The past 36 hours’ moves were few, but they were certainly heavy. And honestly, some were out of complete nowhere. If you missed the other roundups, you can find Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here. Our free agent roundup continues below:
- Nick Castellanos: 5 years, $100M to the Phillies. Boom! The Phillies are solving their defensive issues the best way possible: by loading up on offense. Who cares if they score 10 if we score 12? Now, obviously there are genuine concerns. Legitimate, glaring concerns on the defensive side of the ball for Philadelphia. Am I going to let those concerns stop me from enjoying landing another big name? Like hell I’m not. Welcome to Philly, Nick.
- Carlos Correa: 3 years, $105.3M to the Twins. This is one of those moves that I mentioned coming from out of nowhere. There were quite a few teams in the mix for the shortstop, and to my knowledge, none of them were Minnesota. Does this move make a ton of sense to me? No. Do I think the Twins get better? Maybe. Does the prospect of a fully healthy Twins lineup scream excitement? Yes.
- Kenley Jansen: 1 year, $16M to the Braves. This was another pretty random move. I honestly never thought Jansen would leave LA, but with the Braves primed to make a run at a repeat title, I get the allure. Atlanta has their closer for this season, and show no signs of slowing down.
- Hansel Robles: To the Red Sox.
- Michael Pineda: To the Tigers.
- Matt Carpenter: to the Rangers.
- Danny Duffy: 1 year, to the Dodgers.
- Ryan Tepera: 2 years, $14M to the Angels. The Angels are taking the improvement of their pitching staff seriously, and pick up a very solid pen guy.
- Colin Moran: To the Reds.
- Jonathan Villar: 1 year, $6M to the Cubs.
- Jorge Soler: 3 years, $36M to the Marlins. Don’t sleep on the Fish this season. They’ve assembled some arms, and adding a veteran like Soler tells the young lineup that the front office thinks they can win some games right now. Soler had a career year in 2019, followed up by a very disappointing 2020 and a poor start to the 2021 season. After getting moved to Atlanta, he had quite a resurgence and picked up a ring in the process. Maybe he can bring some of that spark to the Marlins for a few years.
- Drew Smyly: 1 year, $5.25M to the Cubs. For a team who just nuked their roster, the Cubs are making some interesting moves. They’ve added offensive help, extended their manager, landed the most attractive foreign prospect of the off season, and now add some help to the rotation. Things are bubbling underneath the surface in Chicago, and they clearly don’t want to spend another season towards the bottom of that division.
Credits to the breaks and stats again to Ken Rosenthal on Twitter. There are only a few big names left to sign, barring any big surprises. With Spring Training underway, the volume of moves is going to slow down, but we’re not done yet. Stay tuned for more.
Hub World 