The Rundown: Longer Days Ahead, Cardinals-Red Sox Pipeline Continues, Okamoto’s Market, Home Alone 2 Conspiracy Theory

The winter solstice has come and gone, meaning our days are going to grow longer for the next six months. Of course, the Cubs’ methodical offseason pace has been slowing time down for many of us over the last several weeks already. And unless Jed Hoyer has something up his sleeve, the holidays could bog the pace down even further.

We should get an inflection point in the new year, with Tatsuya Imai‘s January 2 deadline serving as a potential springboard to other moves in both free agency and trades. That’s particularly true for the Cubs, who appear to have prioritized the righty from Japan this winter. Should they miss out on him, trading for Edward Cabrera or another controllable starter looks like a strong possibility.

Hoyer is still keeping tabs on Alex Bregman as well, though recent activity may have put the Red Sox back in the driver’s seat when it comes to signing the third baseman. We’ll get into that here in just a bit, as it’s a multifaceted topic that requires some unpacking. You know what, let’s just dispense with any preamble and get to it.

Fallout from Contreras Trade

Willson Contreras waived his no-trade clause to facilitate a trade from St. Louis to Boston, making him the second player to do so this winter. Former Red Sox baseball boss Chaim Bloom is now running the show for the Cardinals, and he seems to be doing his old club some favors. Between Contreras and Sonny Gray, the Red Sox have improved their roster at a $28 million discount over those players’ posted rates.

Both had their contracts reworked slightly to grease the wheels, but the point is that Boston isn’t on the hook for nearly as much as they would have been by finding comparable players on the open market. And even though they’re already bumping up against the first luxury tax penalty level, bringing Bregman back remains a strong possibility. Not only do they have about $80 million falling off the books for next year — arb salaries not included — but another major windfall could have them feeling comfortable about overages.

As Ken Rosenthal noted, Fenway Sports Group recently agreed to sell the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Chicago-based Hoffman family for as much as $1.8 billion. That is nearly double what FSG paid for the Pens just four years ago, making it a pretty solid investment. Even though the conglomerate — which includes a senior advisor by the name of Theo Epstein — views its various franchise holdings as separate entities, having a few hundred thousand in surplus cash doesn’t hurt.

It might even be enough to move chief baseball officer Craig Breslow away from his aversion to long-term deals for players on the wrong side of 30. Maybe the McCaskeys should consider selling off some of the Bears’ approximate $9 billion value in order to help finance the new stadium that has become little more than a political dick-swinging contest over the last year or so. Considering their debt is just 1% of that value, they’ve got more than a little equity to burn.

But I digress.

The Ricketts family has doled out parcels of minority non-voting ownership stake in its holding company to a number of investors, but it’s not like they’ve got a whole other team to sell. I mean, not unless they figure out a way to purchase a European soccer club.

My point here is that Boston appears to have both the motivation and budget to land Bregman, while the Cubs will probably need him to lower his ask in terms of both price and duration. He’s reportedly seeking six years and a figure north of what Kyle Schwarber and Pete Alonso got, so Hoyer would have to be comfortable with a $25-30 million AAV stretching to at least 2030. Hey, it could happen.

Okamoto as Fallback

Japanese infielder Kazuma Okamoto always looked like a better fit for the Cubs than Munetaka Murakami due to his right-handed bat and better defensive flexibility. There was also the matter of expected cost, as the younger and more powerful Murakami was projected to command a deal worth as much as $180 million. Instead, concerns over his glove and high whiff rate forced him to settle for a two-year, $34 million contract with the White Sox.

While Okamoto should not experience a similar market cratering, his projections have fallen around half of what his countryman was thought to be getting. He might actually end up getting more than Murakami at this point, especially if the competition picks up ahead of his January 4 signing deadline. Colin Beazley of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the Pirates have held “multiple virtual meetings” with Okamoto, and we know they were willing to go to nine figures for Schwarber.

That doesn’t mean they’ll simply allocate all that money to Okamoto, only that they can’t be dismissed in this race. The Red Sox are probably out if they are indeed prioritizing Bregman, so the Cubs might view Okamoto as a way to deepen their roster without a huge outlay. It could all depend on what happens with Imai, whose salary could burn up more than half of the Cubs’ presumed budget.

Using the first penalty level as a de facto cap tells us Hoyer has about $40 million in breathing room, though he’ll want to leave a $5-10 million buffer. Signing Imai for something approaching $25 million in AAV would remove the Cubs from any other significant pursuits, and it’s hard to see them getting anywhere near the high end of his projections — $180+ million and a posting fee of close to $30 million. However, they were reportedly willing to go to $200 million for Dylan Cease.

We should have a much better idea of their direction two weeks from now.

Other News and Notes

• The Mariners remain interested in a reunion with Eugenio Suarez, who was third on their list of priorities behind Josh Naylor and Jorge Polanco.
• The family of late pitcher Tyler Skaggs reached a settlement with the Angels following a protracted legal battle. Terms were not disclosed, but the family had been seeking $118 million.
• Rosenthal says you can add the Blue Jays to the list of legit Bregman suitors.
• Sahadev Sharma believes Kris Bubic could be a break-in-case-of-emergency trade target if the Cubs fail in other pursuits.

Home Alone 2 Conspiracy Theory

This is only going to appeal to a very small segment of our readership, but I wanted to share it because it’s been gnawing at me for a while. We all know that Kevin McAllister of Home Alone fame is a sadistic sociopath who may very well have gone on to a life of debauchery, but what if he is tied to Stephen King’s Dark Tower saga? In Home Alone 2, which takes place in New York City, Kevin hucks bricks at Marv and Harry as part of yet another round of torture porn he inflicts on the Wet/Sticky Bandits.

Also in New York City, serial killer Jack Mort dropped a brick on Odetta Holmes’ head in The Drawing of the Three, causing a personality split that brought about Detta Walker. Just like Harry and Marv are two separate people, so are Detta/Odetta.

So what if Mort and McAllister are actually twinners from different versions of Mid-World? That could explain Mort pushing Jake Chambers in front of the car, perhaps because he saw the boy as that other version of himself and felt some sort of guilt or even jealousy.

The final connection comes in the form of Tim Curry, who played both Pennywise in the IT miniseries and Plaza Hotel concierge Mr. Hector. It’s crazy, but I don’t think it can be dismissed outright.