The active secondary markets at the MLB winter meetings is progress for baseball

LAS VEGAS – What happens in Vegas gets taken home in Word docs and on Excel spreadsheets and cocktail napkins, which is better than shuttling it back in little sacks of conscience-grinding regret that hide and rot in one’s soul forever.

Anyway.

The winter meetings, of which a few hours remain, are where the free agencies of Manny Machado and Bryce Harper were nudged ahead a few yards.

Las Vegas was where secondary markets opened.

It was where the Baltimore Orioles probably hired a manager.

It was where the Cincinnati Reds sort of came back to life or showed signs of sort of coming back to life.

It was where the rumors found the Chicago White Sox and stuck.

It was where New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman confirmed his organization as “a fully operational Death Star” and moments later was close to agreeing to terms with … J.A. Happ.

It was what comes before what is to come comes, and nothing happened that couldn’t be taken back, which is about the best possible scenario on the way out of here.

There was a moment mid-morning in which Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona sat behind a microphone and was asked something about his club and the rest of the AL Central. He smiled without really smiling and said, “I don’t think we’re going to do anything to try to make us worse.” The answer would have gotten a bigger laugh were it not suddenly so important to clarify these things, not necessarily by the Indians, but by any team that does not see a clear path to October, of which there are plenty.

So, sure, what’s interesting in the middle of December – when the Los Angeles Dodgers make a move for pitching, when the Boston Red Sox identify a closer, when the Yankees become convinced they’ve caught the Red Sox, when the Philadelphia Phillies discover their impulse buy, when the Miami Marlins let go of J.T. Realmuto, when the New York Mets advance beyond pretty good, and how it all fits together – is enough to carry the conversation, and the real test of the sport and its health is how many teams aren’t doing anything to try to get worse.

When the Reds perk up, when the White Sox are an exuberant and meaningful option for Harper, that’s progress, if not a cure. You’ll take progress. Something had to change.

The Reds on Wednesday afternoon acquired Tanner Roark from the Washington Nationals. The Reds lost 95 games last year. They lost 94 in both of the years before that. And 98 the year before those. Some of those weren’t entirely intentional, but still the Reds were – and are – one of those teams for which clarification was – is – necessary. Roark does not solve much of that. But, he’s also about $10 million the Reds wouldn’t have otherwise spent, he’s a grown-up in a rotation that needed one, and the Reds are talking bigger than that. When asked what more he seeks for his starting rotation, president of baseball operations Dick Williams replied, “Cy Young, man.”

They’ve been linked – weakly or otherwise and you are allowed to decide which – to Realmuto, to Sonny Gray, to Marcus Stroman, to whomever the Indians trade from their rotation, to whatever the Dodgers might have to offer, to Happ before Wednesday, even to Dallas Keuchel and more. Maybe one or two of those happen. Maybe none does. But to borrow from the president of baseball operations, “Hope, man.”

In recent years, Williams pointed out, “There haven’t been a lot of commitments to players making this kind of money. So this is a significant shift for us. We’ve been laying in the weeds for a couple of years and focused on rebuilding, and now it’s time to add to the team. We’re in that mode now. And we fully expect to make more deals. This is the first of more to come.”

How much more?

“We’ve talked about the fact that our payroll will reach levels that we haven’t seen in the past,” he said. “So we don’t want to get overly specific with that, but that still gives us some good room to grow.”

One day, one trade, does not alter the world, even a world as insular as baseball. And, yet, down go the Seattle Mariners, another competitive team lost to the tear-down urge, and along come the White Sox, perhaps, 100-game losers by the end of September and players for Harper two months later. If that seems a long shot, well, it probably is. It’s a long way back. But they go home with a new starter in Ivan Nova and, as of two weeks ago, a new closer in Alex Colomé.

What they sell, manager Rick Renteria said, is, “the future.”

It’d be a hell of a thing if you could actually see the future from here. Maybe if they turned out some of the lights when everybody went home.

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