In 2013, I once again had the pleasure of interviewing a variety of people from within baseball. This year’s list includes 51 major league players — not counting the dozens who contributed to the Player’s View series — 38 top prospects, 16 coaches and managers and several others who fall into other categories.
Here is a selection of the best quotes from the 2013 FanGraphs Q&A series. Read the rest of this entry »
A few hours ago, I put up a crowdsourcing form for you guys to project what Masahiro Tanaka will sign for in the next few weeks. Now that we’re up to about 700 entries, I’d say our sample is large enough to post the results.
First, some graphs, because the word is in our name.
Since it’s Masahiro Tanaka day here at FanGraphs — Tony and I both wrote about him this morning — and because I find our reader’s expectations of contract prices to be endlessly fascinating, let’s go ahead and break out the Contract Crowdsourcing series again for MLB’s newest sort-of-free-agent.
This won’t be an exactly apples to apples comparison to the other 47 crowdsourced free agent contracts you guys already did, since we now have information about the market rate for players this winter and how teams are reacting to having more money than ever before, but it should still be a fun exercise. As usual, the form is below, though because I made this one, it won’t be as pretty as the ones Carson created a few months ago. As my wife will tell you, I’m more function over design, so it’s just a plain and simple two step form. We’ll collect a representative sample of the readership, and then I’ll publish the results either later this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
Two simple questions: how many years will Tanaka sign for, and what will the AAV of his salary be in those years? Note that because we know that the posting fee is going to be $20 million, there’s no need to forecast that, so you should only include the salary Tanaka will receive, and then his total cost will be the forecast years and dollars plus $20 million. But don’t include the $20 million. Really. Don’t do it. Just the AAV of what he’ll receive. Got it? Okay, go.
Masahiro Tanaka was finally posted last week. Now, for the next 25 days or so, he’s going to be the center of the baseball world, for all the reasons Tony talked about this morning, and the month long courting of Tanaka is going to end with him likely signing a deal that costs a similar amount to Shin-Soo Choo or Jacoby Ellsbury. Perhaps more, on an annual average basis, since his deal is likely to be for six seasons instead of seven, and teams will have to pay a $20 million posting fee in addition to the salary they negotiate with Tanaka. My guess is that he ends up at $120 million over six years, so the total cost will be 6/$140M with the posting fee, putting his final bill just slightly behind the 6/$147M that Zack Greinke went for last winter.
It is going to be, by far, the largest contract ever given to a player who has yet to play in the big leagues. Including the posting fee, Daisuke Matsuzaka cost the Red Sox about $100 million, while Yu Darvish cost the Rangers about $110 million. And those deals dwarf all of the contracts given to other international players: Jose Abreu got $68 million this winter after defecting from Cuba. Previously, Hyun-Jin Ryu went for $62 million including the posting fee paid to his Korean team, Yasiel Puig got $42 million (plus some potential arbitration payouts that could raise that number substantially), and Yoenis Cespedes got $36 million over four years. Even going back a few years, we see Aroldis Chapman at $30 million and Leonys Martin at $15 million.
The month spanning Christmas Day to Jan. 24 is going to be something unlike we have seen in recent baseball history. We could call it “The Month of Tanaka,” but I prefer to look it at as a 13th sign of the zodiac, one that will showcase all of the good, the bad and the ugly in the baseball business. The ultra-predictable United States sports calendar—which can basically be programmed a year in advance—is about to be given quite a jolt. The posting and eventual signing of Masahiro Tanaka has the potential to become the ultimate month-long sports reality show. You don’t think so? Consider this: Read the rest of this entry »
If you’ve ever been on Twitter, Ervin Santana probably follows you. Or at least, whoever’s in charge of Ervin Santana’s Twitter account. That account seems dead set on making some kind of impact. The same can’t be said to the same extent of Ervin Santana’s agent, Jay Alou, whose account is decidedly less active, but just the other day Alou happened to tweet out something of particular interest, that caught the attention of many:
Can’t wait for the world to see the NEW and IMPROVED @ErvinSantana_54. Showcasing new devastating pitch! #hardworkpaysoff #Nasty #cantwait
— Jay Alou (@JAloujr) December 23, 2013
Santana’s currently a free agent without a home, and as far as we can tell there hasn’t even been much in the way of negotiating progress. Everybody has been waiting on Masahiro Tanaka, because everybody likes Tanaka better than the domestic starting pitchers on the market. Now that Tanaka’s been posted, the rest of the pitcher market should move forward, meaning soon Santana can start really talking money. In part to help entice suitors, Santana seems to be working on a new pitch. The idea is self-improvement, and it’s never a bad idea to improve.
And now I will present to you some known facts about Shin-Soo Choo. Most recently, Choo became a member of the Texas Rangers, for $130 million and seven guaranteed years. It’s a big investment for a team that was looking to make a big investment, and now the Rangers are probably the favorites to win the American League West. They’d long been linked to Choo, they’d long had a need, and Choo’s probably a better investment than Nelson Cruz would’ve been. He’s a splash, big enough to take the Rangers out of the potential running for Masahiro Tanaka.
Choo draws a ton of walks. He’s got a career OBP of .389, and he can run and slug, too. At .350, he owns one of the highest career BABIPs in the history of baseball. Since 1950, 797 players have batted at least 3,000 times through age 30. Choo’s BABIP is tied for seventh among them, equal to Kenny Lofton and a point above Joe Mauer. When facing right-handed pitchers, Choo’s had an awful lot in common with former teammate Joey Votto. When facing left-handed pitchers, he’s been much much worse. Choo’s got a big platoon split. He really is a sort of higher-profile Andre Ethier.
On Saturday, the Rangers agreed to sign Shin-Soo Choo to a seven year, $130 million contract. With Nelson Cruz and David Murphy departing via free agency and Craig Gentry traded to Oakland, they had a gaping hole in atheir outfield, and they signed the best outfielder left on the market. Given their position on the win curve, maximizing their 2014 roster potential is an understandable strategy, even though Choo is likely to be completely dead weight by the end of this deal. As I wrote at the beginning of the off-season, nearly every long term free agent contract will be a poor investment for the team by the end, as they are designed to be a value to the team in the first few years and a value to the player in the last few.
That said, even with the Rangers having ample revenues — thanks to their television contract — and being in a prime position on the win curve, this still looks like a pretty significant overpay to me, and a contract I think Texas will regret sooner than later. In fact, depending on how much money Nelson Cruz suckers someone into paying him, this might actually end up as my least favorite contract of the entire winter. And I think this deal looks particularly mediocre when you see what the Yankees did with the same resources.
Nearly five seasons ago, Jonathan Papelbon was awarded a $6.25M figure in arbitration, which at the time, was the largest deal in history awarded to a closer in the first year of arbitration. At that point in his career, he had saved 113 games with a 1.84 ERA and the arbiters rewarded him nicely for those figures. He would pitch three more seasons in Boston and left the Red Sox having been worth 16.4 RA9-WAR while converting 88% of his saves.
Philadelphia handsomely rewarded the closer with a four-year deal with a vesting fifth option. Thus far, Papelbon has been worth 4.4 RA9-WAR and has converted 86% of his saves. Yet, two years into the four to five-year commitment, the Phillies are reportedly looking to move him. A quick search of MLB Trade Rumors has Papelbon mentioned in rumors regarding the Orioles and both local and national writers hearing the team is actively attempting to move the closer.
GM Ruben Amaro Jr. has his work cut out for him as Papelbon is guaranteed at least $26M with the potential of a very achievable trigger option pushing the contract to a $39M value. That is well above the money that has been doled out to any free agent closer this offseason.
On Sunday, Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer laid out some of the challenges in front of Amaro Jr.
Major League Baseball is awash in money. Lots and lots of money. Forbes reported last week that gross revenue for the league and its 30 teams will top $8 billion this year. And that’s before the new national TV contracts kick in. Next year, revenue could reach as high as $8.5 billion. As Forbes noted, total baseball revenue in 1995 was $1.4 billion. When adjusted for inflation, that figure rises to a bit more than $2.2 billion. That means we’ve seen baseball revenue grow an astounding 264% in just 18 years.
In 2013, the big story in the business of baseball is the exponential growth in league and team revenues, all while attendance is fairly flat and national TV ratings are down.
The sub-headlines tell the real story: where is all this money coming from; who is it going to; and how is it being spent.
