We have entered the part of the offseason affectionately referred to as the ‘waiting game’. We already saw the flurry of activity from the Braves to shore up their rotation, but now the entire league is sort of staring at each other despite the fact that the non-tender deadline has finally passed and we now can see that the fallout from that wasn’t quite as bad as some thought.
Same goes for the Braves as other than letting Adam Duvall become a free agent which was a mild, but not earth-shattering surprise, the team is joining the rest of the league by waiting for other teams or players to blink. For now, we have some excellent Rule 5 draft analysis from our own Ivan the Great as we have that draft coming up.
Beyond that, we await decisions on the designated hitter for the National League and from those players who comprise the free agent pool this offseason. We get asked a LOT about these issues and our fearless leader, Kris Willis, did a mailbag article to provide some insight into such matters.
With the Winter Meetings going virtual this year, the same amount of condensed activity and news that we have become accustomed to is unlikely to happen although SOMETHING will go down. As a result...the wait continues.
MLB News
It was mostly a quiet day across the league as well although there was the notable exception that the Rangers finally took the GM responsibilities away from Jon Daniels, leaving him to the baseball ops side of things, and hired former MLB pitcher Chris Young to be their general manager. I was initially skeptical of the hire until I realized that Young had been working for MLB as the senior VP of on-field operations which is a pretty big deal...so good for the Rangers in getting a guy who both is from the area AND is imminently qualified.
Beyond that, it is the usual kinda, sorta rumors with Liam Hendriks reportedly getting interest from the Giants and Phillies. Given the state of the Phillies bullpen the last couple of years, it would strange if they weren’t interested in him.
Another NL East team to keep a constant eye on as they have a new owner who seems to be motivated and has money to spend. They have already been connected to a lot of guys and we can now add Jake Odorizzi to the list of guys they have shown some interest in.