We Don't Even Have A World Series Champion Yet And The Hot Stove Is Already Heating Up
I told myself I wouldn’t get excited about hot stove season. I told myself I was just going to sit back and let the offseason come to me and whatever happens happens. Not getting my hopes up on anyone or anything in particular. My heart cannot handle it after the Machado/Jay/Alonso saga from last winter.
But then we get Hector Gomez and his crew of Latin American reporters dropping little nuggets saying the Sox are in play for a guy who’s one of the better free agents in this year’s OF class. Good, great, grand. Some obscure twitter rumor to complement this Bears hangover is EXACTLY what I needed this week.
Not that I don’t like Marcell Ozuna, because I do. He is a good hitter. Not a great one, a good one. He’d slot nicely into the Sox middle third of the order. Former Silver Slugger winner, all star, and as a White Sox fan beggars can NOT be choosers. That goes without say.
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But this one… this one kinda stinks, and it stinks because of this: 7 years and $160MM? That’s LOL funny. NO SHOT does Marcell Ozuna get anywhere near that in years or money.
Organizations just don’t pay for what you used to do anymore. They pay for what they think you’ll do moving forward. It’s not totally fair to the players and it’ll be a point of contention in the next CBA, but he’s been mildly average the last two years offensively. A tick above average or so.
2018:
2019:
That, and his defense is only going to worsen as he ages, and he stinks defensively as it is. Total rag arm too. I do NOT care what the metrics say or that he won a GG a few years ago in Miami. He’s not good defensively. My eyeballs tell me all I need to know there. Pair him with a brutal Eloy in LF and that would really put pressure on Luis Robert to cover a lot of ground in the OF in the coming years.
But…. he’s only entering age 29 season in 2020 which is younger than most players when they become free agents, so he’s def getting paid. I’d just be shocked if anyone sacked up for 7 years of his services or paid him ~$23MM AAV in any long term deal. Would guess it’s around 4-5 years at ~$20MM max, and that’s a high end guess.
That, or he might gamble on himself and take a high AAV, 1 year “prove it” type deal with the Twins or some shit and gun for the bigger pay day in the 2020-21 offseason. But 7/$160MM? No shot. None at all. At least not right now and probably not ever. Teams just don’t hand out money and years to mildly above average players like that anymore.
Nevertheless, the upgrade he’d provide the Sox historically bad RF numbers would be nice at the same time. Just not at some “fuck you” rate. So to all Sox fans who saw the 7/$160MM number thrown out there and thinking Reinsdorf would never drop that kinda coin, we don’t have to worry about that because he won’t have to, at least not on Ozuna.