And an old friend comes back to the AL East"WhiteF

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anposts Fanshots Red Sox StoriesScheduleRosterStatsYahoo Red Sox NewsYahoo Red Sox Team PageYahoo Red Sox ReportYahoo Red Sox Depth ChartYahoo Red Sox TransactionsYahoo Red Sox PhotosOdds About Masthead Community Guidelines StubHub LB RoundupMLB Roundup 3/1: Bryce Harper finally signed!New ,9commentsAnd an old friend comes back to the AL EastESTShareTweetShareShareMLB Roundup 3/1: Bryce Harper finally signed!Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY SportsBryce Harper signed a contract!Yesterday we talked about the seemingly never-ending Bryce Harper saga that had been dragging on all winter. Well, that was apparently the final push he needed. Thursday afternoon marked the end of the excruciating process, and eventually it ended as we all thought it would. Well, at least in terms of where he ended up. Harper is going to be a Phildelphia Phillie for a long time, signing a 13-year, $330 million contract to give him the largest contract in terms of guaranteed money of all time. Most interesting is that there are no opt-outs in the deal. Harper does have a full no-trade clause.So, there isn’t much of anything to say here that hasn’t already been said. Harper should be a picture-perfect fit in that park, which is apparently part of the reason he wanted to go there and stay there. I was certainly surprised about the lack of opt-outs, which was apparently Harper’s decision, but I can see the reasoning. This process has been brutal for us, just imagine how it’s been for Harper. It’s not hard to see him saying just do whatever it takes to make sure I don’t have to do this ever again. The biggest question people seem to have is why he took this deal over the four-year, $180 million deal apparently offered by the Dodgers. I really don’t think it’s that crazy. For one, I thin Harper and Boras really had their eyes set on breaking Stanton’s record for total guaranteed money. Yes , the AAV doesn’t really reflect a record contract, but the fact is Harper is guaranteed more money than anyone else ever. Period. He can take pride in that. I also think, again, he didn’t want to do this free agency thing again, and he wanted to be the guy in one city for the rest of his career. Philadelphia is a nice place to be a legend if he can play up to that.Then, there’s the baseball side of things. The NL East is going to be extremely fun this year, with every team but Miami thinking they have a claim to the division title. The Phillies, though, have to be the favorites now, I’d think. Their pitching isn’t great, but I think they’re better than they get credit for and they have an ace at the top in Aaron Nola. That said, I could see that division going a number of different ways.Toronto signs two pitchers, including an old friendA few hours after the Harper news dominated the conversation on the interwebs , the Blue Jays suck in and made two small moves to improve their pitching staff. First, they signed right-handed reliever Bud Norris to a minor-league deal that will be worth $3 million if he makes the roster. I would hope the Red Sox were at least in on this one, because Norris is too good for a minor-league deal. There are legitimate questions with how he deals with young teammates after some tensions with Jordan Hicks in the past, but on the mound he’s been very good. There are some command issues, but he’s been above-average by ERA with close to 11 strikeouts per nine innings with walk and home run rates that won’t kill you. The Blue Jays also signed a former Red Sox starting pitcher, agreeing to a one-year deal worth $3 million with Clay Buchholz. Obviously, Buchholz had a bit of a complicated history in Boston, but I always felt he was underrated. The negatives were undeniable and hard to get over, to be fair. He simply couldn’t stay healthy and at times he was brutally bad when he was on the mound. On the other hand, he had outstanding stretches. Buchholz was the best pitcher in the American League in the first half of 2013 before going down with injury. He’d come back for the playoffs and put up a gutsy performance in the World Series despite barely having 50 percent of his stuff. He also had a 109 ERA+ over his entire Boston career. Yes, Buchholz could have done more, but sometimes you have to appreciate what you get instead of wondering what else could have been. Anyway, he pitched very well in 16 starts with the Diamondbacks last year , and Toronto is likely hoping to flip him and Norris for prospects in the summertime. They aren’t believed to be pursuing him as aggressively as some other teams, though."The Milwaukee Brewers have so far committed to bringing back both of their primary catchers from 2018, re-signing Erik Kratz to a one-year deal to avoid arbitration as well as tendering a contract to Manny Pina (which allows the two parties to continue negotiating until after the new year in order to try and avoid a hearing). But while the team would surely tell you that they’d be content entering Spring Training with that productive tandem behind the plate, that may not be stopping them from looking for an upgrade at the position.According to Jim Bowden of the Athletic (and former MLB GM), the Brewers are one of 10 teams that are still “in” on Miami Marlins catcher JT Realmuto. The 27 year old (28 next March) has a legitimate argument as the best catcher in baseball, batting .286/.338/.454 over the last three seasons with 49 home runs and 23 steals. He’s coming off the finest season of his career after posting a .277/.340/.484 with 21 home runs in 531 trips to the plate for Miami in 2018. Realmuto was an All-Star and Silver Slugger Award winner, and he was also chosen to represent the MLB during last month’s Japan All-Star Series.Realmuto is projected to earn $6.1 mil in arbitration next year via MLB Trade Rumors and will have one more season of arbitration eligibility left after that before becoming a free agent following the 2020 season. According to his agent, Realmuto expects to be wearing a different uniform and a dearth of quality-hitting catchers in the game makes JT and his two years of cheap control especially valuable on the trade market this winter. Miami is undoubtedly asking for quite a haul in return for Realmuto’s services, which may be why the Brewers aren’t thought to be as aggressive as other teams in their pursuit of the All-Star backstop.It’s not tough to imagine Miami requesting Keston Hiura in any hypothetical trade scenario that would send Realmuto to the Cream City. Hiura is universally considered to be Milwaukee’s top prospect, and while the Brewers didn’t hesitate in sending their former top prospect to Miami last winter in the Christian Yelich deal, the circumstances are different this time around. Milwaukee’s farm system is far thinner than it was as this time last year, largely depleted at the upper levels after several trades and prospect graduations during the playoff run this past season. Putting together a package for Realmuto now that includes Hiura, and probably one the trio of Burnes/Woodruff/Peralta , would leave the Brewers with arguably one of the worst minor league systems in baseball. That could seriously hamper potential efforts to upgrade via the trade market if they’re in a pennant race in July, when unlike during the offseason, signing a free agent upgrade isn’t really an option.Realmuto doesn’t exactly rate as a top-notch defender, either, coming in with -7 Defensive Runs Saved in 2018 and -24 DRS in over 4,200 career innings behind the plate. Though he’s caught an overall 33% of attempted base thieves (and 38% in 2018), Realmuto has only rated as an above-average pitch framer once during his four full MLB seasons. Baseball Prospectus’ new hitting metric Deserved Runs Created also disagrees with the conventional wisdom regarding just how valuable of a hitter he’s been:This will certainly be a situation to monitor heading into next week’s Winter Meetings. There have already been quite a few significant transactions at this point in the offseason, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see something definitive happen with Realmuto while all 30 teams are gathered in Sin City. However the Brewers aren’t believed to be close to dealing for Realmuto, or anyone else for that matter, at this point in time.Statistics courtesy of Fangraphs and Baseball Prospectus

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