Here are three things we\u2019ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world today:<\/p>\n
1. What\u2019s next for the Red Sox?<\/p>\n
The Red Sox swung a trade to clear space in their budget and on the 40-man roster when they shipped<\/a> right-hander Jordan Hicks<\/a>,\u00a0pitching prospect David Sandlin<\/a> and $8MM cash and two players to be named later in exchange for Gage Ziehl<\/a> and a player to be named later. Getting the majority of Hicks\u2019 salary for the next two seasons of the books has allowed them to squeak back under the second tier of the luxury, but the team has still yet to replace Alex Bregman<\/a> on the infield. Marcelo Mayer<\/a> poised to play either second or third base depending on where a new addition would play, but options are dwindling after both Luis Arraez<\/a> and Eugenio Suarez<\/a> signed over the weekend. How will Boston address its biggest remaining need?<\/p>\n 2. First base market heating up?<\/p>\n While every hitter in our annual Top 50 MLB Free Agents list has signed after Suarez reached a deal with the Reds<\/a> yesterday, there are still a number of interesting bats on the market. Specifically, the first base market has remained rather quiet throughout the winter, leaving players such as Paul Goldschmidt<\/a> and Rhys Hoskins<\/a> unsigned. Recently, that market has appeared to heat up. The Diamondbacks are reportedly interested in adding a first baseman, and yesterday they were connected to<\/a> switch-hitting veteran Carlos Santana<\/a> and also said to have interest<\/a>\u00a0in Ty France<\/a>. Arizona\u2019s division rivals in San Diego are also looking for help in their first\/base DH mix and have interest in France, who is drawing interest from both New York clubs as well. Wilmer Flores<\/a>, Nathaniel Lowe<\/a>, and Rowdy Tellez<\/a> are among the other noteworthy options still available. With Arraez and Suarez off the board, is the market heating up for some of these corner bats?<\/p>\n 3. Arbitration hearings underway:<\/p>\n Arbitration hearings kicked off late last week, and the Associated Press reports two such hearings have occurred so far: one between right-hander Edwin Uceta<\/a> and the Rays<\/a>, and one between left-hander Dylan Lee<\/a> and the Braves<\/a>. The decision from those arbitration hearings is typically not immediately announced; Uceta\u2019s is being withheld until other cases have resolved, while Lee\u2019s is expected to be announced at some point next week. After first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino<\/a> avoided arbitration<\/a> last week, 12 more players are scheduled for arbitration hearings. The most notable among those is two-time AL Cy Young award winner Tarik Skubal<\/a>, who is facing a massive $13MM gap between his filing figure and that of the Tigers. Arbitration hearings are scheduled to run through February 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here are three things we\u2019ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world today: 1. What\u2019s next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-444842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444842","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=444842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}