Free agent season is officially open. Well over 200 players who have filed can now talk to other teams, and there will probably be a hundred or more non-tendered players added to the mix on December 20. Plus you have some very interesting and tradeable guys in their walk years. It will be a very busy offseason, and with the general managers getting together in Phoenix this week, there could be early activity. Last year, J.P. and his pal Beane made the Cory Lidle trade at these meetings.
In the Globe and Mail today, Jeff Blair previews the event, with an emphasis on the one club that is least like the others, the Montreal/San Juan/Monterrey Expos.
Sources say the Expos will not hang on to second baseman Jose Vidro and pitcher Javier Vazquez only to lose them to free agency after the 2004 season, as they were allowed to do with Guerrero this past season. Vidro has one year and $7-million left on a four-year contract, and Vazquez, who was paid $6-million last season, is arbitration-eligible for one more year before becoming a free agent.
Omar Minaya has his hands tied by ownership, which Blair calls "an increasingly annoyed limited partnership of the 29 other major-league franchises." He doesn't even know his budget for next year, but his already bare-bones payroll could be slashed by an additional $12-15 million if the team plays 81 games in Montreal. Last year, MLB instructed Minaya to dangle Guerrero in trade talks at the Winter Meetings, which helped drag down the FA market. This year, he might be ordered to conduct a fire sale.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20031110090405999