I'm back y'all! After a brief hiatus I am so happy to be back with The Odyssey. I'm kicking off my return with the thing I perhaps write the best about: Baseball.
Or maybe I should say the lack of baseball? If you've been following along with the offseason in baseball––or, the Hot Stove season as it's known by baseball fans––you'll know that the stove has been rather...chilly.
Early in December we saw––and cried about, a lot––Giancarlo Stanton get traded to the Yankees in what was essential a salary dump for the rebuilding-Marlins. Other Marlins players were traded off in lesser-publicized deals, such as Marcel Ozuna (who went to the Cardinals) and Dee Garden (who went to the Mariners, this is our year). Derek Jeter, the new face of Miami Marlins management, took a lot of hits for these moves, but they really just had to be made.
And just a few days ago the Pittsburgh Pirates decided to throw in the towel on the 2018 season, sending faces-of-their-franchise Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole to the Giants and Astros, respectively.
But even with those deals, it still feels like this Hot Stove season has been anything but hot. Maybe it's just me? But if my timeline on Twitter has been any indication in the past couple of weeks, it's definitely not!
But what has led to this cold streak? One of the reasons is that teams are increasingly apprehensive to give long-term, costly deals to aging players on the wrong side of 30. One of these players is J.D. Martinez.
The Boston Red Sox and Martinez are currently locked in a stalemate. Reports are that Martinez wants a 6 or 7 year deal, and the Red Sox aren't willing to go past 5 years. This is a good thing for the Red Sox, who are still paying Pablo Sandoval millions upon millions of dollars to be eating 12 cheeseburgers a day somewhere in the Giants farm system after signing him to a long-term deal. I'm sure I'll talk more about the Red Sox/Martinez debacle at a later point.
The point of this is that teams all over baseball are taking the Red Sox lead (save for the Yankees, who now have Stanton's massive contract to deal with) and being a bit more apprehensive in who they sign. These long-term, multi-million dollar contracts are becoming less and less popular among teams who are somehow just now realizing that these contracts almost never work out for the them.
What does this mean? Well, it means that there are lots of stalemates popping up, which means that the temperature on the hot stove has been turned down to lukewarm. It also opens up some interesting questions: Will players start accepting shorter, less lucrative deals, or will teams eventually cave? And what does it mean for Bryce Harper, the man who was rumored to sign at the end of this season during free agency for $500 million dollars?
Who knows––but this baseball fanatic is certainly excited to see how the next few years play out. Also how much longer until spring training? I really miss baseball.
Want to hear more baseball talk or join in the conversation? Join Hannah every Sunday from 12-2 on Turning Two Tunes. Listen live on 90.7fm KZUU or stream online here.
