Day One Roundup from the 2024 Winter Meetings in Dallas, TX
With two of our columnists being on the scene in Dallas, here is everything you need to know from Day 1 of the Winter Meetings.
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DALLAS, Tex. — It was a busy Monday in Dallas as the MLB Winter Meetings officially opened, with the baseball world still buzzing about Juan Soto’s record-breaking 15-year, $765 million deal with the New York Mets.
More about that in a moment, as it wouldn’t be the Winter Meetings without plenty of deals getting done and teams starting to lay the groundwork for what they hope will be a successful 2025 season.
Among the signings on Monday was Jordan Romano finding his way to the Philadelphia Phillies in a one-year deal that could be the answer for some of the late-game questions in the City of Brotherly Love and Matthew Boyd joining the Cubs rotation as he looks to prove he can still make an impact following Tommy John surgery.
So what else did we hear at the start of the 2024 Winter Meetings? With two Just Baseball columnists — Kevin Henry and Patrick Lyons — scouring the sights and sounds inside the Hilton Anatole, here’s what we heard and what you need to know.
Juan Soto Fallout
More details emerged since the original news on Sunday night broke about Juan Soto’s deal with the New York Mets that not only gave that franchise the star it wanted, but also cast into doubt questions about how exactly the New York Yankees would pivot after losing the bidding war.
Seemingly every MLB manager was asked about their reaction to the record-breaking deal, with some diving deep on the subject and others merely shrugging it off. Here are two of those reactions.
KEVIN HENRY: Terry Francona, the new manager of the Cincinnati Reds, gave the viewpoint of the mid-market team that was never a realistic landing spot for a superstar like Soto.
“I think it makes it harder, but I certainly don’t begrudge teams for doing it if they can. They’re not breaking the rules,” Francona said of the massive contract. “We’re going to have to make really good decisions, and we’re not going to be able to out-spend on mistakes, so we have to limit those.”
He was also reminded that he has been on the other side of the fence before, stockpiling talent on the 2011 Boston Red Sox, a team that was supposed to be great but ended up just 90-72 and missing the postseason.
“That’s why I always don’t complain. I also had that chance to live that side of it. When you go to the other side, I don’t think you can just, well, we need to change the rules now.”
PATRICK LYONS: Another manager that will have to deal with Soto more frequently is Atlanta’s Brian Snitker. He learned all-too-well how the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, especially after being a favorite in the National League East and losing both Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuña Jr. to injuries last year.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Snitker said of the signing. “Once the season starts, so many things can happen: good, bad, indifferent, whatever. We still all have to play the games.”
Soto’s former manager in Washington, Dave Martinez, sounded more like “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair when discussing the ramifications of battling against a player on a 15-year pact.
“We always talk to our young kids about competition, right? In order to be the best, you’ve got to play the best,” Martinez said of Soto. He’s one of the best.”
Roki Sasaki Gets Posted
The Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball made it official on Monday by posting RHP Roki Sasaki. The 23-year-old is the latest Japanese pitching sensation to make the leap to Major League Baseball.
The flamethrower with a career 2.02 ERA over four season in NPB has not won the awards of Yoshinobu Yamamoto — who signed a 10-year, $325 million pact with the Los Angeles Dodgers last offseason — and, because of his age, is only eligible to receive a minor league deal.
This means the most that Sasaki can make is a little over $7.5 million, if he gets all of the international bonus pool from his new team.
HENRY: It’s very evident that the San Diego Padres want to land Sasaki, and it could well come down to a battle between the Padres and the arch-rival Los Angeles Dodgers to land the Japanese phenom.
San Diego manager Mike Shildt said the Padres were “going to put the full-court press to make it happen” in an effort to land Sasaki, adding, “We fully expect to be right in the mix and actually, at the end of the day, have Sasaki a Padre.
LYONS: Call me crazy, but a baseball manager using a basketball analogy in a city that hasn’t had an NBA team since 1984 feels out of place.
If you believe the swirling rumors about a handshake deal with the Dodgers, then it won’t be much of a surprise when Sasaki puts pen to paper on January 15.
If you want drama and believe Sasaki has more reverence for Yu Darvish than the likes of Shohei Ohtani and Yamamoto, then the Friars will continue to pester their big brother to the north.
Best of the Managers
In all, 20 of MLB’s 30 managers took their places in front of the press on Monday, with each given a 20-minute block to answer a variety of questions about last season, the current offseason, and the upcoming 2025 campaign.
Narrowing nearly seven hours of responses down to two favorites wasn’t easy, but here’s what stood out most….
HENRY: Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy, recently named as the NL Manager of the Year, was in a cooking mood when he was asked about the loss of shortstop Willy Adames, who just signed a seven-year, $182 million contract with the San Francisco Giants.
“I don’t even want to think about it,” Murphy said. “It’s a new soup. We’ve got to get that can opener out and open up the ingredients and pour it in and stir it up. You lose a guy with that impact, it’s huge for our club and how we’re built. That’s a big ingredient.”
LYONS: Second-year skipper Joe Espada was pressed about the re-signing of Alex Bregman, trade involving key players like closer Ryan Pressly and what may be the end of the Houston Astros dynasty.
“It’s just baseball for me more than making a reason why we have lost big games in the postseason at home,” Espada said of another disappointing end to a season.
Tuesday will bring media availability for the remaining 10 MLB managers, including Aaron Boone of the New York Yankees, Rob Thomson of the Philadelphia Phillies, Bruce Bochy of the Texas Rangers as well as two new managers, Dan Wilson of the Seattle Mariners and Will Venable of the Chicago White Sox.
Hall of Fame Adds Two
The Class of 2025 added their first two members with Dave Parker (14 votes, 87.5%) and Dick Allen (13 votes, 81.3%) receiving the required support from members of the Classic Baseball Era Committee.
Parker was a seven-time All-Star who won a pair of batting titles (1977-78) and was named the 1978 National League MVP with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was the All-Star Game MVP in 1979 and won the first of two World Series rings that year.
Allen, who passed away in 2020 at the age of 78, was selected to seven Midsummer Classics. He was the NL Rookie of the Year in 1964 for the Philadelphia Phillies and the American League MVP for the Chicago White Sox in 1972.
The pair will be celebrated in Cooperstown during the induction ceremony on Sunday, July 27 with anyone receiving at least 75% of votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Looking Ahead to Tuesday
Tuesday’s MLB Draft Lottery at 5:30 p.m. ET is poised for more surprises, especially after the Cleveland Guardians won the lottery last year with the ninth-best odds at only 2.0%.
The Colorado Rockies and Miami Marlins share the highest percentage (22.5%) for winning the first overall pick in the 2025 MLB Draft. Colorado has never had the first selection. Other lottery entrants like the Toronto Blue Jays (7.5%), Cincinnati Reds (3.7%), San Francisco Giants (1.9%), Boston Red Sox (1.2%) and St. Louis Cardinals (0.8%) have never selected first overall.