Did not find a nearby donut place here on vacation, but did find an incredible ice cream shop. Ate my ice cream, and ate the second halves of the two kids’ ice cream that they didn’t finish. I am made of ice cream now.
Yesterday wound up being quite the busy day of transacting around baseball, eh? Nice to see a little pop after Christmas, and hopefully we’ll continue to get more over the next week or so. Speaking of which, can’t say I saw that Corbin Burnes signing coming. Not only would I have DEFINITELY not pegged him to the Diamondbacks (no one would), I figured he was going to push into the new year at this point. Wonder how desperate the Diamondbacks are now to dump Jordan Montgomery – I mean, they already very, very much wanted to, but now they might just have to send along so much cash as to make him an actually attractive bounce-back, one-year candidate on the market. There are rumors flying that the New York Mets have offered Pete Alonso a three-year, $90 million deal, but that isn’t particularly close to what he and Scott Boras are looking for:According to sources from @BaergaCarlos, the Mets have just offered first baseman Pete Alonso $90M for 3 years. #Mets pic.twitter.com/0QqOZT5XKS
Confirmed: The Mets offered Pete Alonso 3Y/$90M; but Alonso is looking for about $175M-$200M.
— Dan Bartels (@DanBartels2) December 27, 2024 Alonso always had the look of a guy who might linger on the market and wind up either having to take a pillow deal, or getting something much less than he’d perhaps been dreaming of a few years ago. The reality of his situation is this: Alonso hits a lot of home runs (fewer last year, however, than in any other full season of his career), but he’s hit .229/.324/.480/121 wRC+ combined the last two seasons, the trend lines on his power output have dipped, and he is now a 30-year-old bat-only guy. How large of a deal – particularly for a free agent attached to draft pick compensation – is realistic? Honestly, I think a $30 million AAV over a three-year deal is not a crazy low offer, and if it’s truly on the table, that’s what Alonso should do (or get a face-saving “$100 million” with a bunch deferred). If things really drag out with Alonso, and if the Cubs were to trade Seiya Suzuki (very unlikely) or Nico Hoerner (very unlikely) or Michael Busch (extremely unlikely), I guess I could imagine a world where the Cubs kicked the tires on a pillow deal for Alonso late in the offseason. But it just feels like such a stretch that (1) a necessary precursor move would happen, (2) the Cubs would deem the club improved from that move by adding Alonso, and (3) Alonso would accept such a small deal as to make it worth it to the Cubs to give up their second round pick, fifth round pick, that draft bonus pool space, and $1 million in IFA bonus pool space. I just feel like I have to dismiss Alonso rumors out of hand for those reasons. Deferrals are back in The Discourse thanks to the Dodgers’ layaway deal with Teoscar Hernández, and the fact that they now owe well over $1 billion in deferred salary over the coming decades. This is, of course, entirely permissible under the CBA, since the deferred money has to be set aside in escrow (but the team can make money on it in the meantime and does not have to pay interest) and the contract is calculated to present-day value for CBT purposes. But it unquestionably benefits team with substantial revenue since they can afford to go this route in the first place and then they get a financial windfall from doing it, and it unquestionably benefits agents who get to market themselves as having landed a “$700 million contract” for their client, when the real value of the deal is dramatically lower. The only person involved that these deals do not benefit? The players, who hopefully have a good accountant involved in the process to tell them what they are giving up. Otherwise you might have a player getting snowed by a team and an agent who can both tell him he’s “getting more money” in their heavily-deferred deal than some other offer that is paying a smaller amount straight away. A’s president Dave Kaval has resigned from the organization to “pursue new business opportunities in California.” The timing is logical, given the impending move to Las Vegas by way of Sacramento, but you can imagine it’ll be a challenging gig for whomever steps in. The job is more on the business side, so you wouldn’t necessarily expect this to be a poaching situation, but you never know.MORE FROM BLEACHER NATION: Check Out BN Fantasy | Subscribe to The BN Newsletter
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