Five Soon-to-Be Free Agents With the Most to Lose From a Postponed Season

At the end of January, back when the pandemic had yet to become a pandemic, I took the bold step of ranking Mookie Betts No. 1 on my way-too-early list of next winter’s top free agents.

Oh, what an innocent time it was.

Less than three months later, the context for my free-agent rankings has completely changed. It was written under the assumption that baseball would begin as usual, giving players such as DJ LeMahieu (No. 5), Trevor Bauer (No. 3) and George Springer (No. 2) the chance to boost their value in a contract year. Now we don’t know if there will be any baseball this year.

Let’s highlight the five upcoming free agents who have the most to lose from a drastically shortened or canceled 2020 season.

IT’S THE CUBS’ WORLD NOW

Not to spoil the ending, but:

But the Cardinals aren’t doomed. They still have a solid lineup, a solid rotation and a solid bullpen, and you’d have to think they’ll add somebody. But for years, some fans have claimed, wrongly, that Cardinals-Cubs isn’t a real rivalry because the Cards have always been so much better than the Cubs. This, not coincidentally, is the same thing Yankees fans used to say about the Red Sox, before Epstein took over there as well. Now, some have said, in the wake of the Cubs’ signing of Heyward, that this ratchets up the rivalry.

But if anything, I believe it dampens it. Even before Friday, the Cubs were a better team than the Cardinals in just about every way. Now that the Cubs took the Cardinals’ best player, the gap between these teams have widened. If anyone needs to prove this is a rivalry, it’s the fading Cardinals.