Winter Meetings Roundup

Now that the MLB winter meetings have ended, I thought I would take some time and look back on what happened. Many players were moved, many trades went down, but there are a lot of question marks for the rest of the offseason.

Biggest Winer- Chicago White Sox: The clear winner of the winter meetings in my mind are the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox came in looking to ship pieces and go into a rebuilding phase, and they did that perfectly. The biggest deal was Chris Sale to the Red Sox for MLB Pipeline's number one overall prospect Yoan Moncada among other prospects. The White Sox also shipped Adam Eaton to the Nationals for Lucas Giolito, MLB Pipeline's number 3 overall prospect, along with a few other high ranking prospects in the Nationals farm system. The White Sox moved the piece they needed to Chris Sale and got a great return for him, along with Adam Eaton, and they still have pieces to trade, which teams are very interested in. The White Sox have Jose Quintana, Todd Frazier, Nate Jones, and David Robertson to move which could lead to a very powerful White Sox team down the road.

Biggest Trade- Chris Sale for Yoan Moncada: I briefly talked about this deal before and in a past article so I will keep this brief, but this trade was a blockbuster in every sense of the word. I believe this was the best deal for the Red Sox point of view, but they have a star pitcher that can help them. It was a star for a future star and this was a blockbuster trade.

Biggest Signings- Mark Melancon (Giants) and Aroldis Chapman (Yankees): The closer market was very thin but had a lot of talent this off season, and these two signings took a lot of that talent. There were 5 teams that needed a closer, Giants, Yankees, Dodgers, Nationals, and Marlins,and only 3 closers, Aroldis Chapman, Mark Melanon, and Kenley Jansen, so 2 teams were getting left out. The Giants and Yankees did't want to be those teams so they struck early helping themselves and (mainly for the Giants) creating problems for rival teams. These signings weren't the cheapest but they got the job done and forced the hand of rival teams.

Biggest Question Marks- Mark Trumbo and Edwin Encarnacion: These 2 players are both free agents and are a big threat with the bat. Trumbo led MLB in home runs last season and Encarnacion helped the Blue Jays return to the ALCS by leading the AL in RBI's. Both these guys can play first, although Trumbo is mainly an outfielder and Encarnacion has become more of a DH. These players can be very valuable to several teams, and will be expected to make a lot of money.

The 2016 MLB Winter meetings were very active and very fun to watch. A lot of moves were made, a lot of teams go helped, other teams not so much, but it'll be exciting to see how the 2017 season plays out.