Hey, did you hear about the free agent who signed on Tuesday morning? Yeah, his name is Core… y Dickerson. So, yeah, not that free agent. Our deal is Corey Dickerson, to Washington, for one year and $2.25 million guaranteed, plus another $750,000 in performance incentives.
This is Dickerson’s third trip through the NL East since 2019, which is pretty enticing as a blind item, but then you realize that he was with the Phillies in 2019 but not ’22 and the Nats in 2023 but not ’19, and he missed the Mets and Braves altogether. That’s something of a theme for Dickerson’s career. He came up with the Rockies and was traded to the Rays in 2016, missing the two seasons in the past decade in which Colorado was good and having to sit through two of the last seasons in which Tampa Bay wasn’t.
But for as much as Dickerson has dodged playing for good teams for most of his career, he does have playoff experience, with the Marlins in 2020 and the Cardinals last year. He’s spent the past decade as an exemplar of a particular kind of player: a second-division starter who can be a meaningful platoon or bench player on a contender. That kind of player gets punted around a lot. Indeed, this will be Dickerson’s 11th big league season and his eighth team. He’s been traded in midseason twice and four times in total. (One of those trades was the deal that sent Germán Márquez and Jake McGee to Colorado in 2016.) Read the rest of this entry »
The San Francisco Giants started their week off by announcing a new free agent signing: right-handed pitcher (and sometime Elliott Smithlook-alike) Luke Jackson. And for a career middle reliever, it’s a pretty big commitment: $3 million in 2023, $6.5 million in ’24, and a club option for ’25 that will cost $7 million if exercised, $2 million if not. That’s a total guarantee of $11.5 million over two years.
Jackson, 31, was originally a Texas Rangers draft pick, but spent the past six seasons with the Braves. He was last seen among the vaunted bullpen that helped carry Atlanta to the 2021 World Series title. Jackson tied with Will Smith for the most appearances by an Atlanta reliever (71) and had the lowest ERA on the staff (1.98). He made 11 more appearances in the playoffs. Nine of those were scoreless; the other two (four earned runs in 1/3 of an inning in Game 3 of the NLCS; two batters faced, two doubles in Game 6 of the NLCS) were very much not.
You might have clued in to the fact that Jackson hasn’t pitched in a meaningful game since the 2021 World Series, which was more than a year ago. If so, congratulations on remembering that it’s 2023 now — lots of people are still struggling with that. But yes, Jackson had Tommy John surgery in April of last year. Based on normal rehabilitation times, it wouldn’t be shocking to see him pitch for the Giants at some point in 2023, but it would constitute a minor medical miracle if he were able to return for Opening Day. Read the rest of this entry »
When I wrote up the Cubs’ signing of Drew Smyly, I reflected on the… let’s call it uninspiring state of the rest of the roster. Plenty of solid players, little star power, little upside to speak of. For a putative big-market team with (as of the Smyly signing) a payroll almost $20 million under the luxury tax threshold, that’s an easy enough problem to solve early in the offseason. Less so now, when most of the quality free agents have already found employment for 2023. So at the end of the Smyly post, I made a joke: “Could they convince Cubs fans that Eric Hosmer is Anthony Rizzo with a beard and thicker eyebrows?”
Good news, everyone: There’s a new Rizzo in town, and his eyebrows are magnificent.
Jesse Rogers of ESPN reported Wednesday afternoon that the Cubs had, in fact, agreed to terms with Hosmer. Years ago, the 33-year-old first baseman was the first marquee signing of what became the current Padres’ run of contention, but on August 2 of last year, he was deemed surplus to requirements. As San Diego completed the Juan Soto–Josh Bell blockbuster, the Friars shipped Hosmer to Boston, and retained almost all of the $13 million a year left on his contract for the privilege of doing so. Hosmer, who will make that amount in each of the next three seasons, will only cost the Cubs the league minimum, Rogers reports. Read the rest of this entry »
“Extend Devers!” they shouted from the streets and the rooftops and the churches and the public houses and the decks of fishing boats and the parking lot of the local Dunkin’ Donuts. “Extend Devers!” they cried for years, as Mookie Betts and Christian Vázquez were traded and Xander Bogaerts, Eduardo Rodriguez, Nathan Eovaldi, and J.D. Martinez left in free agency.
Surely this last stalwart of Boston baseball would not be allowed, encouraged even, to complete his career elsewhere. Rafael Devers is coming off the best offensive season of his career. He’s one of the best hitters in baseball; he’d be the best homegrown player the Red Sox had produced in a generation, had the Red Sox not also produced Betts.
And he’s staying put. News broke Wednesday night that the Red Sox and Devers have agreed to an 11-year, $331 million contract extension that will keep the color of his socks unchanged through the 2033 season. This deal supersedes the one-year, $17.5 million arbitration-avoiding settlement announced the day before. Your pleas have been heard, your prayers answered, your supplications fulfilled. Devers has been extended. Hallelujah. Read the rest of this entry »
Jean Segura is headed south; the two-time All-Star infielder, late of the Phillies, inked a two-year deal with the Marlins in the days after Christmas. Segura, who will turn 33 two weeks before Opening Day, hit .277/.336/.387 last year and .281/.337/.418 over four seasons in Philadelphia, where he played mostly second base. His contract will pay $6.5 million in 2023 and $8.5 million in ’24, with a $10 million club option for ’25 that comes with a $2 million buyout. That comes to some $17 million in guaranteed money, on what will probably be the last big free-agent contract of Segura’s career.
This is the sixth big league stop Segura has made after being part of four multi-player trades, the first of which came just three days after he made his big league debut. For those of you who view Guy Remembering as a holy sacrament, here is a partial list of players who have either been traded for or with Segura in the past 10 seasons: Zack Greinke, Isan Díaz, Aaron Hill, Mitch Haniger, Taijuan Walker, Ketel Marte, J.P. Crawford, and Carlos Santana. Consider how numerous and how significant those players’ other trades have been (Díaz for Christian Yelich, Greinke for most of the 2014–15 Royals, just to name two), and we could get quite a bit of editorial mileage out of Jean Segura’s Web of Trades.
In the days before Christmas, the Chicago Cubs filled out their starting rotation by bringing back a familiar face: Drew Smyly. This past season was one to forget for the Cubs, but Smyly was one of the bright spots. After confusing hitters with a breaking ball-heavy attack, Smyly earned an equally confusing contract structure: $8 million in 2023, $8.5 million in ’24, with an opt-out after this year and a $10 million mutual option for 2025, which comes with a $2.5 million buyout. That brings the total guarantee to two years, $19 million.
Once one of the top pitching prospects in baseball, Smyly spent most of his late 20s and early 30s bouncing aimlessly from team to team. But in 2022, he found stability in Chicago, and rewarded the Cubs with his best full season since 2014: 22 starts, 106 1/3 innings, and a 3.47 ERA. While his ERA would seem to flatter his underlying numbers, Smyly still posted a respectable FIP (4.23) and xERA (4.17). Compared to comparable free agents (Mike Clevinger, Noah Syndergaard, Matthew Boyd), Smyly’s getting an extra guaranteed year, but at a slightly lower AAV. If you want a starting pitcher who’s likely to throw 100 innings or more, with a reasonable chance of better-than-replacement-level rate stats, two years and $19 million is about what you should expect to pay.
That’s not too bad for a back-end starter, which is all Chicago will need him to be. The Cubs have already added Jameson Taillon to a rotation that includes Marcus Stroman and Justin Steele, who was quietly impressive in his first full season as a big league starter. Kyle Hendricks is also on course to return from a shoulder injury, which means Smyly is basically just there to make up the numbers. Let’s put it this way: If Smyly ends up having to be anything more than Chicago’s fourth-best starter, this is going to be a lost season anyway, and for reasons that have nothing to do with the 33-year-old lefty. Read the rest of this entry »
The Mets are changing the game. They’re spending too much, too fast. $800 million in a single offseason! Give us back our agreed-upon salary structure! (So to speak: “There’s no collusion. But … there was a reason nobody for years ever went past $300 million. You still have partners, and there’s a system,” an unnamed team official told Evan Drellich of The Athletic. Which is the kind of thing you say when there’s actually no collusion.)
Everyone’s freaking out about the Mets’ signing of Carlos Correa, news of which broke in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, hours after the Giants postponed their own official Correa rollout. Snatching the top remaining free agent away from a competitive rival in the middle of the night is a flashy move, as is signing a $300 million shortstop to play third base so as not to displace Francisco Lindor, the Mets’ incumbent $300 million shortstop.
The Mets’ projected 2023 payroll is currently at $376 million, not including tax penalties. At least for now, because the Mets’ 2023 projected payroll has been scrolling up all offseason like the scoreboard at the Jerry Lewis telethon. But here I feel compelled to borrow an observation from Tom Verducci: Before Correa, the Mets’ biggest free agent signings were mostly in service of either retaining or replacing outgoing free agents. Correa was the first real upgrade to a team that won 101 games in 2022.
Even then, the contract was not out of line with his market. He’ll make less money per year than Trea Turner or Manny Machado, and far less than Lindor. His AAV is only about $800,000 more per year than what Xander Bogaerts got from San Diego. Correa will make less money per year, over fewer years, than he stood to make had the Giants not reneged on their original 13-year, $350 million pact.
Less than 24 hours after they purloined Correa, the Mets signed another infielder at an hour when respectable people are trying to get another round in before last call instead of closing lucrative business deals. This time, it was Danny Mendick, inked to a one-year, $1 million deal.
Danny Mendick. A million bucks. One million of George Washington’s dollars. One million American simoleons.
I first became aware of Mendick many years ago while listening to an episode of FanGraphs Audio in which Carson Cistulli tried to say his last name and burst into laughter. But Mendick has evolved into a useful big leaguer. His career was probably hampered at the start because everyone saw a short White Sox second baseman and assumed he was Nick Madrigal. But after Madrigal got traded, we learned that Mendick can hold his own defensively at any infield position, and last season he hit .289/.343/.443 in 106 plate appearances.
There’s almost certainly quite a bit of batted-ball luck that went into Mendick’s 125 wRC+ in 2022. Surely the White Sox agree, otherwise they wouldn’t have non-tendered him. Let’s say he regresses all the way to his true talent wRC+, call it somewhere around 80. That’s still a perfectly acceptable backup infielder for $1 million. Of the 90 Opening Day starting second base, third base, and shortstop positions in the majors, I’m all but certain at least one will be occupied by a worse player than Mendick.
Here’s the thing: Mendick isn’t going to be the Mets’ utility infielder. He’s going to be the starting second baseman for the Triple-A Western New York Garbage Plates. (Which is what they should be called, instead of the Syracuse Mets.)
While Mendick is a serviceable, even slightly-north-of-replacement-level utility infielder, the Mets currently have that position covered. Many times over. Do you know how many people would have to be traded or incapacitated in order for Mendick to see meaningful playing time? Because I do. At least four: Eduardo Escobar, Luis Guillorme, Brett Baty, and at least one of New York’s All-Star infield starters (Correa, Lindor, and Jeff McNeil).
Escobar is the incumbent starting third baseman, and he would’ve remained so had Correa not become available. He’ll be making $9.5 million in 2023, after a season in which he posted a 106 wRC+ and 2.3 WAR. If he’s actually going to start the season as the utility infielder, he’s got to be the best utility infielder since Gil McDougald. Guillorme is what an elite utility infielder would look like on a normal team, someone who can back up the trickier defensive positions while also putting up excellent on-base numbers against right-handed pitching (.367 OBP, 118 wRC+).
Baty was the Mets’ third baseman of the future until the instant Giants owner Charles Johnson came over all Wayne Huizenga and San Francisco backed out of the Correa deal. If he’s not traded, he’s as exciting a backup third baseman as you’ll ever find. And even beyond Mendick, there’s more depth: non-roster invitee José Peraza, Jonathan Araúz, and Mark Vientos all saw big league action last year. (Though Vientos is more of a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency third baseman.) Top shortstop prospect Ronny Mauricio might not be ready now, but he might be before the season is over.
I have a recurring nightmare in which I’m back in high school and, despite having washed out of Little League as a preteen, I’m called upon to play third base in a high-stakes varsity baseball game. (To all the “You never played the game” guys: I did play the game, and I was terrible at it so I quit.) Every year, some version of this nightmare plays out on a major league field: A team with injury problems is forced to start an infielder who, upon encountering Double-A breaking stuff for the first time, started wondering if he’d have been better off going to law school.
That won’t happen to the Mets, because they can pay and have paid a premium for Danny Mendick, who has a remaining minor league option and can therefore be stashed in Triple-A until the Mets have need of him.
The normal cost for such a player is a split contract with a non-roster spring training invite. The major league minimum is $720,000 this year; such players would make at least $117,400 a year while in the minors, usually a little more if the team really wants them. But if the Mets can spend lots of money to make big, splashy improvements, they can also spend a comparative rounding error to fortify their organization further down the pecking order.
I’d argue that the Mets, by dint of their immense financial reserves, are the last team that needs to make these marginal improvements. That a team that’s committed to running bottom-third payrolls would get the most bang for its buck in the long-term by spending on minor league depth, facilities improvements, minor league salaries, coaches, and so on.
But there are 29 owners whose entire position in society is defined by having money. To spend or share it any more than necessary is to imperil their entire conception of self. Cohen is rich enough to know something his brothers in the cartel don’t: Money isn’t real to a man who’s worth tens of billions. Why are the Mets doing this? Because they can.
Correa is the splashier deal, the more expensive, and will ultimately be the more impactful. But by going out of their way to lock Mendick down, the Mets have truly shown their contempt for the other owners’ hysterical cries of poverty. They will not be outbid, anywhere on the depth chart.
In order to understand Jordan Lyles’ two-year, $17 million contract with the Kansas City Royals, you need to understand this: Baseball, unlike other sports, is not governed by a clock.
A rosy, romantic articulation of this fact has been a cliché within the sport for generations. Other, newer, cruder sports are bound by the oppressive temporal strictures that make our lives into a brutal struggle, but not baseball. Baseball proceeds at whatever pace the game requires, aloof from the petty concerns of time. This distance allows grown men to revert to gleeful childhood. The crack of the bat, the smell of fresh-cut grass, and so on.
The truth is somewhat more sinister. Because baseball operates outside the bounds of time, there is no escape unless the game is completed. Mere desultory attendance will not suffice — progress must be made or the game will not allow you to leave. You cannot take a knee, or rag the puck, or kick the ball really high to kill the clock. There is no clock. Baseball is like Jumanji. Complete the objective or you will be trapped within the game until you die. Read the rest of this entry »
They say murderers always return to the scene of the crime. Joseph Nicholas Gallo, murderer of baseballs, is the latest. Gallo’s one-year, $11 million deal with the Minnesota Twins brings the longtime Rangers slugger back to Target Field, site of the event that brought him to national baseball consciousness.
The weekend of the 2014 Futures Game, with the national scouting and media glitterati in attendance, Gallo put on a positively pyrotechnic batting practice display. For a good time, try Googling “Joey Gallo Truck Futures Game.” Gallo hit 15 home runs in BP that afternoon, the most of all the prospects on show. Six of those dingers went to the upper deck in right center field, and the gigantic 20-year-old put another through the windshield of a pickup truck Chevrolet had parked on the right field concourse as part of a marketing display.
Then he backed it up in the game, taking Astros prospect Michael Feliz deep — at least 419 feet — for the eventual game-winning home run. Gallo took home MVP honors for himself.
Masataka Yoshida is an extremely cool ballplayer. The 29-year-old has hit .300/.400/.500 six seasons in a row, and despite 20-homer power and plenty of walks, he never strikes out. I’m serious: in 508 Pacific League plate appearances in 2022, Yoshida walked 80 times and struck out just 41 times. That’s a BB% and K% of 15.7% and 8.1%, respectively. He makes Alejandro Kirk look like Dave Kingman. Now, will a 5-foot-8 left fielder be able to keep hitting 20 homers a year on this side of the Pacific? I don’t know, but I’m excited to find out.
Yoshida is, so far, the crown jewel of the offseason for the Red Sox. Between his five-year contract and posting fee, he cost Boston $105.4 million, a significant outlay for any team. If you roll in the posting fee, that’s within rounding distance of the AAV Brandon Nimmo and Kyle Schwarber got in free agency; that indicates Boston views Yoshida as an impact player at his position.
On Thursday, the Red Sox officially announced Yoshida’s signing and added him to the 40-man roster. In order to make room, they designated Jeter Downs for assignment. And suddenly what should have been a joyous day was dampened by the weight of reflection. Read the rest of this entry »
