Winter Meetings Recap – Monday

Monday was a very, very active day in baseball. Here is all we haven’t covered so far in separate posts and some that we have:

• The market is shrinking for Edwin Encarnacion. He’s that poor kid in the NFL draft green room who keeps slipping down the board. They’re talking $80 million now at best (down from $100 million days ago).
• The Nationals are still ramping up efforts to acquire Chris Sale. There’s some speculation that the White Sox are trying harder to move Sale now while the return would be high because they are concerned about his risk for a breakdown injury.
• There’s a mystery team in the mix for Andrew McCutchen! Things are always exciting when ‘mystery’ enters the realm of possibility, right? It’s like when an old WWF wrestler would announce he was having a mystery partner at Wrestlemania.
• The Nationals clearly floated that they’re moving on from Bryce Harper and not paying him. But why? Why now? One must think of why this report is out there now. It’s peculiar but there’s definitely a reason. Jon Paul Morosi says Harper is not involved in any active trade talks. If you believe JPM would know that.
• The Marlins want Kenley Jansen badly.
• It’s last round-up time for the Kansas City Royals in their current form. Danny Duffy and Lorenzo Cain’s names were out there today in spells.
• The Astros are mentioned as being interested in Chris Archer. They’ve said publicly they aren’t moving Alex Bregman for Sale or anyone else.
• The Braves are also interested in Archer and Sale.
• Steve Pearce is a Blue Jay.
• The Phillies added Joaquin Benoit.
• The Nationals are more focused on Sale than McCutchen the last 24-48 hours, per Ken Rosenthal.
• The Nationals are not parting with Trea Turner in any deal.
• Baseball will allow Under Armour to tarnish the front of MLB jerseys in 2020 as part of the deal. Under Armour is based in Maryland, so this announcement was obviously a planned thing all along and no coincidence. The link has the full story, with some disgusting quotes from an UA executive.
• Whispers emerge that Odubel Herrera may be available.
• Billy Hamilton is being talked about to the Texas Rangers.
• Jeff Mathis to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Busy day, with more in store for Tuesday. We’ll be back with one of these Tuesday evening!