As you all know I love a good bold prediction and make them all the time on the Half Street High Heat podcast. With free agency now underway (and coming to a stop in 15 days). With MLB having a loaded free agency class, a whole new collective bargaining agreement to sign it is going to be an offseason of unpredictable change. Let’s begin this incredibly long offseason journey with five bold predictions.

Carlos Correa Signs with the Tigers for 10 years $350 Million

Carlos Correa is the most coveted position player free agent this offseason. Coming off a season with a 7 bWAR, some of the best all-time postseason numbers for a shortstop, he is an elite defender and also a plus hitter (even in years when no cheating allegedly occurred). Correa is going to want to beat Francisco Lindor’s SS AAV record of $34.1 million. The Astros helped set the market with a $32mill AAV offer and now the Tigers will win the bidding war and get their franchise player on a massive contract. 

Multiple Homegrown Superstars Find New Homes

Clayton Kershaw and Freddie Freeman will both walk in free agency. Now, it is not a bold prediction unless it makes someone react. Both players are essentially their teams’ Ryan Zimmerman (i.e., heart and soul of franchise and homegrown players) and everyone sees them as a shoe-in to stay. The Braves are willing to let Freeman explore free agency, where I am boldly predicting a team will offer him a deal the Braves won’t match and he will walk. Clayton Kershaw will have the same experience. Dodgers will try to keep Kershaw for less than the qualifying offer amount (around $19 million) and the Angels will make an offer above $20 mill that he will not be able to refuse.

Yankees Fail to Sign a Top Free Agent and don’t Adequately Address their Offensive Issues 

The Yankees have been reported that they are going to meet with the agents of the top five shortstops and we are hearing the same old “big market Yankees are back and will overpay for the player of their choosing.” Yankees have a lot of offensive issues (their entire lineup is right handed, high strikeout, high home run rate guys) and desperately need to mix it up. Yankees will not get any of the top five shortstops and have to settle on a cheap one year deal leading to more struggles from their offense.

The Mariners will Sign not One but Two Top Free Agents 

The Seattle Mariners have quite an exciting finish to their season, going on an insane hot streak and coming up just short of the second Wild Card spot and showing the league, they’re ready. The Mariners have a good young core, a deep farm system and a low payroll. They also have a very aggressive GM and are in a division that is trending downwards (A’s appear to be making more salary cutbacks, Angels don’t seem to want to address their pitching, Astros will likely be good but are going to take a step back with their FA’s they are losing). Mariners will make their splash and sign Kris Bryant to a 6 year $140 million contract and also further solidifying their lineup by signing Marcus Semien to a 5 year $110 million contract.

The 2022 season Opening Day is Delayed into June 

The CBA as we know is set to expire on 12/1 and as many are reporting things are not looking good. The two sides are still very far apart and MLB last proposal to eliminate arbitration and replace it with paying players based off of their Fangraphs WAR shows things are rough. The two sides will argue all winter long, miss the beginning of Spring Training and they will come to an agreement in April.

BONUS: 2021 was the last 162 game season

With the 2022 season being predicted to start late – another aspect is that the two sides will agree on a shortened season of 154 games going forward, meaning, we saw our last 162 game season for the foreseeable future.

BONUS: Nationals don’t sign a Single Top 50 Free Agent

For the free agent rankings you can check them out here. The Nationals were reportedly interested in Andrew Heaney before he signed with the Dodgers. Everything else has been all quiet and I predict the offseason will be very quiet the entire time with Nationals resulting in smaller, stop gap deals.