Same OT, new home.
Dates:
- Free agency: As of 9 a.m. ET the day after the World Series ends, all eligible players will become free agents. There is then a five-day period where teams can submit qualifying offers. Once that five-day window has passed and most players who were tendered qualifying offers reject them, free agency is truly free.
- General manager meetings: The front offices will get together Nov. 13-16 in Orlando. Expect to hear about pace of play, extended netting and many other housekeeping type matters.
- Winter meetings: Dec. 10-14, the annual Winter Meetings take place in Orlando. Sometimes it's a hot bed of player movement and others it's over-hyped, but we definitely need to pay attention.
- The pitchers: There's Yu Darvish and Jake Arrieta in terms of frontline starters. Lance Lynn and Alex Cobb figure to hit big paydays as well. Some others: Andrew Cashner, CC Sabathia, Jaime Garcia, Jeremy Hellickson and John Lackey (if he doesn't elect retirement).
- The closers: There's one big-name closer to hit free agency and it's Wade Davis. Fernando Rodney and Matt Belisle are also going to be available. Some setup names: Addison Reed, Pat Neshek, Luke Gregerson, Jake McGee, Tony Watson and Juan Nicasio.
- The Royals: Former Royals are on the block as well, with Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer and Lorenzo Cain likely to cash in pretty big.
- The big bats: Other bats available will be J.D. Martinez, Jay Bruce , Carlos Santana, Zack Cozart, Todd Frazier and Neil Walker. There's some depth here, too, especially among players toward the end of their career, such as Curtis Granderson, Matt Holliday, J.J. Hardy, Carlos Beltran and Jose Bautista. Jon Jay, Carlos Gomez, Carlos Gonzalez, Eduardo Nunez, Eric Sogard, Howie Kendrick, Logan Morrison, Alex Avila, Jonathan Lucroy and several others could be impact players as well.
- Options: The Pirates have a $14.5 million club option on Andrew McCutchen and if they don't pick it up, he'll be a free agent. He's really the only big name where there's a question. Players like Chris Sale, Madison Bumgarner, Greg Holland and Craig Kimbrel have club options that will undoubtedly be picked up while many others (Hardy and Bautista, to name two) are obviously not going to be exercised. The Indians won't be getting Michael Brantley's $12 million option, in all likelihood, so we can probably add him to the list of free agents.
- Opt-out: Opt-outs
Back in late August, my colleague Mike Axisa took a great look at some of the interesting opt-out clause decisions looming. We could be adding the likes of Johnny Cueto, Masahiro Tanaka and Justin Upton to the free agent class.
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