While the Jets were busy mauling the Rams, baseball seems to take a backseat during Sundays in November. Later this week, the free agent signing frenzy should kick off, and teams and players are looking to wrap up negotiations fairly quickly.
To that end, John Perrotto, one of Baseball Prospectus’ writers, chimed in with his off-season predictions. While the article is for BP subscribers only, I can summarize his predictions as they relate to a lot of the players we’ve been analyzing lately.
CC Sabathia — Yankees. He sees a bidding war of sorts but writes, “The Yankees will throw so much money at Sabathia that he won’t be able to say no.”
Manny Ramirez — Four years and $100 million from the Dodgers. That’s a good signing for an AL team that can stash ManRam and his bad glove at DH. For the Dodgers, this signing will completely hamstring them.
Mark Teixeira — Ten years and $200 million from the Washington Nationals. Perrotto thinks the DC-area native wouldn’t be able to turn down that deal. If Teixeira cares at all about playing on a franchise with a better future, he won’t land in DC.
Mike Mussina — Retirement or the Yankees. That’s not really going out on a limb.
Andy Pettitte — Pettitte filed for free agency today, and while the AP thinks that means something, it’s simply a formality. The Yanks don’t seem overly enthused with bringing back Pettitte, and Perrotto thinks he’ll head to Houston.
Bobby Abreu — The Yankees. Perrotto thinks Bob will return to the Bronx. Depending on years/dollars, I’m not against this move. He’s better than Xavier Nady.
Jason Giambi — Oakland. Clearly.
Jason Varitek — My personal favorite is the two-year, $20-million deal Perrotto predicts the Sox will give Jason. I really hope this happens. It would be great to see the Red Sox flush money down the toilet just because this guy is the supposed “heart and soul” of the team. It’s either that or watching them trade Clay Buchholz to the Rangers for one of Texas’ better catching prospects. Either way, it seems like a win-win for the Yanks, no?
Those are the highlights. Feel free to discuss this or anything else (such as the Giants-Eagles game that starts at 8:15 p.m.). This thread will take you through to Joe’s overnight unless something unexpectedly important happens.
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