The 2019 baseball season is already officially underway, though what transpired at the Tokyo Dome last week between the A’s and Mariners barely registered to these bleary eyes beyond Ichiro Suzuki’s stirring farewell, what with the time difference. As the stateside version of Opening Day has approached, I’ve been asked, again and again while doing radio spots, variants of the question, “What are you most looking forward to about this season?” Some of my answers have already vanished into the ether, but I figured it would be worthwhile to take a break from squinting at depth charts and contract extensions long enough to jot down a set for posterity.

Bryce Harper and Manny Machado changing the conversation

As this pair of generational talents explored free agency in pursuit of record-setting paydays, we heard endless speculation about each player’s destination, endless excuses about why certain teams were not interested, and far more about the pair’s flaws than their virtues. The critiques came from all directions. Some of them were diatribes of the get-off-my-lawn variety, or declarations about how they wouldn’t fit with this team or that because reasons. Some of them were the usual, often misinformed, talk radio-fueled blather about how higher salaries will drive up ticket prices (nope), how these two can’t possibly be worth $300 million, and how their occasional failures to hustle portend the downfall of America. That said, some of the critiques were legitimate, pointing out Harper’s difficulties with the shift, his struggles to stay healthy, and his curiously bad defensive metrics, or Machado’s suspect work in his return to shortstop and his longstanding penchant for finding mischief on the field in the form of questionable plays.

Enough already. As Reggie Jackson once said, “When you have the bat in your hand, you can always change the story.” At long last, Harper and Machado can take the field for their new teams, and let their bats, and the rest of their play, do the talking.

Mike Trout climbing the JAWS rankings

Like any baseball fan with a pulse, I always want to see what Trout does, as he’s a perennial MVP candidate who’s capable of towering homers, dazzling speed on the bases, and spectacular catches in the outfield. And while I don’t intend to bury my nose in a spreadsheet every time he comes to bat, with an eye towards history, I’m especially enjoying Trout’s progress when it comes to my JAWS metric.

Trout began last season ranked 10th among center fielders, with his career WAR, seven-year peak WAR, and JAWS all at 55.2 (using Baseball-Reference’s numbers). Despite some minor adjustments to his body of work that erased about one win across the board, by May 22 of his seventh full major league season, he surpassed the JAWS standard at the position, the average of each Hall of Fame center fielder’s career and peak bWARs. By season’s end, Trout leapfrogged Kenny Lofton, Carlos Beltran, and Duke Snider to climb to seventh in JAWS (64.0) and fourth in peak (63.8). He should be able to climb two spots in JAWS this year. Joe DiMaggio (78.1/51.0/64.5) is just half a point ahead of Trout; around the time he gets to 1.0 WAR, he’ll move into sixth. With an 8.2 bWAR season — which would be his sixth-best — he would tie fifth-ranked Ken Griffey in JAWS (68.9) and overtake Mickey Mantle (64.8) for third in peak, behind only Willie Mays (73.7) and Ty Cobb (69.2). All this can be done before Trout completes his ninth major league season, one short of officially qualifying for the Hall of Fame.

Meanwhile, I can’t believe it’s taken me nearly a decade to figure this out, but Trout will be fully qualified for the Hall, reaching 10 seasons in the majors, in 2020, which will mark my 10th year as a BBWAA member and thus my eligibility to vote in that winter’s Hall of Fame election (the 2021 ballot).

A potential four-team race in the NL East

With four teams forecast for at least 84 wins, this division is the deepest as far as contenders go, and it offers so many story lines as well as the potential for plenty of #TeamEntropy fun. The Phillies added Harper, Andrew McCutchen, J.T. Realmuto, David Robertson, and Jean Segura to a team that spent five months of the 2018 season contending and one month stinking on ice. The Nationals lost Harper but added Patrick Corbin, Brian Dozier, Yan Gomes, Trevor Rosenthal, and Anibal Sanchez, plus they can look forward to full seasons of Juan Soto and Victor Robles, and hopefully better health for Stephen Strasburg and Sean Doolittle as well. The Mets brought in a new, unorthodox general manager in former agent Brodie Van Wagenin and added Robinson Cano, Edwin Diaz, Jed Lowrie, and Wilson Ramos, plus they finally nailed down that much-needed Jacob deGrom extension. The Braves, who broke a streak of four straight losing seasons to win the division last year, had a relatively quiet and perhaps counterproductive winter, with Josh Donaldson practically their only addition of note besides prodigal son Brian McCann, but they’ll get a full season of Ronald Acuna Jr. I can’t wait to see how this all plays out.

The Opening Day arrivals of Peter Alonso, Eloy Jimenez, and Fernando Tatis Jr.

In an industry where service time manipulation has become all too common, it’s refreshing to see the Mets, White Sox, and Padres break camp with their highly touted rookies —respectively 48th, eighth, and third on our most recent Top 100 Prospects list — instead of fumfering about defense, early-season playing time, checklists, conditioning, and long-term plans. Granted, both Alonso and Jimenez should have debuted last season, but we can chalk up at least some of the responsibility for the former’s non-promotion to the mess of the Mets front office during Sandy Alderson’s health-related leave of absence. And yes, it took the latter agreeing to an extension that may limit his earning power in the long run to make this happen. But at a time when too few teams are doing their best to win in 2019, it’s good to see these players’ respective teams declaring that these kids are among their best 25 players, and their time is now — even if, as is the case for the White Sox and Padres, this may not be a year in which they contend for a playoff spot.

Yes, the kids might take their lumps at the big league level initially, as just about every rookie does. There are legitimate questions about defense for both Alonso and Jimenez, and about the strikeout rate of Tatis, who’s making the jump after a total of 102 games at Double-A and none at Triple-A; his 2018 campaign ended in late July, when he fractured his left thumb and needed season-ending surgery. At some point, however, the learning at the big league level has to begin. These youngsters have very little to gain by riding more buses and beating more bushes, and likewise for their teams when it comes to answering the questions about “When is ____ coming?”

The eventual arrival of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Like Alonso and Jimenez, the number one prospect on our list should have debuted last year, given that he hit a combined .381/.437/.636 with 20 homers in 408 PA at four minor league stops last year (mostly at Double-A and Triple-A). The Blue Jays lead the league in shoveling horse manure concerning why he hasn’t arrived, and they’ve very clearly done their best to game his service clock, though last year’s left knee injury and this spring’s oblique strain have given them some cover. The situation stinks, and it will continue to stink even after Guerrero arrives, presumably sometime in April, because he’s being taken advantage of — within the rules, perhaps, but that’s not to excuse the practice — and he’ll feel the financial hit down the road.

But oh, will the 20-year-old son of a Hall of Famer be a treat to watch given his 80-grade raw power, his 70-grade hit tool, and a youthful exuberance that radiates through the highlight clips. This kid is going to be a whole lot of fun.

The return of Corey Seager

Seager sometimes gets overlooked in cataloging the game’s brightest young stars, but thanks to his prowess on both sides of the ball — his power, his penchant for getting on base, his glovework — he led all shortstops in WAR in both 2016 (7.0) and ’17 (5.9), his age-22 and -23 seasons. After being bothered by a right elbow problem in late 2017, he played just 26 games last year before a torn UCL necessitated Tommy John surgery, and in August, he needed surgery to repair a torn left hip labrum. The Dodgers managed to make it back to the World Series without him, a testament to their depth, and major league shortstops turned in their best offensive showing on record (97 wRC+), a testament to the wealth of talent at the position. Yet everybody will be better off with the soon-to-be-25-year-old back where he belongs.

The last stand of CC Sabathia

After mulling retirement for most of last year, the big man decided to give it one more go, though he’s starting the year on the disabled list as he recovers from an offseason heart procedure and yet another knee surgery. At 38 years old, the former Cy Young winner is no longer the dominant power pitcher that he once was, but between swapping out his four-seam fastball for a cutter, and his use of a brace to support a right knee hobbled by bone-on-bone arthritis, he’s undergone a fascinating reinvention. What he’s lost in velocity, he’s gained in wiliness, and in fact, he’s become an expert at generating soft contact; his average exit velo of 84.4 mph placed him in the 98th percentile last year, and he’s been in the 96th percentile or better in his past three seasons.

What’s more, Sabathia’s confrontation with his alcoholism has further humanized his transformation while underscoring his status as a pillar of the Yankees’ clubhouse, a mentor to so many young players, and an all-around mensch. I’ve had a soft spot for the pitcher and the man since forever, particularly while watching him carry the 2008 Brewers and 2009 Yankees on his back, and I look forward to watching him celebrate both his 250th win (he’s at 246) and 3,000th strikeout (he’s at 2,986). It’s a statistical quirk that only two other southpaws (Steve Carlton and Randy Johnson) have gotten to that milestone, but it’s fine company nonetheless, and it certainly won’t hurt in his quest to reach Cooperstown.

Michael Lorenzen’s two-way experiment

Tommy John surgery has robbed us of Shohei Ohtani’s presence on the mound in 2019, but the majors won’t be entirely devoid of two-way players thanks chiefly to Lorenzen, the only member of the quartet I highlighted last month (Kaleb Cowart, Matt Davidson, and Jared Walsh were the others) to make an Opening Day roster. A solid righty reliever for the Reds, Lorenzen has more than a little pop in his bat; last year, he clubbed four homers in 34 PA while batting .290/.333/.710, and he’s belted six homers and maintained a 101 wRC+ through 92 PA during his four-year career. The Reds have given him reps in center field (his natural position at Cal State Fullerton) this spring, and intend to do so during the regular season, setting up a compelling experiment.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, in part because it may require tweaking one of the rule changes that MLB announced for the 2020 season, namely an official designation for two-way players based upon pitching at least 20 innings and starting at least 20 games as a position player or designated hitter, with at least three plate appearances in each of those games. Barring injury, Lorenzen should easily meet the former requirement, but the latter is probably a stretch even with Nick Senzel starting the year on the injured list. What’s more, the new rule would also affect Ohtani, who won’t pitch at all this year. More flexibility is needed with the definition in order to prevent the stifling of innovation. Speaking of rules…

The Atlantic League’s experiments

Thanks to an unprecedented working agreement between MLB and the independent Atlantic League, the latter has introduced some rule changes for 2019 that may carry ramifications for future changes in MLB. The most radical, a midseason change of the pitching distance from 60-foot-6 to 62-foot-6, seems destined for disaster or near-immediate reconsideration, and I can’t blame Atlantic League pitchers for resenting the possibility of becoming guinea pigs. The rule changes also include the use of TrackMan radar to assist the home plate umpire in calling balls and strikes — yes, we’re getting Robot Umps Now, and we’ll see how the limitations of the technology play out — larger bases, the three-batter minimum for pitchers (something MLB plans for 2020), a prohibition of infield shifts (blech) and mound visits except for the case of injury (hmmm), reduced time between innings (to 1:45, 15 seconds shorter than MLB’s changes for this year).

The stated goal is to “create more balls in play, defensive action, baserunning, and improve player safety,” which seems worthwhile. Aside from the mound distance change, I’m eager to see how it all plays out, not because I believe all of these changes should be enacted but because the rule book is not sacrosanct. It’s beneficial for baseball to have a means of experimenting its way out of this current action-suppressed cul de sac rather than remaining static.

A new fan in the family

With a FanGraphs senior writer and an Athletic managing editor for parents, our daughter Robin has received plenty of exposure to baseball in her first 2 1/2 years, and she’s largely enjoyed it, particularly when she got to watch a Cape Cod League game from behind the backstop last summer and coined the phrase “baseball run away!” for a home run. That was a heartwarming moment, but nothing melted us more than when she pulled up on the couch one evening last week and asked, “Can we watch some baseball?” Hell yeah, we obliged.

Robin has already visited Yankee Stadium (2017) and MCU Park (home of the Brooklyn Cyclones) last summer. This year, with an afternoon nap no longer an obstacle, we’re planning to take her to Citi Field (a better ballpark experience than Yankee Stadium, regardless of age) and to Richmond County Bank Ballpark (home of the Staten Island Yankees) to complete her collection of New York City ballparks, as well as more Cape Cod League games. She doesn’t understand the rules yet, but she loves watching players run around and balls soar. While the odds are that someday she’ll rebel against whatever mom and dad hold dear, we’re determined to savor this time.

The outbreak of extension fever might now be classified as a pandemic. Tuesday brought news not only of Jacob deGrom’s four-year, $120.5 million deal for 2020-23 (bringing his total take over the next five seasons to $137.5 million) but also of that of Kyle Hendricks. The 29-year-old righty has agreed to a four-year, $55.5 million extension with the Cubs for that same four-year period, buying out his final year of arbitration eligibility and what would have been his first three years of free agency at a rather club-friendly price.

Hendricks has been a reliable mid-rotation presence since joining the Cubs in July 2014; the former eighth-round pick out of Dartmouth had been acquired from the Rangers at the July 31 deadline just two years earlier in exchange for Ryan Dempster. He provided his share of magic in Chicago’s epic 2016 season, leading the NL in ERA (2.13), ranking fourth in FIP (3.20), and seventh in WAR (4.1), then placing third in the NL Cy Young voting behind Max Scherzer and teammate Jon Lester. That October, Hendricks posted a 1.42 ERA in five postseason starts, though only twice was he allowed to go even five full innings; his best outing was a 7.1-inning shutout of the Dodgers in the NLCS clincher. In 2018 he threw a career-high 199 innings and delivered a 3.44 ERA, 3.78 FIP, and 3.5 WAR, numbers that respectively ranked 13th, 12th, and 11th in the league. For the 2015-18 period, his 3.14 ERA ranked 14th in the majors, his 13.3 WAR 19th, his 3.54 FIP 28th.

Hendricks has done this not by overpowering hitters but by limiting hard contact, generating a steady stream of groundballs, and rarely walking hitters. Via Pitch Info, his average fastball velocity — whether we’re talking about his four-seamer, which in 2018 averaged 87.7 mph and was thrown 17.5% of the time, or his sinker, which averaged 87.1 mph and was thrown 44.3% of the time — was the majors’ lowest among qualified starters, about two clicks slower than runner-up Mike Leake for either offering. He accompanies those pitches with an excellent changeup, which in 2018 generated a 19.8% swinging strike rate and just a 36 wRC+ (.180/.201/.288) on plate appearances ending with the pitch. According to Statcast, the 85.2 mph average exit velocity he yielded ranked in the 92nd percentile, and his hard hit rate of 30.6% in the 83rd percentile.

Hendricks is already signed for 2019 at a salary of $7.405 million. Under the terms of the new deal, he’s guaranteed $12 million in 2020, and then $14 million annually from 2021-23. If he finishes second or third in the Cy Young balloting, his base salaries for each season thereafter increase by $1 million; if he wins the award, they increase by $2 million. He has a $16 million vesting option for 2024 based upon a top-three finish in the Cy Young voting in 2020 and being deemed healthy for the 2021 season; if it doesn’t vest, it becomes a club option. Per the Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, the deal can max out at $78.9 million.

(I’m not quite sure how he arrived at that figure, both with respect to the decimal and the slim possibility of multiple Cy Young results that as I understand it, would push his value even higher. Imagine him winning the 2020 Cy Young award — go on, I’ll wait — thereby making each of the next three years worth $16 million and vesting the $16 million option for 2024; that’s $12 million plus four times $16 million, or $76 million all told. If he wins again in 2021, he’s banked $28 million, and then his salary should escalate again, to $18 million for at least the next two seasons, which pushes his total to $80 million even if the vesting option remains unchanged.)

Escalators aside, Hendricks’ four-year, $55.5 million guarantee looks rather light when compared to the four-year, $68 million free agent deal that Nathan Eovaldi, who’s also 29, inked with the Red Sox in December and the four-year, $68 million extension Miles Mikolas, who’s 30, signed earlier this month; the latter covers 2020-23 as well and buys out just one year of free agency. Mikolas was the most valuable of the three in 2018, producing 4.3 WAR in 200.2 innings, but in 91.1 previous major league innings before going to Japan, he was below replacement level (-0.2 WAR). Eovaldi produced 2.2 WAR in 111 innings last year for the Rays and Red Sox, but over the 2015-18 period produced just 6.1 WAR because he missed all of 2017 and time on either side of that due to his second Tommy John surgery. Expand the window back to 2014, when Eovaldi set a career high with 3.3 WAR and Hendricks had 1.6 in a 13-start rookie showing, and the gap closes, but it still favors Hendricks, 15.0 to 9.4.

What’s done is done; the question is what the three players will do going forward. Towards that end, Dan Szymborski provided ZiPS projections for the trio:

Even while excluding the upcoming seasons of Hendricks and Mikolas, which project to be the most valuable, to focus on the four-year deals, both project better than Eovaldi due in part to the latter’s injury history; ZiPS projects him for a maximum of 110.2 innings (2019) and a four-year total of 411, compared to 602.2 for Hendricks and 587 for Mikolas. Hendricks projects as the most valuable over the four covered years, yet he’s being paid the least, and the one year of arbitration eligibility doesn’t explain the difference , particularly given that Mikolas’ deal covers three years of arb-eligibility.

(As multiple readers have reminded me, Mikolas’ initial contract included language that made him a free agent following the 2019 season, not subject to the arbitration system.)

Even if I place all three on an equal footing by prorating their projections to a flat 180 innings per year — a level Hendriks has reached three times in the majors, Eovaldi and Mikolas just once (twice if you count his 2017 season in Japan) — the Cubs’ righty gets the performance edge, which only underscores the discrepancy in pay:

Even tossing that optimistic scenario aside, reminding ourselves again about Hendricks’ arb-eligible year, and foregoing any assumptions about inflation, we can understand that his contract comes out to about $5 million per win, at a time when we’re debating whether $8 million or $9 million per win is the right assumption. That’s a very club-friendly deal, to say the least.

Hendricks’ deal guarantees that at least one member of this year’s Cubs rotation (which ranks 10th in our depth charts) will be around in 2021, barring a trade. Cole Hamels will be a free agent after this season, and Yu Darvish, whose first year of a six-year, $126-million deal was an injury-shortened mess, can be if he chooses to opt out after the season, which seems like a long shot. Jose Quintana has a very affordable $10.5 million option for 2020, while Lester is signed through 2020 with a $25 million mutual option that can vest if he throws 200 innings in 2020 or 400 innings in 2019-20. Tyler Chatwood is signed through 2020 as well, but he was so bad last year that he doesn’t even project to be part of this year’s starting five, so who knows what happens down the road.

It’s not hard to understand why the Cubs want to keep Hendricks around, particularly given the glowing words team president Theo Epstein used in discussing the extension (“a wonderful representative of the whole Cubs organization… someone who is incredibly dependable, trustworthy, hardworking, thoughtful”). And it’s not hard to understand why Hendricks wants to stick around, given how strong the team has been during his tenure. Still, in light of the prices being paid elsewhere for players foregoing free agency, it’s not hard to think he could have done better, either.

Where Chris Sale’s extension provides a long-awaited windfall for a pitcher who has been significantly underpaid for years, Justin Verlander’s puts him back near the top of the pay scale. The 36-year-old Astros righty, who could have become a free agent after this season, has agreed to a two-year, $66 million extension that will take him through the 2021 season. The deal’s $33 million average annual value surpasses that of every pitcher but Zack Greinke, whose $34.417 million per year actually has an AAV of just $32.5 million for Competitive Balance Tax purposes.

Verlander is currently in the final guaranteed year of a seven-year, $180 million extension that was the largest ever for a pitcher at the time it was signed with the Tigers in March 2013. That deal surpassed the seven-year, $175 million pact of Felix Hernandez, and trailed only Roger Clemens’ one-year, $28,000,022 million contract for 2007 in terms of AAV. Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, David Price, and Greinke have since surpassed both the size of Verlander’s old deal and the AAV of Clemens.

What’s keeping Verlander near the top of the pay scale, of course, is performance. Thanks in part to an increase in slider usage and an accompanying decrease in the pitch’s velocity — producing a larger separation from a fastball that still averages 95.4 mph according to Pitch Info — he’s pitching about as well as he has at any point in his 14-year major league career. In 2018, his 214 innings, 290 strikeouts, 34.8% strikeout rate, 30.4% K-BB%, and 6.7 WAR all led the American League, while both his 2.52 ERA and 2.78 FIP ranked third. His strikeout total set a career high and marked the fifth time he’s led the league, while his strikeout and walk rates (4.4% for the latter), their differential, and his FIP were all career bests. His ERA was his lowest mark since 2011, when he won both his lone Cy Young award and the AL MVP, and his WAR was his highest mark since 2012. For the second time in three years, and the third time in his career, he finished as the runner-up in the Cy Young race.

Over that 2016-18 span, a period that represents a rebound from a two-year dip that suggested his time as an ace had passed, Verlander led the majors in starts (101) while ranking second in innings (647.1), third in strikeouts (763), fourth in WAR (16.3), and fifth in K-BB% (23.1%). His surge has pushed him past the 200-win mark and towards the 3,000 strikeout milestone (he’s at 2,706) while strongly advancing his Hall of Fame case (he could surpass 2019 honoree Roy Halladay in the JAWS rankings this year). His return to ace form helped the Astros win their first World Series in 2017 — Verlander pitched to a 2.21 ERA in five starts and one relief appearance that fall, winning ALCS MVP honors — and set a regular season wins record (103) in 2018 while advancing to the ALCS.

With the Astros geared to contend for another championship, it’s no wonder that they want to keep the pitcher, whose August 31, 2017 arrival from the Tigers helped put them over the top, around for even longer, and it’s no wonder he wants to stay. “I wasn’t scared of free agency or what’s going on. I just thought this was a good situation,” Verlander said on Sunday. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

The Astros aren’t broke or broken, but nonetheless, Verlander’s wording is striking, because in February, while the free agencies of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado appeared to be stalled, and so many other players were unsigned, he was openly critical of the current state of affairs, calling the system “broken.”

Verlander isn’t the only star who has expressed concern about the state of free agency this winter on Twitter. Jake Arrieta (here), Sean Doolittle (here), and Evan Longoria (here) come to mind as well, and many more have made their feelings known through reporters when it comes to the inefficiencies in the game’s economic structure. One can read Verlander’s decision to re-sign with the Astros as wariness of entering the free agent market, but as with Sale re-upping in Boston, it’s not hard to imagine either player looking at their current surroundings, seeing a perennial contender awash in resources, and deciding that they were in no hurry to depart, particularly while being well-compensated for staying.

For the players’ union, the decisions of Verlander, Sale, Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt, and Mike Trout to sign extensions with their current teams means fewer stars are available to raise the bar salary-wise in free agency since no other team is bidding directly on those players’ services. But this isn’t exactly new. According to Cot’s Contracts, 15 of the 30 largest contracts of all time (unadjusted for inflation) were signed as extensions, and the same is true for 15 of the top 29 (or 16 of the top 33, since four players are tied for 30th) in terms of AAV, with the aforementioned players near the top of at least one of the two lists. Adjusted for inflation (by Craig Edwards’ methodology), it’s 10 of the top 25 for the former.

For teams in search of that missing piece in free agency, the thinner inventory means a lower likelihood of wild spending, and could lead to changes in roster management strategies. Hypothetically speaking, if the Astros entertained thoughts of pursuing Sale — a dominant pitcher six years younger than Verlander — after this season, their desire to extend Verlander might be higher once the apple of their eye is off the market. In that light, will be interesting to see, for example, how the Yankees treat Aaron Judge (whom they’re said to want to extend) now that they know they won’t have a shot at Trout.

As it is, the free agent market after this season could still include Verlander’s teammate, Gerrit Cole; while he’s an extension candidate, recent talks between the Astros and his agent, Scott Boras, reportedly didn’t get far. Madison Bumgarner, Rick Porcello, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Zack Wheeler head the pitchers’ list, with Jake Arrieta, Yu Darvish, and Stephen Strasburg all holding opt-outs, and pitchers such as Chris Archer, Corey Kluber, and Jose Quintana having club options.

That actually looks like a deeper market than this winter, where Partrick Corbin, the still-unsigned Dallas Keuchel, Nathan Eovaldi, and Charlie Morton were the top starters on our Top 50 Free Agents List. But if, in theory, a lesser inventory isn’t just a cyclical development, well, it’s difficult to imagine too many fans bemoaning the decline of free agency as we know it, given the tendency of beloved homegrown players to depart for bigger-spending teams. Then again, one can only hear so many Twins fans complain about the salary of Joe Mauer or Reds fans about that of Joey Votto before wishing that those two stars had gotten their chances for even bigger paydays from the likes of the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, or Cubs. Of course, the real issue is the expectation and tendency of teams to pay free agents for what they’ve already accomplished, rather than what they will accomplish; the players’ need to cash in given their vast underpayment (relatively speaking) in their pre-free agency years. Getting back to Verlander’s point, that’s quite clearly a system in need of a fix.

As for Verlander, the $66 million isn’t unreasonable as far as paying for what he might yet accomplish. He’s projected to produce 5.2 WAR this year according to our depth charts projections, and if we simply presume a half-win annual drop-off from there, and apply the conservative assumptions about the market ($8 million per win for this winter, with 3% inflation) that I’ve used in examining other extensions, that’s already an estimate of $74.4 million worth of production via 8.9 WAR. The break-even point under those conditions is about 8.0 WAR, and less if the dollars per win rate is higher. This isn’t that complicated.

For the Astros, retaining Verlander means guaranteeing the presence of at least one front-of-rotation type beyond this season, important given Cole’s pending free agency. The current unit is rounded out by Collin McHugh, Wade Miley, and Brad Peacock, all solid but unimposing, with prospects Forrest Whitley (number four on our Top 100 Prospects list), Joshua James (number 98) and Framber Valdez waiting in the wings, and Lance McCullers Jr. out for the year due to Tommy John surgery. Even with Verlander in the fold, that’s a lot of uncertainty heading into 2020. Meanwhile, Keuchel, a mainstay of the Astros’ rotation from 2012-18, remains a free agent.

So the Astros will have more to sort out regarding their rotation even having taken care of business with Verlander. Nonetheless, they’ve locked up one of the best in the game at a price that he should be pleased with.

Chris Sale has long been one of the top pitchers in baseball — not only for pure performance but for bang for the buck, as he’s been working under one of the game’s most team-friendly contracts since 2013, which runs through this season. After an uneven season in which he reprised his 2017 dominance until shoulder inflammation limited his availability down the stretch, before capping a rocky October by closing out the World Series-clinching Game 5 against the Dodgers, the wiry southpaw has become the latest star to lock in big money early instead of testing the free agent market next winter or the one after that, following in the footsteps of Nolan Arenado, Mike Trout, and Paul Goldschmidt, all of whom have agreed to nine-figure extensions over the past four weeks. On Friday, Sale and the Red Sox agreed to a five-year, $145 million extension that will take him through 2024, his age-35 season. The deal reportedly includes some deferred money that lessens the impact on the Red Sox’s payroll for tax purposes, as well as an opt-out and a vesting option.

[Update: As some of the details regarding the structure of the contract were not reported until after this article’s original publication on Friday, I have revised this where necessary.]

Sale’s new deal succeeds the five-year, $32.5 million extension he signed in March 2013, his first year of arbitration eligibility. Via the two club options tacked onto that contract, he made $12.5 million in 2018 and will make $15 million in 2019, for a total of $59 million. That’s not exactly chump change, but it’s far below what the White Sox and Red Sox would have paid on the open market for the 34.7 WAR he’s delivered so far under that deal, the third-highest total among all pitchers. The two pitchers ahead of him, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer, signed seven-year contracts worth $215 million and $210 million in 2014 and 2015, respectively. A similar payday for Sale has been long overdue, something the Red Sox had to know when they acquired him from the White Sox in a December 2016 blockbuster that cost the team infielder Yoan Moncada (who topped our prospect list the following spring and ranked second on that of Baseball America), pitcher Michael Kopech (21st on our list), outfielder Luis Basabe (now sixth on the White Sox list), and pitcher Victor Diaz.

Taking that initial extension, which Sale signed on the heels of a 192-inning age-23 season, wasn’t “the wrong” decision, necessarily. It was a move that guaranteed security for a pitcher whose mechanics and injury risk had already become the subject of much debate throughout the industry, and those concerns didn’t abate even after he signed his deal. Nonetheless, he’s avoided any disaster scenarios, throwing the fifth-highest total of innings in that 2013-18 span (1,196) while never dipping below 4.9 WAR even in the seasons in which he fell short of 200 frames.

In 2017, Sale’s first season with the Red Sox, he became the first AL pitcher to notch 300 strikeouts in a season since the turn of the millennium (308, all told) while leading the majors in innings (214.1), FIP (2.45), and WAR (7.5), though he faded somewhat down the stretch and finished second in the AL Cy Young voting behind Corey Kluber, whose 2.25 ERA (and 8.2 bWAR) carried the day. It was the sixth consecutive season in which Sale had earned All-Star honors and received Cy Young consideration.

Through the first four months of last season, Sale appeared to be on track to finally win the award, starting the All-Star Game for the AL and carrying a 2.04 ERA and 2.08 FIP into late July before missing two starts with shoulder inflammation. Upon returning, Sale threw five innings of one-hit shutout ball against the hapless Orioles, striking out 12 — his 11th double-digit game of the year — on just 68 pitches. But he went back on the DL before he could start again, and the Red Sox, who were running away with the AL East at the time, chose to play it safe. Sale pitched just 12 innings in four September appearances, and finished with 158 innings, four short of qualifying for the ERA title; his 2.11 mark would have ranked second in the league and his 1.98 FIP first, and even with the limited work, his 6.2 WAR ranked second. The shortfall of innings cost him the Cy Young, as Blake Snell and his 21 wins and 1.89 ERA in 180.2 innings brought home the hardware.

The Red Sox’s cautious handling of Sale extended into the postseason, as he totaled just 13.1 innings in three starts, with only his Division Series Game 1 turn against the Yankees lasting longer than four innings. He made two one-inning relief appearances, one in Game 4 of that series and the other in the ninth inning of Game 5, where he struck out the side to seal the Red Sox’s fourth championship in the past 15 seasons.

Repeatedly, Sale and the Red Sox have expressed confidence in the pitcher’s condition. In late August, Sale said that his shoulder felt “like Paul Bunyan’s ox” and in September he said he had no plans to fuss over his mechanics because his shoulder was structurally sound. “There was never any major issue with my shoulder,” he said. “This wasn’t something that happened on a single pitch or a mechanical issue or anything.” As of January, he felt “normal again. Being able to throw free and easy and feel loose … obviously is a nice feeling.”

Apparently the Red Sox are still confident enough in the condition of Sale’s shoulder to commit to him for five years beyond this one, at a salary near the top of the scale for pitchers. While initial reports regarding the contract contained no word of the various bells and whistles beyond some unspecified amount of deferred money, the structure has since been clarified by multiple sources. Sale will be paid $30 million per year for the first three seasons (2020-22), after which he can opt out; if he does not, he will receive $27.5 million per year for 2023-24. His annual salaries can increase by up to $2 million per year based upon his finishes in the Cy Young voting, and a $20 million option for 2025 will vest if he finishes in top 10 in the 2024 Cy Young vote and does not finish the season on the injured list. The deferrals lower the average annual value of the deal to $26.5 million for tax purposes. Based upon that figure, Sale’s AAV trails only those of Justin Verlander ($33 million, for a 2020-21 extension announced hours after Sale’s) Zack Greinke ($32.5 million after deferrals), Kershaw’s latest extension and teammate David Price (both $31 million), Kershaw’s previous extension, which he opted out of after the 2018 season ($30.71 million), Scherzer ($30 million), Jon Lester ($25.83 million), and Verlander again ($25.71 million via his current deal). That said, according to Craig Edwards’ recent inflation-adjusted look at the largest contracts in history, Sale’s deal would actually rank eighth behind the deals of Kevin Brown, Kershaw and CC Sabathia (both pre-opt out), Scherzer, Verlander, Mike Hampton, and Felix Hernandez.

As with Arenado and Goldschmidt, running Sale’s numbers through our contract estimation tool using even conservative parameters ($8.0 million per WAR and just 3% average annual inflation, as opposed to $9 million or more, and 5%) yields an eye-opening valuation:

Where Goldschmidt’s estimate using the same parameters came in 20% higher than his actual deal, the estimate for Sale is around 40% higher. But unlike in the case of Goldschmidt, where applying estimates of $9 million per win and 5% inflation to a ZiPS projection — which is generally more conservative than this model — provided by Dan Szymborski produced a figure that more closely resembled his actual contract, sticking with $8 million per win and 3% inflation for Sale in this model overshoots the mark by even more:

Even while projecting relatively low innings totals, ZiPS sees Sale as half a win more valuable over that timespan than our contract estimation tool does. Indeed, Szymborski says that only Luis Severino and German Marquez (!) project to produce more WAR over the remainder of their careers. Dan’s computer is so sweet on the southpaw that it’s probably sending heart-shaped boxes of chocolate to his locker as I type. Remember, for both of Sale’s estimates I’ve lopped off his 2019 performance, in which he projects to deliver something around $47-$49 million of value while being paid just $15 million.

Based upon that $145 million figure, either the Red Sox are significantly underpaying Sale or expecting a lot less, performance-wise, than the projection systems (for what it’s worth, Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system projects Sale for 22.1 WARP over the 2020-24 period). Which doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable, as they’re the ones with access to his medical file, and the risk of a career-altering injury for a pitcher is ever-present. Working backwards with the ZiPS projection and our conservative $8 million and 3% parameters, a five-year forecast of 17.0 WAR produces a valuation of $147.7 million. At $9 million per win and 5% inflation, 14.0 WAR produces a valuation of $144.2 million.

Regardless of the projections, the contract adds one more hefty salary to the Red Sox payroll, which for tax purposes already has $105.5 million worth of commitments for 2020 and $106.0 million for 2021, primarily via the deals of Price (an AAV of $31 million), J.D. Martinez ($22 million), Nathan Eovaldi ($17 million), Dustin Pedroia ($13.75 million), and Christian Vazquez ($4.517 million). That’s before any extension or arbitration raise for Mookie Betts (who has just one more year of club control), and without counting the pending free agencies of Rick Porcello or Xander Bogaerts, though it’s worth noting that Martinez can opt out after this season. If the Red Sox, who already project to be about $31.6 million over this year’s Competitive Balance Tax threshold — so far over that they incur a surtax — are going to avoid progressively larger tax bills, they’ll have to make some tough choices in the near future, and find some lower-cost players to fill out their roster. Keeping Sale, alongside Price and Eovaldi, almost certainly means letting Porcello walk, and Bogaerts, too, because as a Scott Boras client, the likelihood of his agreeing to a team-friendly extension appears to be slim.

As for Sale, he doesn’t have to remain in perennial Cy Young contention to make this deal worthwhile, but the fact that he’s been able to do so is what’s made him so attractive a player in the first place. He’s earned his big payday, and while he might have received an even bigger one by going on the market, the inherent risks of pitching make this a sensible move for him as well.

Extension fever is gripping major league baseball. In the wake of deals that short-circuited the highly anticipated free agencies of veterans Nolan Arenado and Mike Trout, and delayed the onset of those of Alex Bregman, Aaron Hicks, Eloy Jimenez, Miles Mikolas, Luis Severino, Blake Snell, and others, the latest player to take himself off the market is Paul Goldschmidt. The 31-year-old Cardinals first baseman has reportedly agreed to a five-year, $130 million extension for the 2020-24 seasons, a generous-looking deal in light of the past two winters’ frosty free agent proceedings.

Three and a half months after he was traded by the Diamondbacks in exchange for Carson Kelly, Luke Weaver, Andy Young, and a Competitive Balance B pick, it still feels weird to type “Cardinals first baseman” in connection to Goldschmidt, who over the course of his eight-year major league career had become the face of the Diamondbacks’ franchise. An eighth-round pick out of Texas State University who barely grazed prospect lists — Baseball Prospectus ranked him 10th in 2011 (a “Two-Star Prospect”), while Baseball America ranked him 11th, good enough to make their annual Prospect Handbook but not even the team top 10 published over the winter — he nonetheless made six All-Star teams, won three Gold Gloves, finished in the top three of the MVP voting three times, and helped the team to two playoff berths during his run in Arizona. However, the Diamondbacks couldn’t get past the Division Series either in 2011 or ’17 despite Goldschmidt homering four times and slugging .688 in eight postseason games.

Even given Arizona’s lack of postseason success, that’s the type of player most teams would try to lock up long-term. The Diamondbacks did ink Goldschmidt to a five-year, $32 million extension circa March 2013, and in February 2017, team CEO Derrick Hall spoke of hoping that “he’s here for the long haul,” but by January 2018, it appeared that they were gearing up for life without their star slugger. Read the rest of this entry »

After taking a look at center fielders and designated hitters yesterday, our positional power rankings continue with shortstop.

We’re in a golden era for shortstops. The late-1990s/early 2000s heyday of Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Nomar Garciaparra, and Miguel Tejada was not only pretty cool — at least before injuries and position changes broke up the band, and PED revelations retroactively dimmed our appreciation — but it ushered in an era of bigger, more powerful players at the position, and that trend has raised the bar for offensive production. Last year, shortstops hit a collective .259/.317/.416 for a 97 wRC+, five points higher than it had been in any other season since 2002 (as far back as our splits go), and trust me, it was worse than that previously, despite occasional concentrations of thumpers. In 2018, shortstops even outhit second basemen (93 wRC+) by a handy margin, something unseen within the narrow timeframe of our splits and constituting roughly a 10-point swing relative to the 2002-2017 period, in which second basemen outhit shortstops by a 95-89 margin according to wRC+.

It’s true that last year’s surge was helped by the inclusion of Manny Machado — who led all shortstops with a 141 wRC+, but has returned to third base as a Padre — and Javier Baez. But the top two hitters for the position from 2017, Zack Cozart (!) and Corey Seager, missed most of the season, with the former playing more third base than second base as well, and even Carlos Correa wasn’t really himself.

No, this is about the likes of Baez, Francisco Lindor, Xander Bogaerts, Trevor Story, Didi Gregroius, and even Jose Peraza — all of them 28 or younger, all but Gregorius 25 or younger — breaking out while offsetting the declines of Elvis Andrus and Brandon Crawford, the position’s geezers. More than ever, shortstop is a young man’s position. In 2018, nobody older than 31 (Crawford, Alcides Escobar, Jordy Mercer) made even 150 plate appearances as a shortstop. That trio all played at least 100 games at short, the lowest total of over-30 shortstops to do so since the majors expanded to 30 teams in 1998. As recently as 2016, there were six such players, and in 2014, 10; for the 1998-2017 period, the average was 7.4. Read the rest of this entry »

Even if you didn’t wake up at an ungodly early hour to watch Thursday’s Mariners-A’s game at the Tokyo Dome, by now you may have seen the stirring footage of Ichiro Suzuki exiting the game in the eighth inning en route to his official retirement. If not, beware the coming dust storm:

That the 45-year-old Suzuki — who was nudged off the Mariners’ roster and into an unofficial retirement and special assistant role last May 3, at a point when he was hitting .205/.255/.205 through 47 plate appearances — went 0-for-5 with a walk and a strikeout in his two-game cameo matters not a whit as far as his legacy is concerned. His awe-inspiring total of 4,367 career hits (1,278 in Nippon Professional Baseball, 3,089 in Major League Baseball) still stands as the signature accomplishment for a player who has spent more than a quarter-century serving as a wonderful ambassador for the sport on two continents. His stateside resumé, which includes not only his membership in the 3,000 Hit Club (despite not debuting in the majors until he was about half past his 27th birthday) but also his 10 All-Star appearances, 10 Gold Gloves, AL MVP and Rookie of the Year awards, and so on, is ample enough to guarantee him first-ballot election to the Hall of Fame. In the wake of Mariano Rivera’s groundbreaking unanimous election to the Hall in January, it’s even possible that Ichiro could replicate the feat.

The question is when. Hall of Fame election rules require a player to be retired for five seasons before appearing on the BBWAA ballot, which means that had he been content to hang up his spikes last May, he would have been eligible for the 2024 ballot (the date refers to the year of induction, not the year of the ballot’s release, which is typically in late November or early December of the previous year). Barring what would be an unprecedented ruling by the Hall, his two-game cameo resets his eligibility clock, pushing him to the 2025 ballot, a small price to pay for his being able to check off the bucket-list item of retiring on his own terms, in his native country. Not only will he become the first Japanese player to be elected to the Hall, but according to the Baseball-Reference Play Index, he will be the owner of the shortest final season of any elected position player. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, Meg Rowley introduced this year’s positional power rankings. As a quick refresher, all 30 teams are ranked based on the projected WAR from our Depth Charts. Our staff then endeavors to provide you with some illuminating commentary to put those rankings in context. We begin this year’s series with first base.

A year ago, first base looked to be a deep position, with a familiar set of stars occupying the top tier of the rankings, impressive debutantes such as Cody Bellinger and Matt Olson entering their first full major league seasons, and some long-toiling veterans such as Yonder Alonso, Justin Smoak, and Eric Hosmer appearing to have finally figured out how to mash at the level expected for the position. As a group, first basemen had combined for a 117 wRC+ in 2017 (their highest mark since 2011) and 70.2 WAR (their highest mark since 2009).

Things didn’t go as planned for the position’s denizens in 2018. Paul Goldschmidt, Anthony Rizzo, and Joey Votto all got off to slow starts. Bellinger and Olson weren’t quite as impressive as they had been as rookies, with the former spending a lot of time in the outfield to boot. Hosmer, the recipient of the offseason’s biggest free agent contract, was a replacement level dud, and Alonso and Smoak both regressed. Joe Mauer faded after his best season since moving from catcher, Miguel Cabrera got hurt before he could rebound from a subpar 2017, and Chris Davis, who had been mediocre in 2017, turned in a season for the ages — but in the wrong way. And so on and so on. All told, first basemen’s production sank to a collective 108 wRC+ and 46.9 WAR in 2018, their lowest marks by either measure in our splits, which only go back to 2002 for such things. Collectively, their slugging percentage dropped from .487 to .438, and their on-base percentage from .347 to .333. Read the rest of this entry »

Who’s on first? This spring, it’s a question that both New York teams are figuring out through compelling job battles. While the Yankees attempt to decide between homegrown Greg Bird and mid-2018 trade acquisition Luke Voit — the latter of whom was the AL’s hottest hitter from August 1 onward, with a 194 wRC+ — the Mets are sorting out whether Dominic Smith or Peter Alonso will be their starter. I wrote enough about the Yankees’ pair late last season, when Voit seized the job from the struggling, oft-injured Bird, so today, it’s worth considering the Mets’ dilemma.

Of the two combatants, the 24-year-old Alonso, who currently lists at 6-foot-3, 245 pounds, is fresher in mind because he bopped 36 homers for the Mets’ Double-A Binghamton and Triple-A Las Vegas affiliates last year but didn’t receive a September call-up, a move that looked far more like a garden-variety attempt to manipulate his service time than it did a sound baseball decision. Taking a page from the playbook used by the Cubs for Kris Bryant and by the Blue Jays for Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the Mets even cited Alonso’s defense as one reason they were holding off. “His bat is his calling card and his defense is something he’s going to have to work at,” said director of player development Ian Levin last August, shortly after Alonso was named the Las Vegas 51s’ defensive player of the month for July.

To be fair, scouts did and do have concerns about Alonso’s defense, as well as his conditioning. Our own Eric Longenhagen noted concerns about his glove last April while ranking him seventh overall among the Mets’ prospects and grading his defense for both present and future at 40 on the 20-80 scouting scale; for what it’s worth, while Baseball America and MLB Pipeline don’t distinguish between present and future in their grades, both concur with the 40. BA’s Prospect Handbook 2019 calling him “an American League player in a National League organization.” But after the 2016 second-round pick out of the University of Florida slashed .285/.395/.579 between the two upper levels last year, his overall Future Value grade improved from 45 to 50 thanks to massive jumps in both his raw power (from 60/60 to a maximum 80/80) and game power (from 40/55 to 55/70) and modest advancement in his hit tool (from 40/50 to 45/50).

“Right/right college first basemen don’t typically work out (this century’s list of guys who have done nothing but play first since day one on campus and done well in MLB is Paul Goldschmidt, Rhys Hoskins, Eric Karros, and that’s it),” wrote Longenhagen for last year’s Mets list. Compare that to this year’s model from our Top 100 Prospects list, where Alonso landed at number 48: “This is what top-of-the-scale, strength-driven raw power looks like, and it drives an excellent version of a profile we’re typically quite bearish on: the heavy-bodied, right/right first baseman.” Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel referenced some of Alonso’s greatest hits including a single Arizona Fall League game where his exit velocities reached 116.3 mph on a double and 113.6 on a homer, as well as this Futures Game homer which, holy smokes:

Spring stats don’t count for doodly squat, but with four doubles and three homers so far in Grapefruit League play, as well as a .406/.457/.813 line, Alonso is turning heads. After he hit one over the Green Monster-like wall at the Red Sox’s Jet Blue Park last week, Boston manager Alex Cora called him “Probably the best hitter in Florida right now.” Catching peoples’ attention in a much different way was Monday’s unintentional leveling of the Astros’ Josh Reddick at first base:

Then there’s the lefty-swinging Smith, who was chosen as the 11th overall pick out of a Gardena, California high school in 2013, cracked BA’s Top 100 list three times (in 2014, ’16 and ’17, peaking at number 71 in the last of those years) and is currently listed at 6 feet and 239 pounds, 54 pounds more than when he placed 73rd on our Top 100 Prospects list two years ago. He actually tipped the scales at as high as 260 pounds before cutting out wet burritos, a factoid no consumer of 21st century New York baseball coverage will ever forget. Though he’s receded into the background somewhat as Alonso’s star has risen, he’s actually six months younger (he doesn’t turn 24 until June 15), and has 332 plate appearances of major league experience under his belt from 2017-18, though his .210/.259/.406 line (79 wRC+) is abysmal outside of the 14 home runs.

Smith does not have Alonso’s natural power. It took him four years of pro ball to reach a double-digit home run total in a single season (16 at Binghamton in 2016), though he did hit 25 between Las Vegas and the majors in 2017. For that year’s lists, Longenhagen graded his raw power at 55/55, and his game power at 40/55, with his hit tool and glove both at 50/60. That profile has led to comparisons to James Loney — the young version that former Mets manager Terry Collins oversaw from 2002-06 as the Dodgers’ minor league field coordinator and then director of player development, not the end-stage version that Collins managed in 2016. “I thought he’d at minimum replicate James Loney’s best years,” said Longenhagen when I asked about the post-prospect version of Smith. “Never huge home run power but 40 doubles, tons of contact, plus glove at first base.”

Nothing has really come together for Smith at the major league level, perhaps in part because the Mets have convinced him to try to pull the ball and hit for more power. Promoted from Triple-A on August 11, 2017, he played first base regularly over the final two months of the season following Lucas Duda’s trade to Tampa Bay but hit just .198/.262/.395 with nine homers in 183 PA, striking out 26.8% of the time. Last year, after showing up late for his first Grapefruit League game and getting scratched from the lineup, he suffered a right quad strain in his spring debut, an injury that sidelined him until mid-April. He slipped behind what was left of Adrian Gonzalez on the depth chart, then bounced between Las Vegas and New York all season, serving four stints with the big club.

Between the shuttling, an experiment in left field — the results of which were brutally Duda-esque (-3.1 UZR and -5 DRS in 90 innings) — and semi-regular play in September while Alonso went home, Smith didn’t hit, either in the majors (.224/.255/.420) or at hitter-friendly Vegas (.258/.328/.380). In the bigs, he walked in just 2.7% of his plate appearances while striking out in 31.5%. When he did make contact, his average launch angle rose from 9.7 degrees to 17.2, with his groundball rate dropping from 50.4% to 34.4%, but the approach didn’t pay off. What’s more, within the small sample of playing time across both seasons, his defensive metrics at first base have been unfavorable (-2.4 UZR, -8 DRS in 74 games).

Like Alonso, Smith has hit well this spring (.433/.500/.600, for what it’s worth). As bad as he was last year in the outfield, he’s expressed a willingness to continue the experiment. But with Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo slated for the outfield corners (manager Mickey Callaway recently said that Conforto would exclusively play right, but we’ll see), and infielder Jeff McNeil somehow squeezed into the picture, it’s difficult to see where outfield playing time for Smith would come from even if Conforto or Nimmo does log time in center instead of Juan Lagares. The pair combined for 81 starts there last year, with dreadful defensive metrics (-6.8 UZR, -10 DRS). Mets pitchers have to shudder at the thought of such an alignment that includes Smith.

Lately, McNeil — who made 52 of his 53 big league starts last at second base — has been seeing playing time at third base because both Jed Lowrie and Todd Frazier have been slowed by injuries (a capsule sprain in the left knee for the former, an oblique strain for the latter). Even that situation has spillover into the first base picture, as Lowrie’s arrival in free agency displaced Frazier, who, after struggling (.213/.303/.390, 90 wRC+) in his first season with the Mets, was slated to get more playing time at first base, where he’s started 82 major league games (but just eight since 2014). With a crowd that includes newly acquired second baseman Robinson Cano, the Mets were supposed to have enough bodies on hand to push at least one of the two first basemen (likely Alonso) back to the minors to open the season, conveniently obscuring the service time issues that have loomed since last year.

In contrast to Guerrero’s situation in Toronto and the way Alonso was handled by the Mets last fall, Callaway and general manager Brodie Van Wagenen are saying the right things. Last December, the new GM said that his intent was for Alonso to be the Opening Day first baseman, and the continued refrain in Florida has been “We’re taking the best 25 guys up north with us,” which would be a refreshing departure from the industry-wide trend towards service time manipulation. Until Opening Day, however, it’s all talk.

At some point, the Mets will have to choose a first baseman. For what it’s worth, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections gives a clear preference for Alonso, mainly because of Smith’s struggles in recent years. The numbers don’t jump off the page, however:

Lest you think that ZiPS is particularly low on Alonso, note that his Steamer projection for 2019 is nearly the same (.241/.319/.458). Last year, he tore up the Eastern League (.314/.440/.573, 180 wRC+) but relative to his league, saw a substantial drop-off at Las Vegas (.260/.355/.585, 139 wRC+). It’s worth noting that his slash numbers within that projection are held down by a low BABIP (.281 for 2019) that owes something to his 30-grade speed. It’s still a much more playable profile than the projections for Smith:

Woof. Again, it’s worth remembering that these are the result of heavy weighting of the player’s recent performances, which in Smith’s case have largely been struggle after struggle, though he did hit well at Vegas in 2017 (.330/.386/.519, 134 wRC+). Note that the gap between Alonso and Smith may be larger than shown above, as the former was projected for just 524 PA this year, the latter 587.

Ultimately, even with potential season-opening stints on the Injury List for Lowrie and/or Frazier, and so many other job battles among the team’s position players, it seems quite possible that the Mets will trade Smith, who has youth on his side and may be best served by a change of scenery anyway. One way or another, it should be very interesting to see how this all unfolds.