Wheelin’ and Dealin’
If you haven’t heard, there is this guy named Juan Soto and he signed with the Mets. I’m sure you have seen it all over and you even heard about it right here on the Throwing Bagels Podcast. He signed with the Mets and most believe it will/has kicked the 2024/25 baseball offseason into high gear.
There were a bunch of minor moves going back to Halloween when the Braves and Angels made a minor move of trading Jorge Soler for Griffin Canning. Probably not the move everyone was looking for. A slightly larger move occurred when the Royals and Reds consummated a deal, with Kansas City trading highly touted pitcher Brady Singer to Cincy for recent Rookie of the Year Jonathan India and Joey Wiemer.
On November 25, some more substantial moves took place. Yusei Kikuchi signed with the Angels and then the biggest move prior to Soto was the Dodgers adding more depth to their rotation and more deferred money they will owe for a very long time to Blake Snell. On December 7th, Wily Adames signed with the Giants and then the next day came the coup de gras with the Mets signing Soto to a 15 year, $765 million deal.
We all were hoping that once he signed, it would begin that flurry. In recent offseasons, there have been many free agents who did not sign until around spring training or even after it started and into March. We didn’t have to wait too long, as two days later, the Yankees, taking some of the money they would have spent on Soto, went and signed Max Fried away from the Braves for $218 million over eight years, with pundits saying probably the dumbest fact that this is the highest contract ever given to a left-handed pitcher. Maybe it’s me, but I don’t know why we care about that. I guess they have nothing better to report.
It seems almost each day now we have had someone signed or traded, which is the way free agency should be early on. The Yankees have really begun to put that money they were going to give Soto to other players by also trading for closer, Devin Williams and reportedly Clay Bellinger.
Baseball has been taken to task recently because of how free agency has worked the last few years. In all other sports, there are salary caps and there is a designated day players can begin signing, just like in baseball. The other sports also have what is referred to as a legal tampering where free agents can begin negotiating but cannot sign until a certain date. In football it is in March and in basketball and hockey it is usually July 1st. Since baseball does not have a salary cap, it really does not matter when players sign because teams can sign whoever they want and just pay what they call a luxury tax.
With the way baseball works we never know when players will sign and there is usually that one big fish the players like to see set the market and then will look to sign after. This is what the Soto signing was expected to do. Although we have seen some signings, we have actually seen more trades since the Soto signing and are waiting to see where players like Pete Alonso, Alex Bregman, Corbin Burnes, Christian Walker and, among others, Roki Sasaki, who cannot sign until mid-January since he is coming over from the Japanese league and there are specific rules when these players come over. The hope is we can begin to see a flurry of activity soon and we do not have to wait until February to see the top free agents sign with their most recent teams, or depart for new ones.