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7 critical Hot Stove questions yet to be answered
- Updated: January 4, 2017
Spring Training is a mere six weeks away, and for a bunch of teams, this could be a make-or-break stretch. The Orioles, Blue Jays and Nationals aren’t done with the heavy lifting. The Astros, Rangers and Yankees haven’t checked all their offseason boxes, either.
This is also that point in the offseason when free agents begin to get particularly antsy about where they’ll begin the 2017 season. These past couple of months have delivered the annual reminder that timing is everything in free agency.
This is a great time to be a reliever. Three closers — Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen and Mark Melancon — landed the largest free-agent contracts for relievers. Others relievers — among them, Brett Cecil, Mike Dunn, Brad Ziegler and Junichi Tazawa — benefitted from teams’ desire to construct super bullpens.
• Hot Stove Tracker: Free agents and trades
Meanwhile, Yoenis Cespedes apparently will be the only free-agent hitter to crack the $100-million threshold this offseason. Dexter Fowler, Edwin Encarnacion, Ian Desmond, Justin Turner and Josh Reddick did well, too, all signing deals worth between $52 million and $82.5 million.
But plenty of potential impact players — Jose Bautista, Matt Wieters, Mark Trumbo, Michael Saunders, Chris Carter and Pedro Alvarez — remain unsigned.
Here are seven questions this offseason has yet to answer:
1. Why has Bautista remained unsigned for so long? This might be the biggest surprise of this offseason. Yes, Bautista is 36 years old and is coming off a season in which he played 116 games and batted .234. Yes, he has rubbed a few people the wrong way.
Bautista is also one of the consummate professionals in the game. If he has rubbed people the wrong way, it’s because he’s one of the most fierce, take-no-prisoner competitors in the game.
Bautista did struggle offensively at times, but he finished with a more than respectable .817 OPS. The Blue Jays still have some interest in re-signing him on a short-term deal. Bautista would make sense for a long list of teams — the …
