Major League Baseball’s general managers meetings start on Monday and run though Thursday in Las Vegas, a chance at a large chunk of the baseball world to congregate in one area. While these meeting don’t usually lend themselves to spurring transactions.
The winter meetings is usually the place where deals happen or start happening, but those might not even happen this year, with a lockout expected just after the collective bargaining agreement expires on December 1 at 8:59 p.m. PT.
Tarik Skubal is
the big prize on the free agent market, but will he sign somewhere in these next three weeks before the darkness comes?
Five years ago, a handful of large deals got done just under the wire before the lockout. Corey Seager signed for $325 million with the Texas Rangers, Max Scherzer set a pitcher record for average annual value with his three years, $130 million with the New York Mets, and Kevin Gausman signed for five years, $110 million with the Toronto Blue Jays, among other deals.
The Dodgers’ big deal at the time was retaining Chris Taylor for four years, $60 million. Not every transaction pays off.
In a relatively week market and Skubal the clear top target, the right-hander is sure to command a princely sum with his next contract. Kiley McDaniel last week at ESPN said he expected Skubal to sign for somewhere between $325-400 million, surpassing Yoshinobu Yamamoto for largest total pitching contract ever if not also setting a new high mark for average annual value.
Jeff Passan at ESPN last week said, “the expectation is he will sign before the Dec. 1 lockout.” Both Passan and McDaniel listed the Dodgers and Mets as the top suitors for Skubal’s services.
Signing deals before the lockout suggest at least some confidence that such a deal would still work under whatever the labor landscape is under the next collective bargaining agreement. The owners have been angling for a salary cap for months, including in last week’s proposal which pushed back a salary cap to 2028, giving teams time to adjust. For a team like the Dodgers with the highest payroll in the sport, adding Skubal would make it harder to eventually reduce payroll to get under a potential cap, if there is one. Then again, Skubal is probably good enough to take the risk anyway.
Scott Boras, who represents Skubal and who represented Scherzer five years ago, talked with Andy McCullough at The Athletic in October about the coming offseason:
“For many teams, I can make an argument it’s clearly best for them to sign players currently, before the (new) CBA, than it is after,” agent Scott Boras said. “Because they have more freedom to do what they’re going to do. They can react later. Now they can get the talent. They can get what they want.”
At the very least, it would at least be funny to see the handwringing across the sport if the Dodgers were to sign Skubal, even if, as we saw in October, nothing is guaranteed.
Today’s question: When will Tarik Skubal signs his next contract? Pick the date that the deal becomes official.
