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How much major league teams are willing to spend on player salaries in any given year can be a bit murky. Teams don’t want to show their hand and lose negotiating power with free agents, though we can usually figure out their number by the end of spring when the money has been spent. How much every team is likely to spend is more opaque. We know that, generally speaking, teams are making boatloads, but while the revenue across the sport has increased over the last few years, it hasn’t resulted in increased payrolls. Every team has lots of money — the budget constraints we hear front office types reference are, more often than not, self-imposed rather than the result of empty coffers — but some will spend more than others. Trying to pin down what teams will spend in 2020 at this point in the winter is difficult, but we can use last year’s payroll numbers as a guide to get a rough idea of what each is likely to do, and thus gauge which ones will commit to payroll increases and which are likely to embrace thrift.

To answer those questions, we can look to the contracts coming off the books at the end of 2019, but that number can be misleading. Raises to players with long-term contracts, as well as increased pay in arbitration can bite into some of the departed money. Let’s start with how much money every team has committed for 2020 as of right now, using estimates for arbitration figures and minimum salaried players. (All the data can be found in the Payroll section on our RosterResource pages.)

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The non-tender deadline isn’t a date everyone circles on the calendar expecting big moves and excitement, but it does force teams into decisions on a handful of players and causes some movement as well as a handful of new free agents. Last night’s non-tender deadline was more active than most. As Jeff Passan noted, there were 40 non-tenders after a combined 46 over the previous two years. It was busy, and a few productive players were not offered contracts despite expectations for fairly reasonable salaries. There are some big conclusions to reach about the state of the game as well as some small ones based on last night. Here’s what we learned.

Teams Aren’t Paying for a Return to Form

Among the biggest non-tenders in terms of past production and expected salary were players who struggled for various reasons in 2019. Formerly injured pitchers in the process of returning from injury or needing time to return from injury like Taijuan Walker, Jimmy Nelson, and Aaron Sanchez were all non-tendered despite expected salaries in the $4 million to $6 million range. Previous successful players with rough years like Kevin Gausman, Blake Treinen, and Travis Shaw were all let go despite prior track records of success. In the cases of Gausman and Treinen, an expected salary of close to $10 million likely played a role, though it isn’t necessarily clear that the decisions wouldn’t have been the same even if a few million dollars had been shaved off the cost. Steven Souza Jr. has decent projections for next season, but he did poorly in 2018 and didn’t play at all last season. For the most part, teams weren’t willing to roll the dice on bounce-back campaigns. Read the rest of this entry »

The Reds signaled their intentions to compete in 2019 by trading for Tanner Roark, Sonny Gray, and Yasiel Puig, among others. They did compete with a BaseRuns record above .500 that with neutral luck would have put them in contention until the end of the season. They were 4 1/2 games off the division lead at the All-Star break, but a crowded division and a lack of talent relative to their competitors left them with 75 wins at the end of the year.

Cincinnati also announced their intentions to compete in 2020 by acquiring Trevor Bauer at the trade deadline. Bauer is now a part of what should be one of the better rotations in baseball along with Luis Castillo, Gray, Anthony DeSclafani, and Tyler Mahle. Even with a good rotation, the present roster wasn’t going to be enough in 2020, so the Reds struck a big deal with Mike Moustakas for four years and $64 million, as first reported by Jon Heyman and Jeff Passan.

For Moustakas, this deal was a long time coming. Two seasons ago, Dave Cameron and the crowd here at FanGraphs expected Moustakas would get five years and somewhere between $85-95 million. At the time, the Royals third baseman was coming off a 38-homer, 113-wRC+ season, but there were some questions about his defense due to knee problems in addition to the stigma of a qualifying offer. Moustakas ended up settling for one year and a $6.5 million guarantee in returning to Kansas City. He improved his defense in his time with the Royals and Brewers in 2018, but he hit 10 fewer home runs and was just a bit above average on offense. Behind Manny Machado and Josh Donaldson in the third base pecking order, Moustakas again found his market lacking and signed with the Brewers for $10 million. Read the rest of this entry »

Two winters ago, the Rangers weren’t looking to contend, but they were looking for undervalued pitching. They gave reliever money to starter-turned-very-good-reliever Mike Minor in early December to join the rotation with a three-year, $28 million deal that has proved to be a massive bargain, as Minor’s 6.7 WAR over the last two seasons ranks 29th among all pitchers. Last December, the still-rebuilding Rangers signed Lance Lynn, whose very good FIP in 2018 was marred by an ugly 4.77 ERA across stints with the Twins and Yankees, to a three-year deal worth $30 million. Lynn delivered with a seven-win season and a fifth-place finish in the AL Cy Young award voting. Now the Rangers have reached a three-year deal with Kyle Gibson worth $30 million, according to Jeff Passan, with Jon Morosi first reporting the team and player.

How Gibson fits in with Lynn and Minor goes beyond just the identical contracts. Over the last two years, Gibson put together a pair of solid 2.6-WAR seasons with the Twins, but a low BABIP in 2018 meant a 3.62 ERA, while a higher one last season resulted in a 4.84 ERA that made him look worse than he deserved. Gibson’s strikeout rate climbed to 23% with his walk rate dropping to 8%, all while maintaining his high groundball rate. His home run rate went up in a fashion consistent with the rest of the league. With his sinker, assuming a good infield defense (yet to be determined, given that the Rangers likely aren’t done making moves), he should put up very good numbers even in a hitter’s park (we don’t yet know how Texas’ new ballpark will play).

Gibson’s peripheral numbers aren’t the only aspect of his game that could make him an underrated signing. The prescient Kiley McDaniel had this to say in FanGraphs’ Top 50 Free Agents post:

It’ll surely hurt the Division Champion Twins to lose 9.6 WAR and 60% of their rotation with Gibson, Odorizzi, and Pineda hitting free agency. Gibson was the player with the most helium amongst team-side analyst-types consulted for the first iteration of this list. Some have him over Keuchel, in part because his 92-95 mph heater gives more margin for error in games, in projecting his future, and in projecting a role in a playoff rotation. His ERA indicators suggest he’s a sub-4 ERA type and he’s made 25-plus starts six years in a row. Gibson seems like a solid candidate for a sneaky big and/or early deal from a club confident he offers the best value among the 10 or so starters with a solid chance at a multi-year contract.

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Josh Donaldson is among a group of free agents who bet on themselves last winter. He certainly could have gotten a multi-year deal from some team, but likely at a lower salary than the $23 million he received last season. Going two or three years also would have meant hitting the free agent market again heading into his age-35 or age-36 season, when another multi-year deal would have been far less likely. Donaldson opted to get a jump on free agency last winter, take the best one-year deal he could get, and let his play do the talking heading into free agency again. While Donaldson’s risk hasn’t paid off yet, he is coming off a five-win season that ranked 20th among position players, just behind Yasmani Grandal and just ahead of Peter Alonso and Juan Soto. Despite turning 34 years old next month, Donaldson should receive a multi-year deal paying him just as much as he earned a year ago.

We’ve already seen Grandal bet on himself and have the move pay off in free agency this season. The same is likely to be true for Hyun-Jin Ryu as well. It might also finally pay off for Mike Moustakas. Turning down greater guarantees in the hopes for a better market when the player is a year older is a risky play. It was particularly risky for Donaldson given how injuries prevented him from playing most of the 2018 season, and when he did play, his hitting was well below his previously high standards. Another year like 2018 and Donaldson would’ve been looking at very small guarantees heading into next season. As it stands, Kiley McDaniel predicted Donaldson would receive $71 million over three years while the crowd came in at $60 million. He only needs half of McDaniel’s prediction to beat the expected contract from a year ago. A good 2019 should pay off for Donaldson, but let’s look at how his future performance could pay off for a team. Read the rest of this entry »

Last season, the Atlanta Braves platooned Brian McCann and Tyler Flowers behind the plate. Neither player was great, but the pair produced more than three wins, which put them in the top 10 for team catching totals. Atlanta had already re-upped Flowers with a one-year deal, but with McCann’s retirement, the club needed a replacement for his half of the duo. Enter Travis d’Arnaud, who agreed to a two-year deal worth $16 million, as first reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

The McCann/Flowers combo worked well because the lefty McCann and the righty Flowers could platoon. That won’t be the case next year, as d’Arnaud bats right-handed as well. It should, however, provide more flexibility regarding rest and pitching matchups. Both players hit lefties well and are usable against righties, which means that manager Brian Snitker can decide who plays based on the best matchup with his own pitchers.

Flowers is one of the best framing catchers in baseball. Since 2015, his 77 runs above average are second only to Yasmani Grandal’s 100, though Flowers has 1,300 fewer innings.

But Flowers isn’t necessarily a guy you want to play 140 times. He’ll be 34 years old next year, he’s a poor thrower, and he doesn’t have much of a stick: After a hot April last year, he put up a 73 wRC+ the rest of the way. While the Braves were happy to bring Flowers back at a low salary, they needed another competent catcher to replace McCann.

d’Arnaud fills that void, and at a pretty fair price given his blend of experience and upside. On our Top 50 Free Agents list, Kiley McDaniel projected d’Arnaud would get two years and $14 million. Ben Clemens had this to say about him:

What you think of Travis d’Arnaud’s free agency is entirely a matter of perspective. Is he the player who the Mets released in May? Is he the cleanup hitter for a playoff team? Both are true, but neither paints a complete picture. It goes beyond this year, too: is he the former top prospect who compiled 6.2 WAR in roughly 700 PA in 2014 and 2015, or the injury-prone journeyman who totaled 2.4 WAR in a similar amount of time over the next three seasons, losing his job to a carousel of middling backstops in the process? Again, the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes. Put it all together, and d’Arnaud projects as a roughly average player, and average catchers entering their age 31 seasons aren’t typically in high demand. There’s still a whiff of pedigree to him, however, even after his inconsistent career thus far, and plenty of playoff hopefuls could use an average catcher, which means d’Arnaud will likely have his pick of destinations on a small-ish contract.

That d’Arnaud was able to beat the estimates is a testament to a thin catching market. Per our Free Agent Tracker, these were the top talents available this winter:

There weren’t too many full-time starters available. Jason Castro might have been a fit, given his lefty bat and decent projection, but d’Arnaud had more plate appearances last season than Castro the last two years combined. Add in the age difference between d’Arnaud and Castro, and it’s clear why the righty was a compelling option.

While Flowers’ season might have been cause for some concern with the Braves, d’Arnaud played well once he arrived in Tampa Bay. The graph below shows his 100-game rolling wRC+ over the last four seasons:

While d’Arnaud’s numbers in recent seasons don’t leap off the page, he was quite good at the plate in Tampa. Even with an underwhelming 67 wRC+ in September, d’Arnaud posted a 107 wRC+ with Tampa Bay across 92 games and 365 plate appearances, and his contact quality was even better than that. Because he didn’t make it to the Rays until the second week in May, d’Arnaud actually carried a pretty significant workload, playing roughly three-quarters of the time. With Flowers in the fold and no need to play first or designated hitter, d’Arnaud should get a bit more rest and perhaps see some improvement in his numbers.

d’Arnaud framing metrics were pretty good last year, though not as stellar as his early career figures in New York, when he was 41 runs above average. He missed nearly all the 2018 season due to Tommy John surgery, and it is difficult to tell if the decline in framing production stems from recovery, aging, or just random fluctuation. In any case, if d’Arnaud is a league average bat or his framing numbers rebound at all, this contract will be a bargain for Atlanta.

The Braves are off to a strong start this winter. They’ve solved their catching problem early on with Flowers and d’Arnaud and revamped their bullpen with the signings of Chris Martin and Will Smith.

They shouldn’t stop there. The team has yet to replace Josh Donaldson or his production at third base, they still need a starting outfielder and to push Nick Markakis to a part-time role. The Braves also need to augment their rotation. While Mike Soroka, Mike Foltynewicz, and Max Fried are decent options and Sean Newcomb, Bryse Wilson, Kyle Wright, and Touki Touissant provide depth, the club needs to replace the quality innings thrown by Dallas Keuchel and Julio Teherán. The Braves have decisively patched up the small holes on their squad: Now they must address the bigger issues.

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There are many pieces detailing how the Astros appear to have cheated by using video to steal signs in real-time. Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich wrote a lengthy piece for The Athletic with quotes from former Astros’ pitcher Mike Fiers detailing the team’s practices in 2017. The basics are in that piece, but there are a several more that discuss what the team was reportedly doing and how they did it. We don’t yet know all the facts; it is still unclear precisely how long the team engaged in this practice, and who all of the responsible parties are. But what the evidence makes pretty clear is that the Astros stole signs with the aid of advanced technology and relayed those signs to hitters during games. That’s cheating.

What the Astros and their employees might receive in terms of punishment for engaging in that practice is less clear, though multiple precedents have been set to guide the league’s possible enforcement. Perhaps you’re of the mind that the consequences Astros deserve to suffer is to have won fewer games, including their 2017 World Series. But such an extreme result is unlikely. Astros wins and championship banners probably won’t be taken away or vacated like a farcical college athletics penalty. Even when players are caught cheating in the middle of games, the results aren’t vacated. So what might we expect? In looking to past scandals, we can get a glimpse at MLB and Rob Manfred’s approach. There are multiple factors that play into potential punishment, both for individuals and the franchise, but here are a few of the major ones:

• Is this the first time a team has been penalized for breaking the rules?
• Was the organization cooperative with MLB’s investigation?
• How high up the organizational chain does the knowledge and activity go?

For the first factor, let’s consider the Boston Red Sox’s penalty for breaking the rules surrounding signing international free agents. After the club exceeded the allowable pool amount to sign Yoán Moncada, it were restricted from signing any amateur international free agents for more than $300,000. To get around those restrictions, the Red Sox signed less well-regarded players for $300,000 with the expectation that money from some of those lesser players would go to the better players who should have received higher bonuses and were represented by the same agents. When the Red Sox penalty for circumventing the rules came down in 2016, they were prohibited from signing any international free agents for a year, and the players involved were declared free agents, with Boston unable to recoup their signing bonuses, which remained with the players. It was the first time a team had been penalized in this fashion. Read the rest of this entry »

The current landscape of the game might charitably be called an era of superteams. Last year, the Yankees, Astros, Twins, and Dodgers all won more than 100 games. In 2018, it was the Red Sox, Astros, and Yankees; the year before that, the Dodgers, Indians, and Astros all won at least 100 times. The Cubs won 103 on their way to a World Series title, bringing the total number of 100-win teams over the past four seasons to 11. In the 10 years heading into 2016, only four teams hit the 100-win mark, and only the 2009 Yankees and 2011 Phillies won more than 100 games. Superteams are made possible by great players and smart organizations, but they are also made possible by having a bunch of bad teams to beat up on. The lack of competitive balance in today’s game is worse than it’s been in more than 60 years, back when there were only 16 teams and the reserve clause kept players from ever choosing their own employer.

One way to test baseball’s competitive balance is simply to take every team’s winning percentage in a single year and find the standard deviation. The smaller the standard deviation, the more teams are bunched toward the middle in a more competitive atmosphere. The bigger the standard deviation, the more teams are spread apart. Going back to 1903, this is what the standard deviation for team winning percentage looks like:

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