Way Too Early Free Agent Landings
Way Too Early Free Agent Landings
Don't come for me, it's September
Sam and I just talked about this on our weekly podcast (shameless plug, go listen to it) and man was it fun. Obviously it’s September, so nothing is even rumored to be true, it was purely for fun and a thought exercise on where gaps are going to be on clubs heading into 2025. Having said that, I had a few takes that I really loved the fit on, so I’m gonna talk about them.
Blake Snell (BOS)
All of the Red Sox fans at The Skippers View will love this one. Despite having a player option worth $38M in 2025, Snell is almost certainly opting out and hitting the open market again. Stymied by his agent Scott Boras in the 2024 season, he missed a good chunk of time while on-ramping. Coming off the Cy Young win in 2023, Snell has had an incredible second half of baseball where he’s had a sub-2 ERA in all of July, August, and September.
He’s worth well more than the $38M he could take to stay in San Fran, but I see him getting scooped up by the Red Sox. Coming off an extremely up and down year, the common denominator of their success and short comings was the pitching. Without a true ace, or LHP in the rotation (no, Rich Hill didn’t count), why not go get the best available LHP on the market?
Alex Bregman (TOR)
Coming into his contract year, I really believed Bregman could potentially be a dark horse for AL MVP, boy was I wrong. A putrid start to his 2024 campaign put an end to that pipe dream quick, but has rebounded into a pretty nice season accumulating a 3.9 fWAR. Tons of playoff experience, and a miniscule 7% K rate, Bregman is a low-risk, high-reward player that any organization could benefit from.
Toronto has a lot of work to do, plenty of aging pieces with their cornerstone in Vladdy. I believe Bregman would be a great fit for not an insane price tag, and would be a really nice piece to start building around, and if Bichette can get back to what we expect, this lineup and infield all of a sudden is pretty sexy. Hoping the Jays make some management changes first, but this would be the big target.
Yusei Kikuchi (TBR)
Another player who had a rough start to his season, but has really found his stride since getting traded to Houston in the second half. In 11 stats since joining the Astros, Kikuchi is 5-1 through 60 IP, throwing to a 2.70 ERA and 0.93 WHIP racking up 76 K to just 14 BB. Not to mention hitters are only hitting .188 against the lefty.
Tampa found themselves in a ‘punt’ year after a slew of injuries, specifically to the pitching staff. THe Rays feel like a pitching lab that can replicate what Houston has done for him, and they could find their rotation in 2025 headlined by Shane McClannahan, Taj Bradley, Ryan Pepiot, and Yusei Kikuchi. Just what they need to get back in the mix of the AL East.
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