Chris Russo might need to change his nickname from “Mad Dog” to “Scrooge.”
The biggest piece of free agent news that the baseball world has been waiting on is where Japanese star pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto will sign, with the Yankees, Mets and Dodgers being looked at as the top dogs to land the free agent.
Yamamoto has until the Jan. 4 signing deadline to decide which major league club he wants to sign with.
But with no decision in hand yet, Russo has not been pleased.
“I am so tired of the baseball free agency lasting into spring training,” the often over-the-top Russo said during his “What are you mad about?” segment on Wednesday’s “First Take.”
“Let us put everything to bed and we can relax for three months and not pay attention to baseball and we can get ourselves organized in March and get ready for the season. Instead, we get dribble, drabs of information of what guys gonna sign where. If the Mets are gonna get Yamamoto. Who likes [Shohei] Ohtani. Blake Snell is available. What can the Yankees do? And it goes on and on and on and it’s a joke.”
Russo continued by calling it a “major problem” for baseball and there needed to be “an end game” to it all.
Bidding for Yamamoto could go above $300 million, and ESPN’s Buster Olney reported Wednesday that the Yankees have a “quiet confidence” they have a “real shot” at the Japanese ace.
A decision by Yamamoto could come by the end of the week, according to SNY.
The ongoing speculation and drama likely isn’t going to change Russo’s opinion.
The former WFAN host cited the way the NFL and NBA conduct their offseasons, claiming that football has its free agency and then the draft and then it is over, and that the NBA only had a few days in July and then the league goes quiet.
“Mad Dog” wasn’t necessarily wrong about that, but offseason news has tended to drag out for both leagues.
Last summer, contract situations with Giants running back Saquon Barkley and Raiders star running back Josh Jacobs dragged on through free agency and into training camp.
“Some of these free agents will sign in the middle of March. That’s not how you operate a sport,” Russo continued to rant about MLB. “You need to go away for three months and baseball doesn’t do that.”
The sweepstakes for Shohei Ohtani — whose secrecy before signing with the Dodgers led to much discussion — and Yamamoto’s waiting have kept baseball free agency lingering.
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