Tomoyuki Sugano is a Japanese pitcher who is thinking about playing in major league baseball this year. He’s meeting with his agent, according to Hochi News, and the Mets are one of those teams they will be discussing.
Some Mets fans won’t want to rule out Trevor Bauer, but he seems destined to return somewhere in the American League. One reason is the Mets don’t seem anxious to pay top dollar for any free agent unless it’s necessary, Sandy Alderson isn’t the general manager, but he has the owners’ ear and so far, Steven Cohen has been in lockstep with his strategy.
I’ve been against this signing because it could be more of a risk since this pitcher will have to get used to North America, but if the price is right, I think the Mets will sign him in short order. It seems like they are saving their big money for center fielder George Springer.
The Padres are the new “it” team in the National League. They signed infielder Ha-Seong Kim, a player they had targeted along with a few other teams. He’s getting around $7 million a year in a multi-year deal.
One of their biggest acquisitions was the trade with the Cubs for ace starter, Yu Darvish and catcher Victor Caratini. The Cubs got Zach Davies in the seven-player trade. But they’re shopping Wilson Contreras, so they may be taking a step back financially this year overall. The big prospect name for the Cubs is shortstop Reginald Preciado. He’s 6-4, with a slight frame right now, but at 17, a future star for sure. He’s a switch hitter with a fast bat and speed, but he will take more than a few years to play in the big leagues. The Padres used to lack frontline starters before obtaining Blake Snell and Darvish, watch out.
The Phillies made an offer to catcher J.T. Realmuto, and he seems to want to hope and wait for another team to top it. If he wanted to play in Philadelphia, he could have signed after the big changes and the bullpen acquisition of Jose Alvarado. It’s not exciting, and it looks like the catcher wants to play for more of a “now” team. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t go back to Philadelphia, he’s just trying to get paid as much as he can. That has always been his goal.
With the threat of a work stoppage in 2022 and the bad economy, teams are throwing around the cabbage like they used to. Some will have fans this year, some at the start of the season and others into the summer so profits won’t be what they were a few year’s ago, and that seems to be impacting the market, and there’s nothing fans can do but sit around and wait and hope their teams do something to improve in 2021. We’re only a few months away from Spring Training if all goes well. There will be a flurry of activity sometime this month.
