MLB Trade Rumors and News: Mariners decline club option on Kyle Seager

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• This past weekend, the Mariners have alerted Kyle Seager that they will not be exercising their $20M club option for the 2022 season, reports The Seattle Times’ Ryan Divish. Instead, he’ll be hitting the free agent market with his $2M buyout. While the official cat isn’t out of the bag yet, it’s reported that GM Ryan Hollander e-mailed Seager this news, which I personally think is way harsher. This also add reenforcement to Seager’s own claims that the team deeply lacks in communication with the players. If after 11 seasons somewhere, I was giving my walking papers in such a cold way (and after slashing .251/.321/.442 with 242 home runs over 6204 plate appearances), I’d be more than fuming. Now he’ll take his talents to the open market this winter.
• Speaking of walking paper, the Dodger plan on denying their extension on Joe Kelly, reports Jorge Castillo of the L.A. Times reports. He’ll receive a $4M buyout instead of his $12M club option for 2022. The logic behind this move is simple: his NLCS bicep strain would hinder the number of games he’d be playing in next season, and he won’t be fully recovered by Opening Day. If that’s the case, the 33-year old could find himself without a team in the Spring, but everyone loves a comeback story.
• The San Diego Padres, in need of a new manager after the organization parted ways with Jayce Tingler, acted quickly to fill the vacancy. In a fairly shocking development, the Padres managed to snag Bob Melvin away from Oakland on a three year deal.
• Meanwhile, the Mets keep swinging and missing on candidates to run their organization which is less than ideal. They may want to do so quickly, because they also don’t have a manager for next season.
• Brewers general manager Matt Arnold appears to be emerging as the leading candidate to take over the Mets’ baseball operations department, and they may already have offered him the job, according to the New York Post’s Mike Puma. While recent reports suggested the Mets might again forego hiring a president of baseball operations, Arnold likely would need to receive that title in order to leave his post with the Brewers, where he’s second-in-command under president of baseball operations David Stearns.
• The Braves won Game 1 of the World Series, but they suffered a major loss as starter Charlie Morton suffered a fractured fibula that will keep him out for the rest of the postseason. Credit to the 37-year-old starter, who retired two more Astros hitters — including two on strikeouts — after getting hit in the leg by a Yuli Gurriel comebacker.
• While the beginning of the World Series is an incredibly exciting time for baseball, this week brought a cold dose of reality. In a less than surprising development, it was reported that a work stoppage in Major League Baseball is very likely to begin on December 2, 2021 as the CBA negotiations are expected to be contentious.
• It had been reported over the weekend that Lance McCullers Jr. was not going to be able to pitch in this year’s Fall Classic for the Astros. McCullers confirmed that news prior to Game 1 of the World Series.
• The Cardinals have hired Oliver Marmol, their bench coach for the last three seasons, as their new manager, The 35-year-old will become the youngest skipper in the major leagues.
• The New York Yankees have seemingly made a habit in recent seasons of performing well in the regular season, but being unable to finish the job in the postseason. While some Yankee fans wish that the organization would move on from manager Aaron Boone as a result, the organization does not feel the same way as they gave Boone an extension through at least 2024.
• Starting in the 2022 season, all 30 teams will now be required to provide housing to all minor league players, ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan reports. Last month team owners held a vote on the subject that passed unanimously. The intricacies are still being worked out on if teams will be giving players stipends for housing or if they will provide it directly. Considering the conditions that an overwhelming amount of minor leaguers have been subject to, this is a welcome improvement to the quality of their lives.
• The Yankees fired a large chunk of their coaching staff. New York decided not to renew the contracts of third base coach Phil Nevin, hitting coach Marcus Thames, and assistant hitting coach P.J. Pilittere, reports Lindsey Adler of The Athletic. It’ll be interesting to see how Aaron Boone will cooperate with the new staff bestowed upon him.
• There were rumors swirling at the end of the season that the Padres were going to be making some pretty major changes to their coaching staff including at manager. Those rumors proved to be correct as the Padres relieved Jayce Tingler of his managerial duties, although it sounds like they would like to keep him in the organization in some capacity.
• New Rockies GM Bill Schmidt got down to business, signing first baseman C.J. Cron — whose 2021 campaign was the most productive by a Rockies first baseman since Todd Helton was in his prime — to a two-year, $14.5 million extension and right-handed starter Antonio Senzatela to a new five-year, $50.5 million deal with a $14 million club option for 2027. While these moves won’t necessarily make the Rockies better in 2022, they at least should help prevent them from taking a step backward this offseason like they’ve done over the last few years.
• The Nationals took on an interesting reclamation project back in July when they acquired infielder Alcides Escobar and gave him his first major league opportunity since 2018. They were impressed enough by the 34-year-old’s performance to bring him back into the fold for 2022.
• The rumored shake up of the Mets coaching staff got started in a hurry as the Mets relieved Luis Rojas of his position as manager. The Mets are simply declining his option for the 2022 season and it sounds like the organization is interested in him staying with them in another role.
• While we saw a unique situation with the All-Star Game moved out of Atlanta this season, generally the venue for the ASG is set well in advance and it stays that way. The league announced that Seattle will be be host of the 2023 All-Star Game.
• The Royals became the latest MLB organization to adopt a more modern front office structure, promoting longtime GM Dayton Moore to president of baseball operations while elevating assistant GM JJ Picollo to general manager. While Moore will still oversee day-to-day operations, this move will give Picollo, who has drawn interest from other clubs in recent offseasons, more authority and keeps him in Kansas City for the long term.
• While it was known that Yankees’ reliever Zack Britton had been dealing with elbow issues that were going to require surgery, there was some optimism that he could avoid major surgery and the subsequent recovery period up until recently. Unfortunately for Britton and the Yankees, he was unable to dodge that bullet as he underwent UCL reconstructive surgery that ended his 2021 season and will keep him out for most of 2022 as well.
• Given the team’s recent run of success with very limited payroll, a lot of teams have expressed interest in the availability of Rays’ VP and GM Erik Neander to help run their own teams. Those teams were unable to pry him away and now it looks like he will be with Tampa for the foreseeable future, as Neander received a promotion to president of baseball operations.