Moments after Michael Brantley swung through the last strike of the 2019 World Series, the reticent Stephen Strasburg struggled to hold back tears as he absorbed the Washington Nationals' standing as baseball champions, and in the handful of words he mustered, the pitcher referred to Washington, D.C., as home.
This was no small matter for a native of San Diego, for someone who would, within mere hours, opt out of the last years of his contract with the Nationals. Strasburg is serious, earnest and private -- which is why Gerardo Parra and Anibal Sanchez targeted him for their dugout hugs -- and so it made sense all along that Strasburg would work out a deal with the Nationals, where he can go about his business without having to worry about pleasing a new franchise, a new set of employers, a new fan base. He knows the Nationals and their fans, and they know and appreciate him, and now he and his family will be entrenched in Washington for the rest of his baseball life, at least.
Strasburg is home, and the dominoes of his decision will fall all over the place.
For Gerrit Cole: The other day, there was a report in The New York Times that the Yankees were preparing to offer the premier free-agent pitcher $245 million, or seven times an annual salary of $35 million. Sources flatly denied this, but in any event, that $245 million figure is now outdated, because that's what Strasburg got, with some of the salary deferred with interest.
Scott Boras, who represents six of the top 10 free agents on Keith Law's big board, negotiated the Strasburg deal, and with Boras, there are almost never any coincidences. It wasn't a coincidence that when Alex Rodriguez signed for $252 million with the Rangers back in the day, it was exactly twice as much as the next biggest contract in professional sports at that time, Kevin Garnett's $126 million. Just as it was not a coincidence that Bryce Harper got the highest total guarantee for any MLB contract last spring, by $5 million, when his $330 million deal surpassed Giancarlo Stanton's $325 million contract (although Harper's deal is structured in a way that won't pay him much at the end, probably to make this happen).
The fact that Strasburg signed for $245 million now, with the biggest contract ever for a pitcher, sets up Cole -- two years younger than Strasburg -- to set another record, and perhaps have a shot at becoming the first pitcher ever to sign a nine-figure deal in which the first number is a "3."
For Boras: In recent winters, a lot of the big free agents have lingered on the board into February and March, with a large portion of them being Boras clients, like Harper and Jake Arrieta -- and in some cases, they've been left behind. Because Boras represents so many of the best free agents this winter, he has seemingly made an adjustment and been getting some of them off the board relatively quickly. Boras client Mike Moustakas got a four-year, $64 million deal before Strasburg, and the conversations around Cole and Boras guy Anthony Rendon seem to be moving with alacrity.
The Boras Corp can build another legacy wing with the contracts signed this winter.
For the Nationals: Owner Mark Lerner signaled the club's limitations the other day when he said that Washington could probably afford to re-sign only one of its two big free agents, Strasburg or Rendon. So now that Strasburg is in the books, it seems a near certainty that the Nationals will have to find another third baseman. The best available are Josh Donaldson, although Donaldson is being pursued by the Braves, Rangers and others, and Kris Bryant, who is being dangled in the trade market by the Cubs.
For Rendon: If the door back to Washington is, in fact, slammed shut -- Rendon might be just too expensive for the Nationals -- then his best options might be the Texas Rangers, who would like to lure the native Texan back to his home state, or the Dodgers, who want Rendon on a shorter-term deal.
For the Angels: Strasburg might have been the best safety net possible if they missed on Gerrit Cole, because it seemed like they could have been the best big-dollar alternative to the Nationals; they would have paid Strasburg a lot of money to return to San Diego. But now the pressure mounts on the Angels to sign Cole.
For the Yankees: The Angels really need Cole as their big addition of the winter. The Yankees really want Cole. And that means the Yankees might have to make a financial offer that makes them queasy to have a shot at signing him.
For Hyun-Jin Ryu: Once Cole lands with the Yankees or the Angels or the Dodgers, then the left-hander might be the best available option in the eyes of some of the executives chasing these big-name pitchers. The best possible scenario for Ryu might be Cole signing with the Yankees, and then the Angels pushing aggressively to grab Ryu.
For Madison Bumgarner: His best-case scenario might be for the Yankees to miss out on Cole, forcing New York to search for alternatives. The Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and other big-market teams always have to answer the question of how each player is going to handle the big city -- for example, Sonny Gray just wasn't comfortable after the Yankees traded for him. The Yankees might have questions about Bumgarner's fastball velocity or his delivery, but because of his superlative October history, nobody will ever doubt whether he could handle the big stage of New York in the postseason.