It’s Wednesday evening and the Winter Meetings still have
one more day to go. With all the action that has been seen over the first
couple days, who knows what we’re in for in the Thursday finale.
The moves have been exciting, and astounding in some cases,
with the White Sox truly showing everyone what it means to go all-in on a
rebuild, instead of slowly accepting the idea — you know, like the Phillies
did.
The JLB has had quite the Winter Meetings week, as well,
with some big names move around.
No surprise here, Choo is at the forefront of it all.
The Choo Jays missed the World Series last year — which may
be in some ways better than making and losing three straight prior to 2016.
With a first-round playoff exit, the Choo Jays decided to
shake things up. (Had he won it all, wouldn’t he do the same?)
In total, this offseason Choo traded away: Victor Martinez,
Seth Lugo, A.L. Rookie of the year Michael Fulmer, Taijuan Walker, Wilson
Contreras, Josh Hader, Ian Desmond, Tyler O’Neill, and, oh yeah, Clayton
Kershaw.
Three trades for Choo to shake up his squad and get the No.
1 overall pick. I’m sure he’s not done, but he may be for the Winter Meetings
week.
At the end of the day — because some of the
aforementioned traded players were acquired in other trades — Choo enters
Thursday with Addison Russell, Billy Hamilton, Matt Carpenter, Gary Sanchez,
Carlos Martinez and Brent Honeywell added to the roster. Not bad.
Other noteworthy acquisitions include the Crox and Steaks
building up pitching. Crox added Taijuan Walker, Julio Urias and David Price,
while the Steaks added Kershaw and Jeff Samardzija. Both already had strong
starting staffs, and they only got stronger. For the Steaks, it was a huge
effort to match the World Series champion Outs.
The American League regular-season champs from a year ago,
the Gamblers, picked up Wilson Contreras from Crox via Choo and he’ll be in
good shape at catcher for several years.
Ol Country Breakfast was on the other end of the Choo deal
that netted most notably Michael Fulmer, meanwhile Steroid picked up Todd
Frazier, Troy Tulowitzki and Joc Pederson from the Steaks.
The rest of the League was quiet in the trade market, but I’m
sure we’ll see some moves as we move into the new year.
It's bound to happen as 11 teams all look to try and build a squad that can some day match the juggernaut that the Outs have somehow assembled.
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