The Winter meetings came to a close Wednesday in Orlando, Florida. For many fans expecting big moves to improve their teams, especially A’s fans, the ending is quite unsatisfying. Fans hoping for a high draft pick may have been disappointed that the A’s fell in the draft to the eight slot instead of rising toward the top. But as we’ve seen before, good scouting and quality decision making can make any draft position valuable.
Yesterday, the A’s lost Daniel Susac in the Rule 5 Draft to the Minnesota Twins, who then flipped him to the Giants. Two picks later, the Athletics selected pitcher Ryan Watson from San Francisco and then traded him to the Red Sox for infielder Justin Riemer and cash.
According to A’s MLB Beat Writer Martín Gallegos, despite not making any moves having an impact on the MLB 40-man roster, groundwork was laid for “potential deals later this offseason, while also touching base with agents for young players currently on the roster whom the club would like to lock up with long-term deals, such as American League Rookie of the Year Nick Kurtz, Jacob Wilson, Shea Langeliers and Tyler Soderstrom.”
The biggest move of the day in the MLB was the Baltimore Orioles seemingly coming out of nowhere to sign Pete Alonso to a 5-year, $155 million deal. It appears that the Mets were never really in the game for Alonso and in the last 24 hours have seen him and Edwin Díaz walk to other teams. Does that free up the cash to make a run at Cody Bellinger or Kyle Tucker, probably the two biggest bats left in a still significant free agent pool.