Belt accepts $18.4M offer to return to San Francisco
13 other players choose instead to enter free agency
First baseman Brandon Belt accepted an $18.4 million qualifying offer from the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday rather than pursue bidders as a free agent.
Belt was the only one to accept among the 14 free agents who received the offers from their former clubs on Nov. 7.
Players who turned down offers included first baseman Freddie Freeman (Atlanta), shortstop Carlos Correa and right-hander Justin Verlander (Houston), right-hander Raisel Iglesias (Los Angeles Angels), lefthander Robbie Ray and second baseman/shortstop Marcus Semien (Toronto), outfielder Nick Castellanos (Cincinnati), shortstop Trevor Story (Colorado), shortstop Corey Seager and infielder/outfielder Chris Taylor (Los Angeles Dodgers) and outfielder Michael Conforto (New York Mets).
Two of the players who received offers have finalized contracts with new teams. Left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez left Boston for a $77 million, five-year contract with Detroit, and righthander Noah Syndergaard left the Mets for a $21 million, one-year contract with the Angels. Verlander agreed to resign with the Astros.
Yankees: New York owner Hal Steinbrenner praised general manager Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone on Wednesday, and said he is open to a
new contract for slugger Aaron Judge. Boone got a three-year contract after New York went 92-70 this season, losing at Boston in the AL wild card game. He is 328-218 with four postseason appearances in four years in the Bronx, but the Yankees haven’t won the World Series since 2009. “Why did I rehire Aaron? … I think Aaron is one of the better managers in baseball,” Steinbrenner said at the Major League Baseball owners’ meetings. “He’s extremely intelligent. … The players want to play for him. They respect him and they want to win for him.” Steinbrenner had similar praise for Cashman, calling him one of the best general managers in the game. Cashman is heading into the last year of his contract, but Steinbrenner said he isn’t looking at 2022 as a pivotal year for the franchise’s longtime GM. “I mean, honestly, I’m not thinking that way,” he said. “We’re going to do everything we can like we do every year to field a championshipcaliber team.”
Mets: New York was close to completing a deal to hire Billy Eppler as general manager, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. Eppler and the Mets were nearing a four-year contract, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement was not finalized. New York was completing a background check on Eppler, fired as general manager of the Los
Angeles Angels a little more than a year ago after five seasons.
Astros: Justin Verlander has agreed to a $25 million, one-year contract with Houston that includes a conditional $25 million player option for a second season. Verlander became a free agent after he was paid $66 million over the past two seasons under an agreement with the Astros. He played just one game in that span after injuring his elbow in the 2020 season opener.
Mariners: Seattle will induct Ichiro Suzuki into the team’s Hall of Fame during the 2022 season, the club announced Wednesday. Suzuki will be honored on Aug. 27 when Seattle faces Cleveland.
Marlins: Miami completed their coaching staff for next season Wednesday, adding Marcus Thames from the New York Yankees and promoting Al Pedrique, Edwar Gonzalez and Eric Duncan from various roles within the organization. The Marlins went 67-95 this year under manager Don Mattingly. Thames spent the last four seasons as the Yankees’ hitting coach and two more before that as the club’s assistant hitting coach. Thames was a teammate of Derek Jeter — now the Marlins’ CEO — with the Yankees during the 2002 and 2010 seasons, part of Thames’ 10-year MLB playing career. The Yankees hit a Mlbbest 889 home runs in Thames’ four years as hitting coach. But his contract for 2022 was not renewed by New York after a season when the Yankees were only 23rd-best in the majors with a .237 batting average.
Owner’s meetings: New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner said he voted for Major League Baseball’s proposal to lower the luxury tax threshold, a plan opposed by the players’ union with the sport on the brink of its first work stoppage on 26 years. The luxury tax, formally known as the competitive balance tax, had a threshold of $210 million this year. Owners proposed lowering it to $180 million and adding a $100 million payroll floor. The union long has opposed a floor, fearing it would lead to a hard cap. Speaking Wednesday at Major League Baseball’s regular owners’ meetings, Steinbrenner said the CBT proposal was approved by the labor policy committee. “There’s seven of us on labor policy,” Steinbrenner said. “Boston, me, several mid-markets, a couple small markets. We’re a very diverse group, and when we came up with the proposal, including CBT and luxury tax that we brought to the union, it was a unanimous, on our committee, a unanimous deal. And every owner on the committee, there are certainly things in the proposal that we didn’t like, I mean every owner. But we wanted to put together a proposal that addresses their concerns and come together as a group.” MLB’S five-year labor contract expires at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 1.
Note: A new era of big-league baseball in Cleveland is about to start. The Guardians will be off and running. The hitting and fielding comes in a few months. The Indians will officially transition to Guardians on Friday, completing a name change that has been happening in stages over the past few months. The team sent out a release Wednesday saying its team shop at Progressive Field will begin selling Guardians merchandise and souvenirs later this week. The team said some digital elements will change Thursday before Cleveland’s team website and social media handles transition to Guardians on Friday.