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It’s pretty funny during the NBA Draft when Woj tweets out picks, but he has to use a whole bunch of different buzz words because ESPN won’t let him spoil the news before it’s aired on TV. Anyway, that was the first thing I thought of when this little excerpt was pulled from Jeff Passan’s story about the upcoming MLB offseason.
Here’s the full blurb from Passan, who spoke with a bunch of MLB executives to give somewhat of a preview to the offseason.
Via ESPN.
Teams that want Cole understand that he’s getting more than $200 million this offseason. How much more is the question. The record deal for a starter is David Price’s $217 million. The record per year for a pitcher is Zack Greinke’s $34.4 million (or, for the pedants who factor in the price of deferred money in Greinke’s deal, Justin Verlander’s $33 million). Cole seeking Price’s seven years at Greinke’s average annual value is not out of the realm of possibility, not with the Astros, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Los Angeles Angels, Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants and Atlanta Braves all positioned and motivated to explore adding Cole.
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Ahh yes, “positioned and motivated to explore,” what a fantastic sequence of words to simply say these teams are probably going to try and sign Gerrit Cole.
Of course, there will only be one winner in the Cole sweepstakes, but isn’t it fun to already start and dream about adding an ace if you’re either a Cubs or White Sox fan?
And as much as the end result hurt last offseason, the White Sox were certainly in the mix for Manny Machado. They don’t have a lot of payroll committed for the next several years, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they’ll be in the hunt for Cole. Obviously there’s the question of will the White Sox go above and beyond to finally land the top player in a free agency class, something they fell short of doing with Machado.
As for the Cubs, they’ll have some money come off the books while also getting a boost from their new TV deal. There could be several moving pieces in the offseason and this front office has already signed two huge contracts with free agent pitchers in Jon Lester and Yu Darvish. Why not another one for Cole, who will be younger than both at the time of their big free agent deals.
Well, if hate offseason rumors, sorry because they’re already starting and they won’t be going away for the Cubs and White Sox.
