GM Meetings lay groundwork for 'crazy couple of weeks'

LAS VEGAS -- When the baseball world descended upon Las Vegas earlier this week, there was a thought that the General Managers Meetings were going to have more of a Winter Meetings feel to them.

With the impending expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement at 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1, the belief was that there would be early action in free agency, a market that hasn’t really gotten going until mid-December in recent years.

Signings! Trades! Mayhem!

Yet as executives and agents left the Aria Resort and Casino on Thursday to return home, the market looked very much the way it did 72 hours earlier.

• The latest MLB rumors and free-agent news

“There was a lot of talk about people moving fast,” one National League executive said. “But there wasn’t a ton of action.”

There were a few moves this week, as Evan Phillips landed a three-year, $35 million deal with the Braves, Emilio Pagán signed a one-year, $11.5 million contract with the Tigers and Ryan Weiss got $1.85 million for one year from the Padres.

But the big names on the market including Tarik Skubal, Seiya Suzuki, Teruaki Sato, Randy Arozarena, Michael King and Freddy Peralta don’t appear any closer to signing than they were when everyone arrived in Vegas.

If there was one glaring takeaway from this week, it’s that nearly everybody in the game expects Skubal to sign with the Mets.

“I don’t know who else is really even in the conversation,” an NL executive said.

There are other suitors, including the Dodgers, Blue Jays and Padres, though the Mets have both the need and the financial means to give the two-time American League Cy Young Award winner the type of deal he’s likely seeking.

• The latest rumors on Skubal

The Dodgers are said to prefer a shorter-term deal with a higher average annual value structured similarly to the four-year, $240 million contract that Kyle Tucker signed with Los Angeles last winter. Skubal, sources say, is not interested in that kind of deal, preferring a long-term pact that will keep him in the same locale well into the next decade.

The Blue Jays will take a serious look at Skubal like they do with nearly every marquee free agent, but if it comes down to a bidding war, it’s hard to see Toronto topping the Mets on that front. The Padres have expressed interest in Skubal, and while San Diego plans to spend this winter, a source indicated that San Diego is more likely to spread those funds around rather than making one huge splash.

“They need more than one pitcher,” the source said. “For what Skubal is going to cost, they’re better off using that money to sign two or even three pitchers to help rebuild the rotation.”

The Cubs are also in the market for rotation help, but with nearly all of their rotation now on the free-agent market, they will likely try to sign multiple arms rather than going all-in for Skubal.

Skubal could get a lengthy deal that spans between seven and 10 years, while other top starters including King, Peralta, Clay Holmes and Trevor Rogers should be able to find multi-year contracts of at least three years. Then there’s the over-35 crowd, with Sonny Gray (37), Kevin Gausman (36) and Nick Martinez (36), who could still find multi-year deals despite their advancing ages.

The rest of the starting pitching class? According to sources with knowledge of the market, short-term deals are the preference -– at least for now.

“There are a lot of one- or two-year appetites for starting pitchers,” one executive said. “But not much beyond that, term-wise.”

Three front office executives used the phrase “laying the groundwork” to describe their respective weeks, and while the expectation remains that many free agents will sign prior to the expiration of the CBA, it remains to be seen whether that begins in earnest during the coming week or goes down to the wire as the calendar races toward Dec. 1.

“It’s coming,” an AL executive said. “It’s going to be a crazy couple of weeks.”