And Teoscar Goes to… the Dodgers
It’s important in life, as well as in baseball, to know when a relationship has run its course and it’s time to shake hands and part on good terms. Equally, if conversely, it’s important to know when not to screw with something that works.
So Teoscar Hernández is coming back to Los Angeles. The hard-hitting outfielder will make $22 million per year for three years, with a club option for a fourth at $15 million. Because this is the Dodgers, there’s all sorts of accounting rigmarole baked into the contract: a $23 million signing bonus, and another $23 million in deferred money, which will drop the value of the contract for CBT purposes (by exactly how much, we don’t know quite yet).
A year ago, the outfielder signed with the Dodgers on a one-year prove-it contract. Hernández, a first-time free agent, was in an odd situation at the time. He’d been a critical middle-of-the-order hitter for the Blue Jays in the first few years of the 2020s, but he was due to make $14 million in his final year of team control, so Toronto sent him to Seattle.
The only way it could’ve turned out worse is if Hernández had gotten hurt or somehow been stricken blind. T-Mobile Park is the worst ballpark in the league for right-handed hitters, and Hernández — whose game is entirely built on offense — suited his new environs as poorly as you might imagine. Actually, it was even worse than that: Hernández posted his highest strikeout rate in three years and his lowest walk rate ever, and his wRC+ dropped from 130 to 106, so you can’t even place all the blame on the stadium.
That nightmare of a walk year depressed Hernández’s market to the point where the Dodgers were able to wrap him up for one year and $23.5 million (which was closer to $20.4 million after taking deferrals into account).
And he looked like a new man. Hernández collected a career-high 33 home runs and hit .272/.339/.501, for a wRC+ of 134. Even taking his horrendous defense into account — 302nd out of 304 outfielders in defense last season — he was a 3.5-WAR player. Seattle wanted Hernández to be the second-best hitter on the team; the Dodgers, with their three-MVP lineup, needed him to be something like their fifth-best option.
Put another way: In both 2023 and 2024, Hernández’s most common spot in the batting order was fourth. The guys hitting in front of him in Seattle weren’t bad by any means — this was before the Mariners all forgot how to hit this summer, remember — but the Dodgers are a completely different animal. Here are the most common 1-2-3 lineup combinations for the 2023 Mariners and the 2024 Dodgers, along with the percentage of Hernández’s total plate appearances that came with either runners on base or runners in scoring position:
| Year | No. 1 Hitter | No. 2 Hitter | No. 3 Hitter | Men On% | RSIP% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | J.P. Crawford | Julio Rodríguez | Eugenio Suárez | 45.28% | 25.07% |
| wRC+ | 136 | 128 | 104 | 103 | 117 |
| 2024 | Shohei Ohtani* | Mookie Betts | Freddie Freeman | 51.38% | 31.13% |
| wRC+ | 181 | 141 | 137 | 137 | 160 |
And it sure seemed like Hernández was having fun at work in 2024. He quickly established a bromance with Ohtani — by June, people were putting together montages of their interactions set to Coldplay — and endeared himself to the fans. Which makes sense — who wouldn’t love a guy who slugs .500 and spreads positive energy?
If this was destined to be a brief collaboration, it would’ve been one for the books: One year, career high in homers, make the All-Star team, win the Home Run Derby, win a Silver Slugger, win the World Series, see ya later. It’s like a memorable recurring role on a long-running sitcom — lots of fun, even if you know deep down it wasn’t meant to last.
Most of all, that one-year contract with the Dodgers set Hernández up for a more successful second go-around in free agency. The Mets, no stranger to free spending themselves, offered Hernández a two-year deal with a similar AAV but no deferrals. That wasn’t enough to entice Hernández to sign, but it turned out to be highly effective in terms of getting the J.G. Wentworth jingle (“877-CASH-NOW…”) stuck in my head.
The Hernández signing is unusual for a free agent move because we know precisely what a reasonable best-case scenario looks like: We just saw it play out. Surely both Hernández and the Dodgers are expecting another couple seasons of hugs and homers.
The value of Hernández’s contributions seems pretty well settled: A little more than $20 million a year. That’s what he made on a one-year deal last year, and while he turned down not only the Mets’ proposal but a qualifying offer from the Dodgers, it turned out to be in pursuit of more years, not a higher AAV. And if relievers are going for $10 million a year, and any starting pitcher with two arms and a pulse makes $15 million a year, that seems like a pretty reasonable price for a corner outfielder who can actually hit cleanup for a championship team.
A lot of corner outfielders end up at their position because they’re slow or have iron hands. The league-wide wRC+ for left fielders in 2024 was 101; for right fielders, it was 107. You know how many outfielders posted a wRC+ of 130 or better in 400 or more plate appearances in 2024? Only 13. Not a lot of guys can do what Hernández does with the bat, and fewer still are available for nothing but money to a team that has more profits than the Old Testament. I still chuckle sometimes about all the hand-wringing about the Dodgers’ spending. That chatter came to a head when the Dodgers signed Blake Snell, while that very same week Dodgers chairman Mark Walter’s Cadillac F1 team got approval to join the grid in 2026. The company that bankrolls GM’s most expensive racing project probably cares little about the marginal value of the Dodgers’ left fielder.
With all that said, there are obvious causes for concern in the medium term. Hernández only walks at an average rate and even in good years is among the most strikeout-prone hitters in the league. He turned 32 in October, and his defense has already reached a point where he’d probably be DHing if he played for most other teams. The Dodgers, as you probably know, are locked into expensive full-time starters at both first base and DH, so this is as far down the defensive spectrum as Hernández can go without changing teams.
Much of the rest of the Dodgers’ roster — Betts, Gavin Lux, Tommy Edman — was put together with an eye toward flexibility. Even so, having three guys concreted into the three easiest defensive positions is a non-trivial encumbrance for manager Dave Roberts. It’s one he’ll tolerate because the benefits of having Ohtani on the team are, well, substantial. Putting the best player in the world at the top of the batting order does reduce one’s thirst for other options. Nevertheless, I would be quite surprised if the Dodgers didn’t wish they had the ability to plonk some other player in left field at some point in the next three seasons.
But those are poor people problems. The Dodgers are among the very few teams that can afford to make the obvious move every time, so they don’t have to worry quite as much about what happens on the fringes. This masher who loves playing here wants to come back at basically the same salary he made last year? Yeah, let’s not overthink things.
Michael is a writer at FanGraphs. Previously, he was a staff writer at The Ringer and D1Baseball, and his work has appeared at Grantland, Baseball Prospectus, The Atlantic, ESPN.com, and various ill-remembered Phillies blogs. Follow him on Twitter, if you must, @MichaelBaumann.
The Dodgers are sometimes too stubborn for their own good (see: the ongoing quest to convert a second baseman into a shortstop) but the benefit is they don’t overreact to recent events.
They signed Hernandez to a one year, $23M deal with deferrals after he came off a terrible season. They just signed him to a 3 year version with the same structure in AAV and deferrals when he was coming off a great year. They have a very clear evaluation of players and so they stick with it. There’s a lot of value in this.
They traded for some diamond in the rough in Mookie Betts and their scouting uncovered previously unknown prospects named Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman
Just how much in deferrals are the Dodgers up to at this point? Aside from perhaps the Nationals some years back, it seems they are doing this more than anyone else I can remember. Will this handicap them in the future in some way, like in terms of actual expenses or luxury tax considerations? Hurt the team’s resale value or something? Will there be some column 5 years from now saying how hard it is for the Dodgers to build a contender because they are so weighed down by deferred expenses?
Ten years out in 2035 it is Ohtani ($68M), Betts ($8M), Snell ($5.5M), Smith ($5M), Freeman ($4M), Edman ($2.5M), Teoscar (850k from last year, new deferral structure pending) plus $28M for the last year of Yamamoto’s deal for a total of just under $122M already committed.
Looking at Cots estimates there are eleven teams that don’t have that amount committed for 2025 yet.
In terms of full deferral amounts looks like it’s Ohtani ($680M), Betts ($115M) Snell ($66M), Freddie ($57M), Smith ($50M), Teoscar ($31.5M), Edman ($25M) so they are up over a billion.
The big unknown is how much will the luxury tax tiers change over the next 10 years. (Not even going to consider if they totally blow up the current system & move to a cap or something..just too much unknown).
Depending on the % increase, those tiers could be 22% (around 2% increase per year) to 65% higher (5% increase per year). That $122M is likely to be 30-40% of the 1st luxury tax tier.
Of course with the way the Dodgers spend, it may not make much difference.
It doesn’t work this way. The present-day value of the deferred money is counted in the season it is earned, and the payments are only a cash-flow issue (and not really one since the money has to be escrowed by the ASG of the season 2 years after it’s earned).
These deferred payments account for $0 of the Dodgers 2036 luxury tax number. It all counts now (in present-day value, so and the calculation will vary based on the negotiated interest rate on the money in each player contract)
The default interest rate that many players use is the current fed interest rate at the time the contract is signed. However, they are not required to do this, and Ohtani in particular loses a lot of present-day value on his $680m because he gave the Dodgers a 0% interest rate, which significantly decreases the value of his money.
That’s why Ohtani’s deal is discounted so much more in present-day value calculations than other players with deferrals. He is giving the Dodgers a 10 year loan of $680 million at 0% interest, which is an enormous gift only he can afford.
Other players don’t negotiate such an interest rate (most use the market rate), and this is why their deferrals reduce the present-day value of their contracts by only 5-10% of the sticker number, not approaching 1/3 like Ohtani’s deal. He’s giving up a ton of money with the 0% interest rate.
I’m guessing the plan looks like this:
2025-2029: Win championships, world domination, sear the memory of the Dodgers into the souls of all enemies.
2030-2033: Sportswriters talk about the HoF cases for Betts and Ohtani while LAD builds a competent team around them to keep the fans coming.
2034-2043: Sportswriters write headlines about the bill coming due, the Big One drops Dodger Stadium into the ocean
Okay, I think the *actual* plan is that they’re betting on the tax line continuing to go up, but the reality is that even if inflation makes paying player salaries more tolerable in 10-20 years the tax line itself isn’t going to move that much. The current collective agreement has it jump by something like $5M a year, so unless the players are willing to sit out half a year to get what they want the tax line itself in 10 years is still going to be less than the Dodgers’ current tax bill is this year. They can work around that, of course, but they are going to permanently be above the tax line if they want to flex their financial muscle.
I think it’s even more simple than that, ST. I think that the Dodgers are enormously profitable because Shohei Ohtani’s contract is *profitable* and brings in more money than it costs to pay his deferrals, and in a significant way because of his negotiated 0% interest rate. I think part of the point around the Ohtani deal is that *every team in baseball* could have signed it because it *produces more revenue than it costs*
The Dodgers were already an enormously profitable ballclub run by some guys who are not exactly worried about money, but their cash flow is just positive. I have seen estimates of Ohtani’s first-year value in additional revenue that approach 80-95 million dollars, and especially given the WS win I do not think these are insane. They’re making enormous amounts of money from Ohtani, and the advertising dollars from Japanese companies paying for SNLA advertising and in-stadium advertising and sponsoring stuff is a lot of money that isn’t in the shared revenue pool.
They know that they have an extraordinary opportunity to not just win, but be an insanely profitable baseball team – Ohtani’s compensation has be be escrowed by the ASG 2 seasons after it’s earned (so 2024’s comp has to be in escrow by ASG 2026), and it doesn’t have to be in cash – these people run one of the most profitable investment firms in the world. They get to escrow investment assets sufficient to pay Ohtani’s deferrals 8 years later, and because Ohtani (uniquely) gave them a 0% interest rate on his deferred compensation, they get to continue to pocket all the investment gains on that escrow until they actually pay him.
While all that is happening, he’s generating what is almost certainly high 8 figures in additional advertising and sponsorship and merchandise revenue, much of which isn’t shared, and which will continue to spike even further if they continue to win. And they have tons of great players around him. So why not go all in on this opportunity? They will make enormous profits now, and get to invest it now and pay later, and keep all its returns in the interim.
But a lot of these things applied to every team, though the Dodgers are certainly ideally positioned (both in terms of competitive position and geography) to optimize it more than others would. Ohtani’s present-day value of 43.X million is less than he’d have made every single team in additional revenue from Japanese sources. Everyone should have been in line to give him this exact contract. He is *PROFITABLE* at this price in a way that no other player in MLB is.
They’re just doing the rational thing and maximizing that value while the opportunity to reap the most rewards (eg when the revenue has the longest to appreciate before they pay out the deferrals).
They’re not going to sell and they’re not positioning for an exit. They plan to make more money than all this costs because Ohtani drives so much additional revenue and they are extremely successful investors who get to invest all that money for years before they have to pay out the deferrals.
Unlike probably any team any of us have ever seen, there is an enormous correlation between making money and winning baseball games for the Dodgers, and so they are behaving accordingly. I do not think it’s any simpler than that.
I think you are fundamentally talking about something different here. We know the Dodgers are one of the most profitable teams, if not the most profitable. What we don’t know is whether they are willing to live permanently above the tax line for 15 years.
There’s not a world in which this is a relevant concern because the deferred money does not count against the tax in the season(s) when it is paid, but only in the season where it is earned. Teoscar’s contract has 0 implication on their tax situation after the end of 2028; it doesn’t matter when he’s actually getting the money, just when he earns it.
They’re clearly willing to live about the tax line now – but they’re not committed to staying above it for all that long a period of time, and no more now than they were 6 months ago.
One would hope that their accounting is keeping up with this in a way that won’t allow that to happen. As long as they are planning appropriately (setting aside money to grow over that time, treating those funds as part of the payroll for the years it covers, etc), they should be fine.
They are required to place all the deferred money in escrow, so it’s very much part of regular year-to-year accounting and included in payroll. This isn’t Steve Cohen financing a team from his personal bank account (a situation worth watching over the next few years,) this is a hedge fund doing what it does, managing money and trying to predict the future.
The CBA requirement is that teams escrow assets sufficient to pay for deferred money by the ASG of the season 2 years after it’s earned (eg the 2026 all star break for 2024 compensation). These assets do not have to be cash, and can be investment vehicles which continue to generate additional revenue (and any revenue above the negotiated interest rate in the player’s contract is the team’s to keep). Most players negotiate normal market interest rates, but Ohtani gave the Dodgers 0%, so they really get to maximize the value of his deferrals by keeping all gains those investments make between when they are escrowed and when he is paid.
It’s not like a balloon payment will be due that will catch them off guard – the deferred money owed for a particular season has to go into an escrow account controlled by the org within two years. The org can’t withdraw from it, but they can make money off it. And the org is owned by Guggenheim, which, making money with money is their bread and butter.
I know folks hate the Dodgers something fierce, and they’d love for this to blow up on them, but the only way that happens is a massive hit to a revenue stream, and their $334M/yr TV deal doesn’t expire until 2038, or three years after they’ll have made Shohei’s last escrow payment. Plus, you know, all that wild sponsor profit from having Shohei. If the TV deal collapses, then sure, maybe the calculus changes. For now, their ducks appear to be in a row.
Hopefully this will be addressed in the next CBA, ie cap on deferrals or ideally no deferrals at all (except Bobby Bonilla)
But there is a cap on deferrals, a team cannot have debt that exceeds 40% of their asset value. Based off the last valuation of the club by Forbes of $4.8 bil, their debt limit would be $1.92 bil.
I was unaware of the cap. Regardless, is it good for baseball when teams take it to this extreme?
I wonder what you mean by “good for baseball,” as it’s the kind of thing people tend to say about free agency or players, especially those who don’t resemble the previous generation in some visceral way, making lots of money (I’d rather ask whether letting a few dozen billionaires/ownership conglomerates define what “baseball” is has been “good”)
I’m more annoyed with the payroll chicanery this entails, leading to luxury tax (or not) issues depending on the team. I’m for the players making money (if not them it would be the owners, who are not the good guys in any of this). No, not every team can do this – that also bothers me. You could argue every team could do what the dodgers (or Mets) are doing, but as you mention different franchise valuations allow for different levels of debt
There are no luxury tax issues; the contracts are charged vs the tax at their actual-present day value (eg deferred money is worth less than present-day dollars because of the time value of money) in the season when the compensation is earned, and they are not re-accounted for later on when actual payment occurs. There is no potential for a luxury tax problem down the road, all compensation counts against the tax in the season when it is earned.
And there is not even really chicanery about value. *Money in 10 years is worth less than money today*. This is both because money today has the potential to make you money via interest, but also because inflation always exists and over the course of a decade it is significant.
If it helps, you can think about deferred money as simply not being paid in US Dollars. If someone told you that Ohtani’s deal was for $680 million Canadian dollars, you would understand that it’s worth less than $680 million USD, right?
Well, this is also true of $680 million USD 10 years later. The contracts are accounted based on their equivalent present-day value – this is usually a 5% or 10% reduction for most players, because they negotiate an interest rate on the deferred money to help make up for the factor of inflation.
Ohtani gave the Dodgers a 0% interest rate. So his contract is worth *a lot less* than sticker. It’s like he was paid in AUS or CAN dollars instead of USD – it is an enormous value loss because he’s given the Dodgers a 10 year, interest-free loan on his compensation.
This compensation is worth less in all practical terms. The Dodgers don’t have to escrow as much, because the assets will continue to generate interest in escrow – and they’ll keep any money in the account in excess of $68m when time comes to pay. It will be devalued by as many as 19 years of inflation, which even at 90s-2000s era inflation rates is enough to take a significant margin off the top.
The $680 million number is just for show. They might as well have said he was being paid 75 billion yen in order to make the number sound big – it’s accomplishing the same thing and nothing else.
Thanks for the thoughtful explanation Mike. At first glance, my thought when hearing about a 10 year, 700 million contract is “that should count $70 million towards their payroll.” The fact that it’s only 46M instead, and like you mention they’re able to make money it seems from the escrow account, is kind of wild. For some on this chat it seems, if an owner is not willing to participate in salary deferrals, they’re not willing to do what it takes to win. I disagree with that premise, while wholeheartedly endorsing owners needing to spending more generally speaking on their teams.
Yes, it’s good. Every team should use their org as a vehicle for improving the team itself, rather than siphoning off for personal ventures/real estate crap. Every team should be working to the nth degree to be the best they can be and put the best team on the field possible, instead a bunch of them are lobbying to put a salary cap on front office spending and such. I’m not going to say it’s bad that a team is trying too hard within the collectively bargained rules that everyone agreed upon – the real problem is too many teams not trying at all.
Make the case that this is “too the extreme”.
MLBPA fought hard for deferrals. Don’t expect them to just give them up because a few Royals fans are mad. And not only did the union fight for them, the owners basically shrugged and made a courtesy show of resisting them, because most owners understood implicitly how they could benefit their own franchises. The only thing that will get rid of deferrals at this point is the government stepping in and regulating them (as California keeps threatening because of the hit on income taxes.)
There is no balloon, the contracts are entirely counted (in present-day dollars) vs the CBT in the season in which they are earned, and they do not in any way count again later when the actual payments are made.
It cannot even be a cash flow issue because the CBA spells out requirements for when cash must be escrowed for deferred compensation.
The Dodgers are owned by a hedge fund worth half a trillion dollars. I suspect the point of what they’re doing is dumping huge amounts of money into a holding to generate exponentially more massive piles of money. Their annual revenue last year, even with the current billion dollars in deferrals committed longterm, was $550 million, just slightly down from the previous year and basically only slightly less than their average for the last half decade, aside from 2021 when things were skewed because of the short season. They probably can’t keep doing this forever, but they’re on a clear trajectory at this point to eventually enter the top five most valuable sports franchises in the world. When you get to that plateau, regular considerations don’t apply. You’re just growing to grow, and growing first requires spending.
This is why Guggenheim bought the team. To get to this exact point where they can see the entire board and simply spend reality into existence.
Meanwhile there are owners like John Fisher beg poverty while they don’t even put in the amount they received from revenue sharing into the club. Anytime a owner makes claims to how much they are losing on their team take it with a pound of salt.
Padres might be an exception after their TV deal imploded with the payroll they had been running.
Remember that Ohtani gave the Dodgers a 0% interest rate on his deferrals (which is abnormal) so they get to escrow $68m in assets to pay him and then keep all the returns it makes until payday is due.
They are in a unique position because of Ohtani’s enormous revenue potential where wining games and making money are perfectly aligned, so they are behaving accordingly. He is enormously profitable to them. I have seen estimates of his net revenue for the team that push 85-90m for this season alone – and to compensate him all they have to do is put 68m in non-cash assets in escrow in June 2026 and keep all the profits it makes by its due date in 2034.
So, the $$ is in escrow for 8 years and there is no limit on what they can invest it in? On a 5% muni bond, they could make close to $30m in tax free interest. Make 9% and they make the entire $68M payment (they’d have to pay capital gains taxes on it, so it may not cover 100%). Hell, the S & P 500 annual return the last 10 years is 11%, they could easily profit from the deferred payment.
What if it loses $$$? Obviously, Guggenheim is really good at investing, so that’s unlikely but, possible.
My guess is Ohtani will swap his 680M owing for minority ownership.
I thought this too when it happened but its very complicated because of league rules about when the compensation has to be escrowed and I no longer think it will be quite that simple when he retires. It also doesn’t matter. He gave them a 0% interest rate, and the escrowed assets don’t have to be in cash – they get to put 68m in investments into the escrow each year and then keep all its profits when payout time comes. It’s not a burden for a mutual fund that has mid 12-figures in assets.
Coming in just under the wire, it’s the best headline of 2024!
Blush. ☺️ I had to scroll up to re-read – embarrassing not to have caught it the first read, but you’re right it’s excellent.
Blue Jays management sucks so hard.
Congrats to Teoscar!
I don’t know how much the Blue Jays could have done given their own unique relationship to the Canadian tax system, but it’s one hell of an offseason losing streak they’re riding here. At least the Giants came up with Adames.
Blue Jays threatening to run away with the “We Tried” trophy this offseason. I’m not ready to write off the Mariners, though (imagine having a 38 yr old turn you down for less money to play in *Cleveland*; I would simply contract myself)
great headline!
entirely logical move that was desired for both teams and a good outcome. the conforto signing is still not getting anywhere near enough publicity, both for what he’ll bring to the offense as well as the optionality it’ll give sarge:
conforto (lhb) has historically clobbered rhp to the tune of a .838 ops and seasonal notation over 600 abs of .257-30-94 with 88 walks.
teo (rhb) has historically clobbered lhp to the tune of a .894 ops and seasonal notation over 600 abs of .278-41-112 with 50 walks.
pages (rhb), the best glove of this trio, has historically murdered lhp (albeit over one seson) to the tune of a .917 ops and seasonal notation over 600 abs of .357(!)-18-55 with 42 walks.
conforto will probably steal some of teo’s abs, but DH will open up some abs if(when) ohtani begins starting and they’ll both be deployed against the pitching where they’re most favored and so you’re preserving as much outfield defense as possible (be it via outman or taylor or pages – even conforto is better than teo, even though he’s not great) and i might actually expect a slight statistical bump for teo as a result of seeing less lhp.
i would presume that they’re looking to attach taylor’s salary to a couple of minor prospects so as to free up a bit of money for kike and save some tax potentially, but other than that and roki (hopefully) i think they’re done.
Ohtani will still DH when he’s pitching, so that won’t make much of a difference (the Ohtani Rule specifically allows DHs to remain in the game as hitters even when they’re removed as starting pitchers.)
They can’t sign anybody else now until spring training, so I suspect that’s when the Other Hernandez gets re-signed, probably for around $5 million, so it’s not even really a money thing, it’s just a 40-man roster thing. They’re carrying four catchers on their roster right now, that won’t last. And I don’t expect them to trade CT because they’d probably have to give up prospects to make someone take him at this point (or eat a large amount of his salary). The Dodgers favor depth, so he’ll probably stick around in case someone goes down for a while.
i would concur with you on ohtani, but i do think they’ll give him blows vs. double duty on dh and pitching from time to time, perhaps just replacing him at dh when his SP start ends.
I would have let Outman and Pages prove what they can or cannot do. I’m not convinced Hernandez is all that likely to be better than the better one of them. The can always trade Lux and them for someone at the deadline if they need to.
Now they should trade at least Pages before his value goes stale
I don’t think there’s a rush to trade Pages. The Dodgers can still easily find him semi-regular ABs. They’ve generally preferred to have a rotation of 10-11 starting position players (when not facing a rash of injuries), and while this roster isn’t quite as flexible as past ones, it should still be doable. There’s a platoon opportunities with Conforto and Lux, and Edman can slide to middle infield as well.
This kind of all goes out the window if Taylor or Outman has a major resurgence and moves ahead of Pages on the depth chart. But on the other hand, Pages got rushed to the big leagues last year due to injuries, and while he acquitted himself well, I don’t think he’s at the point where regular ABs in AAA would be harmful to his development.
Agreed, they’ve had Pages circled as a long-term development guy since his rookie ball debut in 2019. He’s hit at every level. He’s a year or two ahead of schedule is all (I suspect they might have sent him back to AA for another half season before bringing him up to MLB on a normal timeline and even then he wouldn’t have become a semi-regular so quickly.)
His age 25-27 years are probably when to really start paying attention to him, and they’ll determine his future usefulness to the franchise far more than 400 AB in a season when he shouldn’t have even been starting.
RF Hernandez and LF Conforto are 32 years old. CF Edman is backing up a 32-year-old Mookie at SS. With load management and the inevitable injuries (large or small), there will be plenty of at bats for Pages and Outman over the course of the season.
You’re not convinced Teoscar Hernandez is better than Outman or Pages? That’s kind of a crazy thing to say about a guy who was roughly 3-4 times more valuable at the plate than both of them combined last year.
Pages is a good hitter but still very streaky and raw. Outman had a horrendous 2024 and nobody’s quite sure what he is now. Teoscar was the safest of bets.
I say crazy things all the time.
Let’s take a look at our friend, ZiPS
Hernandez 2.6 WAR in 612 PA
Pages 2.5 WAR in 546 PA
Outman 2.0 WAR in 517 PA
One would have to totally ignore projections in order to be convinced that there’s a big difference between these 3. I choose not to do that.
Actually, you kind of can.
Teoscar
2016~2022
Home OPS .807 wRC+ 116
Away OPS .829 wRC+ 124
2023 (Seattle)
Home OPS .643 wRC+ 84
Away OPS .830 wRC+ 126
2024
Home OPS .884 wRC+ 148
Away OPS .800 wRC+ 120
There is a tendency for people to think that Mariners pitchers are great and Mariners hitters suck, but most of it is the park factor.
2021~24
Mariners
Home
Hitters OPS .682 (29th)
Pitchers OPS .645 (1st)
Away
Hitters OPS .724 (10th)
Pitchers OPS .734 (18th)
Kind of. At least on this site park factors are built into most things you would be looking at. Maybe it’s not enough but it’s at least partially adjusted.
But I would agree that you can lay most of the blame for Hernandez’s 2023 on the stadium. The issue is that the Mariners have a weird park factor that affects some hitters a lot more than others. The line between the batters box and the mound either is crooked or appears that way due to how it is lined up with the batter’s eye. Some hitters seem to be able to adjust to it, and others just can’t.
This is partly why the Mariners seem to prioritize players who have hit well at their park as visitors. And it may not be a coincidence that a lot of those players come from the Rays, who also have a weird bit of nonsense with the lighting that had Willy Adames guessing and swinging wildly at pitches for years. But a lot of the time they guess wrong anyway, and they will still let go of players who have had offensive success in the stadium because Dipoto has an itchy trade finger (Eugenio Suarez is the example that comes to mind).
Damn it, this headline is good.
The Dodgers plan is to win championships now while they have a great core. They have a window of about 3 years to pile up another championship or 3. Between jersey sales and other revenue increases coming with being the best team in baseball they probably grow themselves financially out of this hole. And even if they can’t totally accomplish that they have a great farm system. The Dodgers are going to be good for a long time, unfortunately.