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While there weren’t any huge moves over the weekend, the free-agent pool continues to be chock-full of big names. The Athletic’s top 25 options still has eight unsigned players, and the cream of that crop includes Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger, Jordan Montgomery, and Josh Hader.
Scott Boras continues to seek a massive payday for Bellinger, who had a massive bounceback year with the Cubs after returning to a clean bill of health. Reports have suggested that the Texas Rangers would like to reunite with Montgomery, and Hader is reportedly seeking a deal better than what Edwin Díaz got from the Mets.
There has been some talk of Snell being a fit for the Blue Jays, though that seems like an odd tidbit, unless they were to move an arm. Back in December, we talked about how the Twins could be a fit as a partner if Toronto was interested in either Max Kepler or Jorge Polanco, and Minnesota would net Alek Manoah in some sort of a return.
Jordan Hicks Finds a Home
The San Francisco Giants have been searching for a superstar for quite some time. They did come to an agreement with Jung Hoo Lee last month, but they missed out on Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa last season, and weren’t too deep in the running for Shohei Ohtani. After dealing for Robbie Ray, who is going to miss roughly half of the 2024 season, they opted to sign Jordan Hicks…for their starting rotation.
Hicks has pitched in 212 major-league games over the course of a five-year career, but just eight of them have come as a starter. He has shown a lacking ability to stay healthy, and his stuff has played better out of the bullpen. His 77 2/3 career high for innings pitched came in 2018, and asking a guy with a substantial injury history to double (or more) his 65 2/3 innings from last season seems like a stretch. Maybe the Giants know something everybody else is missing.
Twins Hone in on Hobie
Over the weekend, the Twins signed another free-agent reliever to a minor-league deal. Hobie Harris joins the organization after making his major-league debut as a 30-year-old with the Washington Nationals last season. Darren Wolfson reported that the organization has been attempting to sign him the past couple of years now, and they finally get it done.
Harris joins the likes of A.J. Alexy as veteran types brought in on minor-league deals. While neither has the 40-man roster spot like Ryan Jensen claimed, both are clearly players the organization likes. Harris posted a 2.04 ERA across 53 innings at Triple A for Milwaukee in 2022. He strikes out a lot of batters, walks a few too many, but doesn’t surrender long balls. Minnesota would love to see this work out along the lines of Danny Coulombe or Jeff Hoffman, but this time, they have to hang onto the player.
Marlins Want to do What?
A year after the Miami Marlins sent Pablo López and José Salas to the Minnesota Twins in exchange for second baseman Luis Arráez, they appear intent on trading him. Yes, the guy whom Kim Ng acquired and moved Jazz Chisholm to the outfield for is someone that the new regime would like to move, or at least are open to moving. Forget the fact that Arráez posted a career-best 3.4 fWAR, won a second straight batting title, and is beloved by Miami. The organization pays almost no one big dollars, and Arráez is coming into the big-dollar phase of his career.
Jon Heyman noted that while the most likely players to be dealt from the Marlins are either Jesús Luzardo or Edward Cabrera, the front office is open to hearing what teams offer for Arráez. He’s got two years of team control left, but it's unlikely Miami wants to pay him the nearly $30 million he's likely to make over that term, and the sides already have a discrepancy in what the player is worth through arbitration. Getting something back before simply having to provide him a qualifying offer makes sense, but that would be a tough turnaround.
Boring Mauer Weekend
Maybe it was that the NFL playoff action was too much for BBWAA voters to overcome, but just two new ballots were revealed over the weekend. One of them was a three-man offering that included Adrián Beltré, Álex Rodríguez, and Manny Ramírez. No Joe Mauer was unfortunate, but that one was clearly a small-Hall ballot; so it goes.
On Sunday, Mauer did get his name checked on the only ballot turned in, and Jeff Wilson’s offering had the Twins great being accompanied by seven others. Through 158 publicly revealed ballots, Mauer has been selected on 132 of them, which represents an 83.5% polling rate per Ryan Thibodaux’s tracker. He is trending toward first-ballot induction, and could challenge Kirby Puckett’s 82.1% vote.
It was on Jan. 20 last year that Minnesota swung the López-for-Arráez deal, and they could again be busy this week. The Twins have yet to sort out their starting rotation, a couple of expensive veterans remain, and they did just do an interesting arbitration deal with utility player Kyle Farmer.
What are you hoping to see take place in the baseball world this week?
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