MLB Bullets is catching on

Good morning and a warm holiday season to everyone. Except you-know-who. He knows what he did.

• No big deals over the weekend, but there were some lesser ones that could pay off big later this summer. The Padres signed second baseman Ian Kinsler to a two-year, $8 million deal.
• Jay Jaffe believes the Padres got a great deal in signing Kinsler.
• The Mets have reportedly come to an agreement with free agent catcher Wilson Ramos for two years and $19 million.
• Jon Tayler gives the Mets a positive grade for this deal, adding that it was a better idea than giving the Marlins what they want for J.T. Realmuto.
• Speaking of Realmuto, Joe Frisaro gives an update about where his situation stands at the moment. Six teams are still in the bidding for him and it sounds like a deal will get done sooner rather than later.
• The Braves are not one of those teams in on Realmuto.
• The White Sox and the Indians made a deal with Cleveland sending first baseman Yonder Alonso to Chicago for minor league outfielder Alex Call.
• The White Sox also signed catcher James McCann to a one-year deal.
• Infielder Carlos Asuaje signed with the Lotte Giants of Korea’s KBO.
• And the Rakuten Golden Eagles of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball signed former Angels outfielder Jabari Blash.
• Jonah Keri looks at the Yankees off-season and thinks free agent Manny Machado is the perfect solution to their problems.
• David Adler makes the case for why the Astros should sign free agent outfielder Nelson Cruz.
• Grant Brisbee has some parting thoughts about some of the moves made at the Winter Meetings. Despite the headline, he does not pick “winners and losers.” In fact, the Winter Meetings were so dull that I wasn’t able to do my twice-annual list of links semi-mocking sportswriters for all writing a “Winners and Losers” column. There just wasn’t enough there to declare winners and losers.
• Dayn Perry wonders if the Winter Meetings aren’t becoming irrelevant. They’re not irrelevant because a lot goes on at them that isn’t news. I’m not writing a column about the new Midwest League interns hired for the summer of 2019. But as far as being a time to make deals? Yeah, it’s becoming irrelevant.
• Zack Meisel, who covers the Indians for The Athletic, tells us what happens when the team you are covering makes a three-way trade and you’re inside an airplane with the Indians front office and spotty wi-fi. (The Athletic sub.req.)
• Bradford Doolittle has what every team has yet to accomplish now that the Winter Meetings are over. (ESPN+ Insider req.)
• I might as well stick all the articles behind a paywall here. Arpon Basu reports on what is going on in Montreal and reports that the city and potential ownership group are closer to bringing baseball back to Quebec than ever before. (The Athletic sub.req.)
• And Peter Gammons reports on why you can trace most all of modern thinking about hitting a baseball back to Ted Williams. (The Athletic sub.req.) Gammons thinks every professional ballplayer should read Williams’ The Science of Hitting.
• Jacob Bogage continues the “Would Adam Ottavino strike out Babe Ruth every time?” argument with some solid arguments that Ruth would be able to hit a modern pitcher like Ottavino. Except that he writes things like “Ruth would make adjustments” and “He would swing a lighter bat” which isn’t what Ottavino or anyone else was arguing. It still makes for interesting reading though.
• Cardinals outfielder Dexter Fowler knows he had a terrible season in 2018 and admitted he was “depressed.” He vows to rebound in 2019 and credits the Cards for sticking with him. I hate to wish well to any Cardinals player, but it’s Dex. I hope he has a terrific 2019 on a bad team.
• Matt Kelly has some baseball records that he thinks will never be broken.
• Disney is having some trouble selling the regional sports networks that they acquired from Fox.
• Fox and ESPN will each get the national television rights to one of the two London Series games this summer. Fox gets the Saturday game and ESPN gets the Sunday game.
• Red Sox outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. was at Anfield for the Liverpool/Manchester United match on Sunday with his own personalized Liverpool kit. The Fenway Sports Group owns both the Red Sox and Liverpool. Here’s where I tell you should cheer for Everton and not Liverpool.
• The Toros Del Este of the Dominican Winter League clinched a playoff spot and that means we got some bad (but entertaining) dancing from Hunter Pence.
• Indians third baseman Jose Ramirez not only has an infield in this backyard, he has a pool shaped like an infield. As some have noted, the whole setup seems very similar to that of the old video game “Backyard Baseball.”
• And finally, some elementary schools students in Arcadia, California wrote to the Dodgers to cheer them up after they lost the World Series. Well, the Dodgers read their letters and responded to the team in a holiday greetings.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.