Opinion

There's a video you can find on the internet showing Eric Thames wearing a crown made of flowers, just after he was named Most Valuable Player last year in South Korea.

Good luck finding anything like that from Kris Bryant or Mike Trout.

If anyone's having trouble imagining Andrew McCutchen wearing something other than a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform, don't worry. Soon you won't have to.

Because it'll be reality.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, and the free-agent market is less than delightful…

1. Let It Snow Trade Rumors

Yes, free agent Yoenis Cespedes re-signed with the Mets this week, which means Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista may not be far behind, and doesn't that get your blood pressure pumping.

No?

The Los Angeles Dodgers didn't get in on what was possibly the best season ever for second basemen in 2016. Chase Utley and others didn't provide much hitting, baserunni

All together now, baseball fans: Whew.

With the hours ticking down until MLB's collective bargaining agreement expired Dec. 1, the league and players union agreed to a new pact Wednesday night, per Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal.

Slowly but surely the free-agent dominoes are beginning to fall around Major League Baseball. It should make for an intriguing December as the marquee names still available make their decisions about where to play in 2017 and beyond.

As always, there are some eye-popping numbers being thrown around during the early stages of the offseason. But that's all part of the roster-building process. Sometimes front offices are forced to overpay a bit in order to fill a void on their roster with a coveted target.

Major League Baseball's hot-stove season is supposed to be heating up, but unfortunately, the looming specter of a lockout if a new collective bargaining agreement can't be reached before the current one expires on December 1 has given the offseason a sense of dread. 

With the winter meetings set to kick off next week (barring a work stoppage) and myriad action already taking place this offseason, the MLB offseason is undoubtedly in full swing with the month of December now just around the corner.

A number of teams have already made significant additions to better position themselves for the season ahead, but all 30 clubs still have at least one glaring hole to fill between now and the start of spring training.

Four weeks after the Chicago Cubs bested the Cleveland Indians in seven games to clinch their first World Series crown in more than a century, the MLB landscape has seen a number of changes.

Brian McCann and Josh Reddick are now members of the Houston Astros. Taijuan Walker is no longer part of Seattle's rotation, having been shipped off to Arizona in a deal that bought infielder Jean Segura to the Pacific Northwest.

They were two of the biggest stars in baseball, and the Detroit Tigers ensured they didn't get away.

"I want to finish my career here," Miguel Cabrera told reporters when he signed an eight-year, $248 million deal in the spring of 2014.