-year, $36MM pact was far beyond what he imagined.
• Wallace Matthews of ESPN.com pondered Bartolo Colon as a fit for the Yankees.  Colon, who will be 43 in May, has averaged 196 innings in each of the last three seasons and his 2015 ERA (4.16) was lower than that of several Yankees starters.  Still, Matthews expects Colon to start feeling his age sooner rather than later and doesn’t feel that he would be a good match for the Bombers.

MLB.com’s Angels beat writer Alden Gonzalez joins host Jeff Todd to discuss the latest on the Halos. Just-tabbed GM Billy Eppler has already swung a major deal to add shortstop Andrelton Simmons, but there are plenty of needs and less resources available after that move.

What does the Simmons swap tell us about the new chief baseball decisionmaker? What can Eppler and co. do next to address the team’s other priorities? Will the team sign a major free agent or two? What will happen to C.J. Wilson? Those are among the many topics covered in today’s podcast.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and please leave a review! The podcast is also available via Stitcher at this link.

The MLB Trade Rumors Podcast runs weekly on Thursday afternoons.

The Yankees have nowhere to put Jason Heyward.  The Giants will steal Zack Greinke away from the Dodgers.  The Cardinals would never sign a player like Chris Davis.  The Rangers are going to add a big bat.  Do you have strong opinions like these on MLB’s top free agents?  Then enter into the MLBTR Free Agent Prediction contest and prove your genius!

The closes tonight at 11:59pm central time.  The only requirement is a Facebook account.  The winners will receive cash prizes and, more importantly, bragging rights over MLBTR’s writing team and other contest participants.  Your picks can be saved and edited up until the deadline.  Try it today!

After three straight seasons in which no player accepted a qualifying offer, and a record twenty offers extended this offseason, perhaps something had to give. For the first time, we saw players land in favor of taking the one-year offer — valued this year at $15.8MM — rather than entering the market with the burden of draft pick compensation attached.

We’ve covered the rules in some detail previously. For those players that accepted a qualifying offer, their once-and-current teams may not trade them without consent until June 15, 2016. (That’s the same rule that applies to any other free agent signing.) And no draft compensation changes hands.

That’s the situation for these three players who accepted qualifying offers:

• Brett Anderson, SP (Dodgers)
• Colby Rasmus, OF (Astros)
• Matt Wieters, C (Orioles)

For the seventeen declining players, their former teams will stand to receive a “sandwich” round draft pick as compensation. New teams that sign those players will have to forfeit their top unprotected draft pick (or picks, if they sign multiple QO-rejecting players). If a player rejects a QO but ultimately re-signs with the same team, no draft pick shuffling occurs.

Here’s that list:

• Wei-Yin Chen, SP (Orioles)
• Chris Davis, 1B (Orioles)
• Ian Desmond, SS (Nationals)
• Dexter Fowler, OF (Cubs)
• Yovani Gallardo, SP (Rangers)
• Alex Gordon, OF (Royals)
• Zack Greinke, SP (Dodgers)
• Jason Heyward, OF (Cardinals)
• Hisashi Iwakuma, SP (Mariners)
• Howie Kendrick, 2B (Dodgers)
• Ian Kennedy, SP (Padres)
• John Lackey, SP (Cardinals)
• Daniel Murphy, 2B/3B (Mets)
• Jeff Samardzija, SP (White Sox)
• Justin Upton, OF (Padres)
• Jordan Zimmermann, SP (Nationals)

That only accounts for 19 of the 20 offers, of course. The other player to receive a QO was righty Marco Estrada, who agreed to a multi-year pact with the Blue Jays before being forced to accept or reject the offer. Toronto will neither gain nor lose draft choices.