Your 2015 Winter Meetings Wrap-up

The 2015 Winter Meetings are over. They weren’t quite as crazy as some Winter Meetings of the past few years. Indeed, there are a ton of players left on the market. More so than we tend to see by the time we wrap the Meetings up. But there was still no shortage of excitement this year, so let’s look back at what went down and see what it means for what might happen next.

First, some features we wrote this week which, if you missed them and have a bit of time on your hands, are well worth your time if we do say so ourselves:

Ned Yost is smug and dang well deserves to be because (a) he told you he was going to win a World Series in Kansas City and; (b) he just did;
Also, Yost happens to be the third most handsome manager in baseball. I know a lot of people don’t believe it, but if you can find a published list ranking Baseball’s Most Handsome Managers which says differently, I’ll eat my hat.
Rays owner Stuart Sternberg rode his three-speed bike onto a battlefield, it seems; and
We explored what it means when someone is called “a Baseball Man.”

Then there was some breaking news. Breaking news this time of year that isn’t specifically about trades and signings is usually bad news. There was no exception this year:

Aroldis Chapman was almost traded to the Dodgers, but then that got sidetracked because Chapman allegedly assaulted his girlfriend and then fired eight shots into the wall of his house. Hopefully for Chapman Dusty Baker is on the committee looking into his discipline for this from Major League Baseball, because Dusty “doesn’t believe reports.”
Jonathan Papelbon filed a grievance against the Washington Nationals, then explained that he was wrong. Not for choking Bryce Harper, mind you, but for doing it in front of TV cameras. The choking, in his mind, was totally cool.
Kris Bryant and Maikel Franco field grievances against the Cubs and Phillies, respectively, because those clubs allegedly manipulated their service time in bad faith. Which they totally did, by the way, but I still think Bryant and Franco are going to lose their grievances.
The Veterans Committee once again failed to elect anyone to the Hall of Fame, making one wonder why in the hell they even bother anymore.
Dan Shaugnessy won the Spink Award and will be honored at the Hall of Fame for “meritorious contributions to baseball writing.” Where is your god now?
Major League Baseball announced some recommendations about safety netting at ballparks. Not rules, mind you. Just recommendations. And they’re not all that much more extensive than that which already stood in place at most ballparks. This is a victory for the lawyers fighting liability, it seems, not the enhanced safety of many more fans than before; and
Scott Boras threw shade on the Nationals regarding their intentions toward Bryce Harper.

Finally, of course, the transactions. Which are really the point of the Winter Meetings, at least for the folks in the major league offices. There were a lot of them this week, but only a handful that were truly, truly major. If you’re a free agent position player you’re likely still out there looking for a job. If you’re a relief pitcher, however, you probably got a multi-year deal some time since Monday. Heck, even if you used to be a relief pitcher you probably got one.

The Zack Greinke deal was made official. That is a big, big signing by the Diamondbacks.
But that wasn’t all: they also traded for Shelby Miller. He’ll help them out a good bit, but the Dbacks mortgaged their future for him, not unlike the Minnesota Vikings mortgaging their future for Herschel Walker back in the day.
Ben Zobrist, one of the most highly sought-after position players on the market, signed with the Cubs. I’m not guessing a ton of people would’ve guessed a few years back that Zobrist would be one of the most highly sought-after position players on the market in 2015.
The Reds went on record saying that they’ll trade ANYONE. As of this writing they have yet to trade anyone. Way to stay on task, you guys.
The Royals brought Joakim Soria back to Kansas City on a three-year deal. Chris Young signed a two-year deal with Kansas City as well. Nice to see that they’re keeping the band together.
Trevor Cahill signed with the Cubs.
The Red Sox traded Wade Miley to the Mariners.
The Marlins said that Jose Fernandez was not on the market. Not that that stopped the rumor mill from buzzing about Fernandez being on the market, including the appearance of . . . The Mystery Team!
Darren O’Day went back to his old team in Baltimore. We in the business call that “pulling a Soria.”
The Rockies signed Jason Motte and Chad Qualls for some reason.
The Cardinals traded Jon Jay to San Diego for Jed Gyorko.
The Braves signed Tyler Flowers. He’s a former White Sox guy and he’s from Georgia, so both of the Braves requirements for signing a guy were met.
The Mariners continued to be as busy as all get-out and completed yet another trade, this one for Adam Lind.
The A’s signed John Axford.
The Phillies signed David Hernandez.
The Yankees acquired Starlin Castro from the Cubs for Adam Warren and Brendan Ryan.
The Pirates traded Neil Walker for Jon Niese. Remember: “i” before “e,” except after “c,” and if it comes after “n” just do whatever the heck you want. There are no rules.
More grammatical chaos: the Nationals signing Yusmeiro Petit.
The Angels signed Craig Gentry.
The Braves signed Emilio Bonafacio.
The Tigers got reliever Justin Wilson.
The Astros traded for Phillies closer Ken Giles.
The White Sox traded for Brett Lawrie.
The Mets signed Asdrubal Cabrera.
The Nationals signed Shawn Kelley.
The Astros re-signed Tony Sipp.
The Rangers signed Tony Barnette, who last pitched in Japan.
The Rockies signed Mark Reynolds.
The Angels traded for Yunel Escobar; and
The Cardinals re-signed Jonathan Broxton.

There are still a lot of good players out there. Justin Upton. Yoenis Cespedes. Jason Heyward. Alex Gordon. Chris Davis. Johnny Cueto. Ian Desmond. Mike Leake. Just a ton of them, really.

Which is fine with us. There are over two months until pitchers and catchers report and nary a baseball game to hold our interest until then. If MLB wants to spread this out evenly, we’re just fine with it, frankly.

For now, though, another Winter Meetings is in the bag. And it’s time for a long Winter’s Nap. Well, at least until tomorrow morning when I’ll be up at the crack of dawn as usual, slingin’ rumors and stuff.

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Rob Manfred said today that he believes the sign-stealing scandal which has taken over the news in the past week does not extend beyond the Houston Astros. His exact words, via Jeff Passan of ESPN:

“Right now, we are focused on the information that we have with respect to the Astros. I’m not going to speculate on whether other people are going to be involved. We’ll deal with that if it happens, but I’m not going to speculate about that. I have no reason to believe it extends beyond the Astros at this point in time.”

This is simply incredible. As in literally not credible.

It’s not credible because, just last week, in the original story in The Athletic, it was reported that the Astros system was set up by two players, one of whom was “a hitter who was struggling at the plate and had benefited from sign stealing with a previous team, according to club sources . . . they were said to strongly believe that some opposing teams were already up to no good. They wanted to devise their own system in Houston. And they did.”

The very next day Passan reported that Major League Baseball would not limit its focus to the Astros. Rather, the league’s probe was also include members of the 2019 Astros and would extend to other teams as well. Passan specifically mentioned the 2018 Red Sox which, of course, were managed by Alex Cora one year after he left Houston, where he was A.J. Hinch’s bench coach.

Add into this the Red Sox’ pre-Cora sign-stealing with Apple Watches and widespread, informed speculation on the part of players and people around the game that many teams do this sort of thing, and one can’t reasonably suggest that only the Houston Astros are doing this.

Which, as I noted at the time, made perfect sense. These schemes cannot, logically, operate in isolation because players and coaches change teams constantly. In light of this, players have to know that their sign-stealing would be found out by other teams eventually. They continue to do it, however, because they know other teams do it too. As is the case with pitchers using pine tar or what have you, they don’t rat out the other team so they, themselves, will not be ratted out. It’s a mutually-assured destruction that only exists and only works if, in fact, other teams are also stealing signs.

So why is Major League Baseball content to only hang the Astros here? I can think of two reasons.

One is practical. They had the Astros fall in their lap via former Astro Mike Fiers — obviously not himself concerned with his current team being busted for whatever reason — going on the record with his accusation. That’s not likely to repeat itself across baseball and thus it’d be quite difficult for Major League Baseball to easily conduct a wide investigation. Who is going to talk? How can baseball make them talk? It’d be a pretty big undertaking.

But there’s also the optics. Major League Baseball has had a week to think about the report of the Astros sign-stealing and, I suspect, they’ve realized, like everyone else has realized, that this is a major scandal in the making. Do they really want to spend the entire offseason — and longer, I suspect, if they want a thorough investigation — digging up unflattering news about cheating in the sport? Do they really want to be in the bad news creation business? I doubt they do, so they decided to fence off the Astros, hit them hard with penalties, declare victory and move on.

Which is to say, it’s a whitewash.

It’s something the league has tried to do before. They did it with steroids and it didn’t work particularly well.

In 1998 Mark McGwire, that game’s biggest star at the time, was found to have the PED androstenedione in his locker. It was a big freakin’ deal. Except . . . nothing happened. Major League Baseball planned to “study” the drug but most of the fallout was visited upon the reporter who made it public. It was accompanied by some shameful conduct by both Major League Baseball and the baseball press corps who eagerly went after the messenger rather than cover the story properly.

Four years later Ken Caminiti and Jose Canseco went public with their PED use and said drug use was widespread. MLB’s response was slow and, again, sought to isolated the known offenders, singling out Caminiti as a troubled figure — which he was — and Canseco as a kook — which he kind of is — but doing them and the story a disservice all the same.

The league eventually created a rather toothless testing and penalty regime. Congress and outside investigative reporters filled the void created by the league’s inaction, calling hearings and publishing damning stories about how wide PED use was in the game. Eventually Bud Selig commissioned the Mitchell Report. Some ten years after the McGwire incident baseball had at least the beginnings of a sane approach to PEDs and a more effective testing plan, but it was pulled to it kicking and screaming, mostly because doing anything about it was too hard and not very appetizing from a business and P.R. perspective.

And so here we are again. Baseball has a major scandal on its hands. After some initially promising words about how serious it planned to take it, the league seems content to cordon off the known crime scene and refuses to canvass the neighborhood. Sure, if someone gratuitously hands them evidence they’ll look into it, but it sure sounds like Rob Manfred plans to react rather than act here.

That should work. At least until the next time evidence of cheating comes up and they have to start this all over again.

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