The hot stove is heating up with a notable overnight signing. Here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. Is a Cease trade on the horizon?
With the White Sox openly considering deals for any and all players on their roster, right-hander Dylan Cease has been among the hottest names on the rumor mill to this point in the offseason. Cease’s trade candidacy began to escalate somewhat yesterday, with MLB Network’s Jon Morosi even suggesting that it’s possible a deal could be in place before the start of the Winter Meetings this weekend. The Dodgers, Braves, Red Sox, and Orioles have all been publicly connected to Cease, whose trade market we examined earlier this month.
While Cease is coming off an uneven 2023 campaign that saw him post a 4.58 ERA despite a solid 3.72 FIP, he owns a much stronger 3.54 ERA and 3.40 FIP over the past three seasons and could have more appeal to some clubs as a target than other arms rumored to be available such as Shane Bieber, Corbin Burnes and Tyler Glasnow due to the fact that he’s arbitration eligible for both the 2024 and ’25 campaigns.
2. What’s next for the Reds?
The Reds have mostly sat out free agency in recent years, with zero players signed to multi-year contracts since the 2019-20 offseason that saw them bring in Nick Castellanos, Mike Moustakas, Shogo Akiyama, and Wade Miley on multi-year pacts. That inactivity changed yesterday, however, as the club reportedly agreed to terms with two right-handers on two-year contracts: reliever Emilio Pagan and swingman Nick Martinez. The moves help to shore up a pitching staff that proved to be the primary culprit behind the Reds missing the postseason with an 82-80 record in 2023 despite the emergence of a core of young players like Matt McLain, Andrew Abbott, and Elly De La Cruz (among others).
While the combined guarantee of $42MM to Pagan and Martinez represents a substantial financial outlay relative to Cincinnati’s recent spending habits, the club likely has plenty of room to add further salary; RosterResource projects their 2024 payroll at just $71MM — $16MM below their 2023 payroll and more than $50MM below the club’s all-time high payroll of $126MM in 2019, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts.
3. Outstanding DH Award winner announced:
MLB’s awards season will conclude tonight with the announcement of this year’s Edgar Martinez Outstanding Designated Hitter Award winner. The winner will be announced at 5pm CT this evening on MLB Network. While the likes of Yordan Alvarez, Bryce Harper, and Marcell Ozuna all had excellent seasons at DH in 2023, it’s hard to imagine the award going to anyone other than free agent superstar Shohei Ohtani. If Ohtani does take home the hardware, it’ll be his third consecutive season doing so. That’s more consecutive wins than any player other than David Ortiz, who won the award five seasons in a row from 2003-07. Martinez himself won the award five times between 1995 to 2001, though never more than twice consecutively.
Cease to Braves for consideration of lopsided Bummer trade.
Lopsided trade? 2 guys that would have been non-tendered 24 hours later, 2 former 1st rd picks (Shuster, Shewmake) that have fallen out of favor with no roster spot and a wild-card prospect (Gowens)? ATL cleaning house and found some change under the couch cushions that may lead to something, anything.
Agreed throw in bottle of Frank Thomas’ Nugenix, Moncada’s prospect hype, Shoeless Joe Jackson himself, and you have a deal .
Cash only. Cease to Braves.
Felt so confident in your bad joke you had to try it twice huh?
The Reds are off to a good start.
Hopefully they are not done.
Although they have ceased to talk about the Reds and Cease.
Yes, they addressed late innings and long relief/spot start/opener, and now they need a solid rotation addition. Keep the focus on SPs, and you’ll be just fine.
Bob Castellini cat needs trimmed, I d start with top it, makes my skin Krall!
I thought it was named after Edgar Martinez, Assistant Manager, Target Store 2262. The things we learn at MLBTR.
Why didn’t MLBTR announce the top reliever of the year for each league? It was in their opener yesterday.
Old – Sometimes they don’t bother announcing winners. I don’t believe they ever announced the MOY winners either.
It’s a shame Cease needs to be traded. However, the sorry state the White Sox are in, they need to use their best asset to improve.
If there’s any truth to Snell to SEA rumors — and they do use any of their young arms (Gilbert?, Kirby?) to trade for a controllable bat — would CWS be interested with Luis Robert Jr under contract? Possibly wouldn’t fit their timeline, but man, J-Rod and Robert in that OF would be special.
I’d trade Gilbert but no way mariners trade Kirby for just Robert
Cease this winter then Luis Robert at the deadline. They’ll be lucky to draw 10k to that cement hole thing they call a stadium.
Hate the team if you want but they have a very nice stadium.
Not even in the top 20.
In some crazy scheme to turn a profit, maybe the Samsonite people made more than one!
bob – I agree, this new trend of attaching a player’s name to every award is silly.
If it’s meant to honour the greatest player at that position, then no offense to Edgar but Papi’s name should be on the DH award.
While they have a similar OPS, Ortiz has DOUBLE the number of career homeruns, 584 more hits, 1,521 more total bases, and is the greatest postseason hitter ever.
Edgar’s career 147 OPS+ beats Papi’s 141 solidly.. (I think it’s relevant that Papi’s home games with the Red Sox were in one of the best hitter’s parks.
Book – True about Park Factors, but more than offset by the much more difficult AL East pitching staffs.
Edgar has almost 15 more career WAR than Papi, but some of that is because he was a decent 3b when young and healthy, while Papi was a bad 1b. They were both slow.
If you talk to baseball experts—which I’m not—you’d be unlikely to find one who thinks Papi was better than Edgar, AL East pitching greats notwithstanding (iirc, Baltimore, Tampa, and Toronto weren’t juggernauts over most of Papi’s career. Papi didn’t face Red Sox pitching all that often, leaving only the Yankees. I’d be shocked if there’s a meaningful difference in quality of pitchers faced between the two stars.
“Papi’s 141” and “one of the best hitter’s parks.”
Doesnt OPS+ incorporate a park factor? Kinda redundant point.
Its like saying “Joe Smoe had a high batting average, and he did it while getting a lot of hits too”.
Book – Since it’s the DH award, I looked strictly at their production as DH’s only.
57 games a season against the Yankees, Rays and Jays. I could put the opponents ERA together but you probably wouldn’t even acknowledge the work involved.
Cease or clevinger to the cards is what I’m hearing. Mo isn’t done yet, so get ready for more tears
Nah, doesn’t fit their offseason MO. Rich Hill likelier.
This DH award is kind of a silly idea. If your gonna do this why not just have a best hitter award instead? I mean it’s just another position. We don’t have a Best Second Baseman award. Why would the easiest “position” be the one honored with it’s own award? They accumulate value (WAR) somewhat superficially by not having to play defense which would drag another players WAR down despite all the extra work involved. I love the DH btw.
You’re right, why does this award exist when it’s completely redundant to the Silver Slugger at DH? Now that the NL has adopted the DH, at least the Silver Slugger is now handed out to both leagues like most MLB awards.
What an idiotic award. Best hitter who’s not good enough to play a position award. Cool. Almost as dumb as the MVP only going to the good player who’s team was also good. Unless the writers feel different sometimes.
Woodpile is full. Let’s stoke up the hot stove this weekend! Go Crew!!
To be a good DH I don’t think it’s easy, imagine striking out in the first, then waiting until the 4th to get a second chance, then often coming up with the shot to win it or be the differencemaker. You’re not in the field refocusing and gaining confidence. That’s why Edgar was a lifetime .312 hitter and they don’t make real DHs anymore. He may not have earned WAR on the field but more then made up for it with his bat. Ask the best reliever of all time Mariano Rivera who he would least like to face with 2 outs and the game on the line, its Edgar Martinez.
I think the benefits to DHing at least make up for any difficulties. You can 100% dedicate yourself to hitting alone and the body doesn’t take the wear of playing in the field. That doesn’t mean full time DH duties couldn’t have a negative effect on some players.
It’s tough for some players to “stay in the game” at the DH slot. I get that. You’re just hanging out around the bench unless you get some hacks in at the clubhouse.
Ohtani’s probably going to win the award 90% of the time for the foreseeable future. The number of actual DH’s is declining as teams cycle a bunch of players in the spot.
For fun:
WHITE SOX: SP Dylan Cease, CF Luis Robert Jr FOR
REDS: 3B/SS Elly De La Cruz and CF TJ Friedl SP Lyon Richardson?
Yes, no, maybe? Why?
I’ll go with “why?”
“What’s next for Reds?” 2024 NL Central Championship. That’s what’s next.