The 5 – Spicing Up the Winter Meetings
This past week on the FromThe108 Podcast, Jeff Passan joined us to talk about the White Sox and we dabbled a little bit in the Winter Meetings. As you probably know, the Winter Meetings were fairly quiet this year, which was disappointing for fans that love that good ole fashioned hot stove action. So we provided a few ideas to Jeff to see if we could spice up the meetings and got his feedback. Since Jeff liked mine and I’m basically a 4 year old child, I figured you would all want a lot more of that.
Draft Pick Trades
This is the idea I pitched on the show. The Winter Meetings would kick off with the draft lottery, so picks and the compensation associated would be known for the entirety of the meetings. Then, from that point until the close of the meetings, draft picks can be traded.
Fantasy Football Loser Rule
In order to punish GMs that did not make the playoffs, I want to use the punishment from the league below, but with a different spin: 1 hour for every game under .500 your team finished. Every waffle you eat reduces your stay by 1 hour. This will be live streamed on mlb.tv so we can watch GMs of the shittiest teams puke.
Twitter Thread:
The Purge
It’s always interesting to me how NFL teams cut good players to stay under the cap and then those players get picked up by teams that need them. The problem is that NFL contracts are bullshit and those players lose out on money. I want a system where a team can cut a player on day 1 of the Winter Meetings and that player’s salary will not count against their luxury tax number. They still have to pay them their full contract. Additionally, they’re on the hook for benefits and shit until another team signs them. This does get tricky because some of the luxury tax money does go back to the players. However, I think this will lead to longer contracts for players and more players getting paid by two teams. Think about someone like Trevor Story this year. The Red Sox may have taken advantage of this to avoid the luxury tax and someone would have definitely signed Story.
International Bonus Pool Increases
Each year, teams are given an allotted amount of international bonus pool to use during that signing period. Sometimes teams will trade to get more pool money so they can acquire the amount of players they want or to help them outbid another team. In order to encourage teams to spend early and often in the off-season, from the end of the season until the end of the winter meetings, for every $10M spent on the upcoming season, your team will get an additional $1M in bonus pool. Now, you might be saying that this would only benefit the richest teams, but it doesn’t have to. Small market teams can pay guys $10-20M for the upcoming year to get in on this. I honestly hate this small market talking point. If you can’t afford to tip, don’t go to the bar. If you can’t afford to spend in the MLB, don’t own a team.
Also, it makes front-loading a contract more attractive, which is good for the player. Think about if Ohtani signed during this period, his contract wouldn’t get the Dodgers anything until they spend $8M on someone else.
These deals will have to be official, so for teams with a full 40 man, they’ll need to let someone go. Likely leading to even more transactions in this short period of time.
Divisions Draft
Winning your division just got a lot sweeter. Each division winner gets to draft which teams from their league will be in their division for the following year. Draft goes in order of record and is not a snake draft. The best record picks first every round. This is obviously bad for the White Sox, but as a baseball fan, I love it. With modern travel and the balanced schedule, having the Orioles and A’s in the same division ain’t that big of a deal. I know this fucks up having the schedule out in like September, but you’ll be fine. The Winter Meetings end with a new schedule.
Thoughts on my ideas or have some ideas of your own, hit me up on Twitter.
-Chorizy-E
About The Author
chorizy
Section 108 Row 13, Bassist for Barren Plains, Acclaimed drunkard