What in the name of Steve Cohen’s wallet and Dodger moneybags is going on with the MLB calendar these days?
It’s not even March and the Hot Stove League is getting stoked to brow-singeing levels for next winter already.
Yes, next winter.
We’ve still got almost a month left of this winter.
Apparently, that’s what happens when a sports league undergoes a record spending spree on free agents with cash still raining in MLB locales from San Diego to New York.
That’s why Padres third baseman Manny Machado said he’s already decided to opt out of a $300 million contract halfway through the 10-year deal.
“There’s a lot of money out there,” Machado told reporters in Peoria, Arizona, last week — expanding on revelations made earlier to the San Diego Union-Tribune about the opt-out decision.
Hall of Fame-bound Max Scherzer, the Mets pitcher, also talked this week about the opt-out clause he may exercise after the season — albeit, mostly because he was asked about it by SportsNet New York — and acknowledged the “business situation” that looms after he turns 39 in July.
And before a pitch is thrown in the Cactus League, two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani and his agent are inspiring visions of $400 million price tags — $500 million? — by suggesting the 2021 MVP and 2022 runner-up might be more likely to play out his final year of club control rather than sign an extension with the Angels.
“I think there’s several layers to this one and Shohei’s earned the right to play through this year and explore free agency, and we’ll see where it shakes out,” Ohtani’s agent, Nez Balelo, told reporters in Tempe, Arizona, after meeting with Angels GM Perry Minasian — adding that in-season negotiations are “tough” enough on a player that it “probably makes more sense to table and wait till the end of the season.”
And you thought as winter that saw Aaron Judge, Jacob deGrom and four shortstops get more than $1.5 billion combined was big.