If you thought the hot stove was going to cool off in time for the holidays, well, you were wrong. We’ve seen a handful of blockbuster deals go down in recent days.
There was Jason Heyward’s eight-year, $184 million free-agent pact with the Chicago Cubs and Johnny Cueto’s six-year, $130 million deal with the San Francisco Giants, which took two of the biggest free agents off the board.
Then there was the five-player haul Philadelphia got from Houston in exchange for closer Ken Giles—a package that included former No. 1 draft pick Mark Appel—that removed a number of valuable trade chips from the market.
Crazy as it may seem, we could be in store for even more action as we continue to cross off the shopping days left until Christmas.
Have escalating prices convinced a perennial contender to close up shop for the winter? Are the top free-agent outfielders all going to benefit from Heyward’s massive payday? Could one of baseball’s best up-and-coming stars be traded before Opening Day?
We’ll tackle all of that and more in this week’s edition of Fact or Fiction.