Juan Soto, Alex Bregman and 5 bold predictions for the Winter Meetings

The Major League Baseball offseason has been going on for a few weeks and there has been some movement. Jorge Soler, Travis d’Arnaud, Yusei Kikuchi and Kyle Hendricks are Los Angeles Angels while Brady Singer was traded to Cincinnati Reds in a deal that sent Jonathan India and Joey Wiemer to Kansas City Royals.

But the bulk of the off-season activity remains and the Winter Meetings in Dallas, Texas, December 8-12, are expected to bring a flurry of activity with Juan Soto, Alex Bregman, Corbin Burnes, Willy Adames, Max Fried and Blake Snell looming on the horizon. walk.

Here are some bold predictions for the Winter Meetings.

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The feeling around baseball is that Soto’s agent, Scott Boras, will sign just before or during the Winter Meetings.

Soto and Boras met with the leadership groups of the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Toronto Blue Jays, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies And Los Angeles Dodgers. The meetings were of a “getting to know each other” type and did not result in any offers. But deals are expected to be extended starting this week, according to ESPN, lending credence to the idea that Soto could sign during the Winter Meetings Dec. 8-12.

And if Soto did indeed sign at the Winter Meetings, one thing is certain: all hell would start to break loose.

Last year’s winter meetings were boring and that’s what made everyone in baseball realize that we were in for a very, very slow offseason.

This year I expect the Winter Meetings to be very active. I expect Soto to move off the board and perhaps several other top players to find new homes. I also expect the mid and lower tier markets to see some action as well. I think that, given the seriousness shown by the teams at the start of winter, this will end up being one of the most active winter meetings in recent memory.

I don’t know what it will be, but I expect the Red Sox to make a splash.

This could very well be an offseason prediction – I don’t know when the Red Sox will finally make a splash – but I expect them to make a splash. There’s simply too much smoke to ignore and, frankly, with the way the Red Sox have indicated they will spend, anything less than adding a star or two will seem like a failure to the base of fans.

The Red Sox have been linked to Juan Soto, but recruiting the superstar outfielder away from the Mets or Yankees could prove very difficult. The Red Sox have been connected to higher-level free agent starting pitchers and could sign one while trading for a player like Garrett Crochet. Willy Adamès, the Milwaukee Brewers“Star shortstop is another possibility.

The options are endless for the Red Sox and I expect their roster to be significantly improved this offseason, perhaps as early as the Winter Meetings.

From interviewing various executives and agents around baseball, I have a feeling that it is entirely possible that Jack Flaherty could sign a contract worth upwards of $100 million.

It’s unclear which team will give Flaherty that contract — the Dodgers are unlikely to do so — but the right-hander is in a position to cash in this offseason. After all, he improved greatly with the Detroit Tigers and continued that momentum with the Dodgers and finished the season with a 3.17 ERA and 194 strikeouts in 28 starts.

Flaherty is on pace to sign the fourth-largest contract for a free agent this offseason behind Max Fried, Blake Snell and Corbin Burnes.

I want to clarify that I have no information to support this. This is strictly a guess based on pure vibrations.

But it makes sense. THE Detroit Tigers are much improved under manager AJ Hinch and look poised to be a consistent contender in the American League Central. They have a young team and the financial flexibility to sign a star, and given Alex Bregman’s connection to Hinch – the two were together with the Houston Astros – a Bregman signing in Detroit makes perfect sense.

The Astros, however, have made it clear that Bregman is their top priority. They’ve had “productive” conversations with his agent, Scott Boras, and feel good about their chances of retaining the star player. But if the two sides can’t agree on terms, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Tigers rush to sign Bregman.