Now we wait.
Manny Machado is meeting with the Phillies today. He met with the Yankees yesterday, having dinner with the Yankees’ brass in New York last night. That followed nearly two hours of meetings at the ballpark. They were taking their time, apparently. Not hustling through it.
This follows meetings earlier in the week with the Chicago White Sox. Jon Heyman reports that that’s basically the world of Machado suitors right now, and that there is no “mystery team” in the running. My guess would be, to the extent you hear about another contender in the next few days, it’s being put out there by Machado’s people in order to goose the bidding from the three known teams in on him.
As I wrote last week, last year’s crazy-slow free agent market notwithstanding, it’s a bit late in the year for such a high profile free agent to still be on the market. That the top two, including Bryce Harper, are still looking for their next team as of December 20 is, again, quite a rare thing indeed. It sounds, however, like Machado is getting pretty close to finding a home.