213 Miles From Shea

More teams are starting to reveal interest for Shohei Otani as MLB Trade Rumors have reported that the Cubs have now have interest. Which brings the list of interested teams to:

• Dodgers
• Rangers
• Red Sox
• Orioles
• Cubs

The Nippon Ham Fighters drafted Otani in the NPB Player draft so they have until the end of March to negotiate a contract with Otani. It will be very tempting for MLB teams to step in before that, especially with Shohei expressing interest to start his career in the States.

MLB was already in hot water with Korean Baseball with the way the Orioles handled the signing of Kim Seong-min. Kim was 17 and the Orioles breached the protocol for signing a player out of high school, thus landing themselves as a ban.

So we reach this point of game theory. For the best interest of baseball, teams will have to try not to sign Otani before the end of March. However, if a team wants the supreme competitive advantage of signing a player that can change the course of a franchise (which is generally the feeling of highly touted prospects, even though it isn’t always the outcome) then a team might not care about messing with international relationships for every MLB franchise.

International Baseball is about to become a big, public game of chicken for the next several months.

Earlier today in a three team trade, Heath Bell went from the Marlins to the Diamondbacks and Chris Young went from the Diamondbacks to the Athletics. When I first read about this before boarding a subway, I quickly shut off my phone thinking, “Oh not a big deal for the Mets”. It just means Bell is out of the division.

And then I remembered what this may mean for the outfield market. At the start of the off season, the Diamondbacks had Upton, Young, Parra and Kubel. They needed to trade at least one player, which they did today. Earlier it looked like the Diamondbacks would move either Parra and Kubel. Now that they moved Young, the question is, will they move another outfielder? The Diamondbacks were looking for starting pitching, so if they can get starting pitching, then maybe yes, they will move another outfielder. However, now the Diamondbacks are in a much better position because they don’t NEED to trade anyone. They now have a hand up in negotiations.

The trade market taketh away, it also giveth (yeah I know I reversed that quote, whatever).

With Chris Young now on the Athletics, this moves Coco Crisp into the trade market.

(Edit): Oakland GM yesterday said that he is not inclined to trade Crisp. So Crisp isn’t on the market now. However, it looks like Oakland will not bring back Gomes, so he’s on the market now.

tl;dr – It may be more difficult for the Mets to now trade with the Diamondbacks, but now the Athletics may be looking to move an OF,  will probably let go of Gomes.