Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Winter Meetings: Day 2


Basically just a link dump, I noticed there was nothing scheduled so I can throw something together as I assume most of the talking points for tomorrow will revolve around day 2 of the Winter Meetings, as the Swan and Dolphin is front and center in the baseball world. Apparantly not for Derek Jeter though, as it appears he has better places to be. It's not like the Marlins have much going on these days, anyway.

Let's start with the big fish (insert Stanton/Marlin pun here). It appears Atkins has no interest in moving franchise player Josh Donaldson, as initial reports from Florida indicate.

Also from Benny Fresh, a pretty good read regarding the decision regarding Donaldson;

I don't want to beat this topic to death, as it looks more likely that Donaldson will head into 2018 as a Blue Jay, but I am really curious as to how talks are progressing on extending him longer than that. Losing three key franchise icons in three consecutive off-seasons isn't something that is desirable in terms of asset management, so I'm sure the front office is at least engaged with the Donaldson camp on what a potential extension would look like. Losing him for only a compensation pick next summer would set this franchise back, however a lot can happen between now and next off-season.

Outside of Donaldson, things are heating up as well. They have been linked to Jay Bruce, Eduardo Nunez, and others that are free agents, along with Jonathan Villar and Josh Harrison in the trade market.

I get the feeling that nothing extremely major will be done, but if it does it would be via the trade market. Mostly stop-gaps and short term contracts in the free agent market. I do think they will be actively engaged in trade talks, so if anything major is done it wouldn't shock me. Atkins could see some things out there that haven't been discussed, so anything outside of Vlad/Stroman and Martin/Tulo (for two different reasons) wouldn't completely shock me. Speaking of Vlad Jr, I'm not sure I liked this tweet;
This seems to me like there is some internal worry about him on the nutrition and conditioning side of things, unless I am reading to much into this. He also says 'continues to' which makes me think it might just be a way of saying 'keep doing what you're doing'. There is the risk with that body type that he could always put on a bit of weight. I've always viewed him as pretty similar to Miguel Sano (with better plate discipline), who plays 3rd now but has also played right field, albeit poorly. I'm hoping Vlad can stick at 3rd, but could see him ending up in right field like his father. First base in a worse-case scenario, but leave him at 3rd until he proves he can't. His development is crucial to the organization's future.

Anyways, what do you guys think? Keep this thread up to discuss any major moves or rumors. I have another post I'm working on but it doesn't really have any relevance to the winter meetings, and is centered around roster flexibility in the MLB as a whole, 6 man rotations, Ohtani/2-way players, and potentially adding a 26th roster spot year-round.