2023 Winter Meetings Recap

December 11, 2023 Jarrod Vickery General, MiLB, MLB, Winter Meetings 0

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The 2023 MLB Winter Meetings wasn’t exactly the flurry of action that it has been in past years. However, the four-day event was bookended by some fairly large deals that seemed to salvage what otherwise could have been described as a “snooze fest.”


This year’s meetings were hosted at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tennessee. It was a fine enough setting for the event. I arrived on Sunday December 3rd and made my way to a sparsely populated lobby to pick up my credentials. I hung out for a few hours and met some other media personnel, some of whom I have interacted with on social media before. There wasn’t much going on though; so around 8pm, I decided to retire to my room.

In typical Alex Anthopoulos fashion, a late night deal out of left field (somewhat literally) was struck between the Braves and the Mariners. The deal saw the M’s send former uber-prospect Jarred Kelenic, LHP Marco Gonzales, and 1B Evan White to the Braves for recently acquired RHP Jackson Kowar, and prospect Cole Phillips. Phillips was the only prospect of note involved in this deal. The 6’3″ righty was drafted by the Braves in the 2nd round of the 2022 MLB Draft. Before the draft, Phillips’ star was on the rise and he likely would’ve been taken much higher, had he not had to undergo Tommy John surgery in April of 2022. Phillips has not thrown a pitch so far in his professional career.

Foot traffic had definitely picked up by day 2 as the majority of the media had settled in by now. The name on everyone’s mind was Shohei Ohtani. The free agency of the DH/SP pretty much controlled the narrative all week. The big news on this day would be the Milwaukee Brewers signing their top prospect, OF Jackson Chourio to an unprecedented 8-year, $82 million dollar contract. Chourio was all smiles, as were the Brewers. The Brew crew joined a recent trend of teams locking up young talent before they have had much, if any, MLB experience. Chourio is listed as the top prospect in the Brewers top 50 and one of the top overall prospects in baseball. Shortly after the Chourio deal was announced, the stage was reset with the Hall of Fame background. Jim Leyland, who managed the 1997 Marlins to a World Series Championship, held his press conference after being voted in by the Hall of Fame’s Contemporary Committee. Leyland was jovial with a few of his answers. He said that when he received the call at his home and it was a female voice on the other end, his wife asked “who’s that”? To which Leyland responded, “it’s Jake from State Farm.” That got a real good laugh from the crowd. Leyland’s press conference marked the end of any real news for day 2. The rest of the day seemed to go by at a snail’s pace.

The ice began to thaw somewhat on Tuesday, which was day 3 of the event. Managers were available for press conferences/interviews and I was able to catch up with Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts. I asked him about turnover in the rotation and how comforting it was to have several options coming up through the farm system. Roberts said “you’re always looking to add talent, the 1’s and 2’s, through trade or free agency, but it does give you peace of mind knowing you have so many young arms that can provide innings for you.” Roberts mentioned Ryan Pepiot, Kyle Hurt, Gavin Stone, and Emmet Sheehan as guys who could all provide depth in the MLB rotation for the Dodgers in 2024. On the position player side, Roberts stated “Michael Busch is a guy who came up in 2023 and will be there in 2024, Hunter Feduccia is a catcher of ours that really had a tremendous year and so, to see him break through at the big leagues this year, I could see that happening.”

Later on that evening, the Red Sox and Yankees completed a rare trade between the two AL East rivals. The Red Sox sent OF Alex Verdugo for a trio of Yankees right-handers, Richard Fitts, Greg Weissert, and Nicholas Judice. Fitts checked in at #15 on our midseason Top 50 for the Yankees. Make sure to check out our updated rankings coming soon to see where Fitts is ranked for the Red Sox.

Next up was the MLB Draft Lottery. The Cleveland Guardians, with a 2% chance, won the right to select the 1st overall pick in 2024. the Washington Nationals actually won the lottery but due to the new CBA rules, the highest they could select was pick #10.

Wednesday marked the final day of the event. The Rule 5 Draft provided little to spark the action. Cleveland did select Deyvison De Los Santos, a former top 3B prospect, who was left unprotected by the Dbacks. He was #15 on our midseason prospect list for Arizona.

As everything seemed to be coming to a close, the Juan Soto saga began to gain steam. Buzz around the meetings was that New York and San Diego had come to an agreement. That of course was delayed until a little later on that night. However, when it was finally completed, the Yankees got their man, plus Trent Grisham. The Padres got a return of RHPs Michael King, Drew Thorpe, Randy Vasquez, and Jhony Brito. The Padres also received C Kyle Higashioka in the deal. Thorpe and Vasquez checked in at #11 and #19 respectively in our 2023 Yankees midseason prospect rankings.

So that’s a wrap from the 2023 Winter Meetings! Make sure to check out our upcoming prospect rankings to see where all the players that changed teams this winter are ranked, on their new ball clubs.

Jarrod Vickery
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