Three things we\u2019ll be keeping an eye on as the Winter Meetings continue in Orlando\u2026<\/p>\n
1. The Schwarber Watch continues<\/p>\n
While most believe Kyle Schwarber<\/a> will eventually re-sign with the Phillies, the veteran slugger continues to draw tons of interest from around the league.\u00a0 The Mets are the latest team<\/a> linked to Schwarber\u2019s market, joining the Phillies and such other clubs as the Giants, Orioles, Red Sox, Pirates (who have made a four-year offer), and Reds (Schwarber\u2019s hometown team).\u00a0 ESPN\u2019s Buster Olney<\/a>, MLB.com\u2019s Mark Feinsand<\/a>, and other pundits have heard that Schwarber might be the first major position-player free agent to decide on a new team, so if Schwarber makes his choice during the Winter Meetings, that could open up more movement for other players.<\/p>\n 2. Polar warning in Orlando<\/p>\n Pete Alonso<\/a> will be among the free agents there in person<\/a> at the Winter Meetings, taking the trip up from his Tampa-area home to meet with some of his suitors face to face.\u00a0 The Mets are naturally familiar enough with Alonso that they won\u2019t be meeting<\/a> with their longtime slugger, but the Orioles and Red Sox are two of the clubs expected to sit down with Alonso to discuss a possible contract.\u00a0 Given the overlap in their list of suitors, Alonso is one of the free agents who might particularly benefit if Schwarber signs fairly quickly, as plenty of hitting-needy teams may logically turn to Alonso as a power source.<\/p>\n 3. Draft Lottery takes place<\/p>\n The fourth MLB Draft Lottery will be held today at 4:30PM CT, and 15 non-playoff teams are eligible to win a top-six selection in the 2026 draft.\u00a0 (The 119-loss Rockies aren\u2019t eligible because they won a lottery picks in each of the previous two drafts, and the Nationals and Angels aren\u2019t eligible because teams that pay revenue-sharing funds can\u2019t receive lottery picks in consecutive drafts.)<\/p>\n This leaves the White Sox with the best odds (27.73%) of landing the first overall pick, though as we\u2019ve seen in the first three years of the draft lottery\u2019s existence, the numbers don\u2019t always work out as the chalk would suggest.\u00a0 The Pirates were one of three teams with an equal share of the top odds when they won the 2022 lottery (and the chance to draft Paul Skenes<\/a> in 2023), but the Guardians had only a two percent chance of winning when they got lucky in the 2023 lottery, and the Nationals had just the fourth-highest odds when they won last year\u2019s lottery.\u00a0 Beyond just the 1-1 pick, the lottery has led to plenty of shakeups within the top six, so teams with winning records like the Astros, Mets, or Royals still have an outside shot at a high first-round pick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three things we\u2019ll be keeping an eye on as the Winter Meetings continue in Orlando\u2026 1. The Schwarber…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-338916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}