With the Marlins looking to cut payroll, Giancarlo Stanton seems likely to be traded at some point this winter. Stanton not only takes up a lot of that payroll, but his talents are desirable to other teams. The grounds for a trade are obvious. At the same time, the 10 years and $295 million remaining on his contract present a roadblock to acquiring him. So does his no-trade clause, which he could use to block a trade to one of the clubs willing to take on his salary.

Another concern is Stanton’s opt-out clause. While less of an obstacle to the eventual completion of a deal, it’s a factor. By the terms of the opt-out, Stanton will have the choice, in three years, either to become a free agent, or exercise a player option for seven years and $218 million. In late June, when Stanton had a 131 wRC+ and looked to be on pace for “only” a four-win season, the opt-out didn’t seem to matter too much; the probability that he’d exercise it seemed pretty low. A monster second half and MVP Award later, though, and that opt-out is back in play, and it negatively affects Stanton’s value.

Without revisiting whether player opt-outs benefit a team (Dave Cameron wrote about it over the course of multiple posts two years ago with the last one here), let’s just dig into the numbers a bit and see what they say. Last week, Eno Sarris advocated for trading for Stanton, noting that if Stanton ages normally, there’s a big surplus on the contract. Sarris also noted that, even if Stanton ages poorly, the contract would remain pretty close to the current market rate.

Here’s an estimate of Stanton’s value were he to age normally, starting with $9 million a win. I’ve used Steamer’s win projection (5.3 WAR) for Stanton’s 2018 season.

As structured, the deal looks pretty good for the team, with a surplus of over $100 million. Except for one thing, though: this version of reality isn’t ever likely to occur. In three years, Stanton will be just one year older than J.D. Martinez is right now. If he puts up three five-win seasons in a row — better than what Martinez just did in one season — his value on the free-agent market is going to exceed the $218 million he is owed. In that case, Stanton would almost certainly opt out, cutting the surplus by 30%.

The above case represents just one scenario, though. To play this out, let’s consider a bunch more and see where it leads. For the purposes of this exercise, let’s assume the 5.3 WAR figure is a good estimate of Stanton’s present talent. Note that the higher estimate you put on his talents, the more likely Stanton is to opt out. If you put a six-win talent estimate on Stanton and give him 18 WAR over the next three seasons, that place among the greats. The only primary right fielders to do better than that from 28 to 30 since 1947 are Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, and Frank Robinson. Even in that scenario, the surplus is under $100 million. There’s a limit on how much high-end value Stanton can provide because of that opt-out.

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Not every team approaches the offseason looking to get better in the same way. That much is obvious: budget alone can dictate much of a club’s activity on the free-agent market. A little bit less obvious, though, is how the present quality of a team’s roster can affect the players they pursue. Teams that reside on a certain part of the win curve, for example, need that next win more than teams on other parts. That can inform a team’s decisions in the offseason.

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Yesterday, we covered my five favorite buys in this free-agent class relative to their expected contracts. Today, we’re doing the other side of the coin, looking at five players I wouldn’t have any interest in signing at the prices they’re likely to command this winter.

This exercise is a little easier than finding bargains. Last year, I highlighted Mark Trumbo, Kendrys Morales, Mark Melancon, Edwin Encarnacion, and Matt Wieters as the players to avoid. Those five combined for a grand total of +0.8 WAR in 2017 despite Encarnacion accounting for +2.5 WAR all by himself — and Encarnacion notably signed for significantly less than was expected. If we knew he was going to get three years, $60 million, he wouldn’t have made the landmine list.

While the game has gotten significantly better about allocating resources to legitimately good players, there are still some cases where blindspots exist, and these guys were the representation of those overvaluations last year.

Who are the five guys who you probably don’t want to win a bidding war for this year? Let’s find out.

Of the 75 pitchers who threw 150-plus innings in 2017, 74 of them posted lower contact rates than Andrew Cashner. Cashner just entirely stopped missing bats last year, focusing on trying to generate weak contact instead. It sort of worked, as he got his fly-ball exit velocity down from 94.0 mph in 2016 to 91.2 mph last year, but despite getting weaker fly balls, the total lack of strikeouts just isn’t worth it.

Unless you think Cashner can sustain a .213 BABIP with men on base and a .171 BABIP with runners in scoring position — he can’t, by the way — he’s just going to give up a lot more runs even with weaker contact. In this day and age, a 12% strikeout rate just doesn’t cut it, especially for a guy who has a worse-than-average walk rate.

Ten years ago, Cashner would have turned his 3.40 ERA into a nice contract, but the league has stopped paying for ERA like it used to, and Cashner’s lack of strikeouts is going to keep interest somewhat contained. Even still, any multi-year commitment could look quite silly by mid-season if hitters keep making contact at the rate they did against Cashner last year. And there’s not even the floor of a guy who eats innings, since Cashner has a long history of health problems. At anything more than one year, I’d expect Cashner to be a disappointment for his signing club.

At the contract for which I’ve forecast him — two years, $20 million — Nunez would probably be a non-offensive signing, a slightly overpaid utility guy who can at least provide some versatility. But if the crowd is right and he gets 3/$33M, the winning bidder is likely to wonder what they were thinking.

While he’s been worth north of +2 WAR each of the last two seasons, no player had a larger gap between his results and his expected outcomes based on Statcast data last year. His .275 xwOBA ranked 138th out of 143 hitters with at least 450 plate appearances in 2017, ahead of five guys who are only in the lineup because of their speed or defense.

Nunez isn’t slow, but he’s not an elite runner, and his defense has generally graded out poorly everywhere. If his offensive results in 2018 look more like his expected results in 2017, Nunez will quickly play himself out of a job in the first year of his contract. His versatility and stolen-base ability make him a decent bench guy, but he’s one or two lost steps away from replacement level. This isn’t the guy you want to sign into his mid-30s.

Lynn’s last three seasons — which occurred over the last four years, since he was sidelined in 2016 after Tommy John surgery — have established him as one of the game’s foremost FIP-beaters. His 3.06 ERA is 80 points better than his 3.86 FIP during that stretch, and 109 points better than his 4.15 xFIP. Both represent the largest gaps in baseball among starters with 500 or more innings. After three straight years of posting excellent ERAs with mediocre peripherals, it might be tempting to think that Lynn is one of the guys for whom the ERA estimators just don’t work.

Don’t buy it, though. More complicated metrics like DRA don’t see anything here to support Lynn as a true-talent frontline starter. Statcast puts his xwOBA at .310, placing him in the same tier of NL starters as Tanner Roark, Taijuan Walker, and Trevor Williams. These are useful pitchers, to be sure, and Lynn has his strengths, but he’s a fastball-heavy right-hander who has stopped getting chases out of the zone and is still awful against left-handed hitters.

The NL Central happens to be pretty right-handed offensively, so Lynn faced a proportional mix of RHBs and LHBs last year, but if Lynn ends up in a division where managers can force him to regularly have to get left-handers out, his numbers could suffer.

I wouldn’t mind him at back-end-starter prices, something like 3/$36M, but Derrick Goold speculated that he’s looking for Jordan Zimmermann money and expects to get over $100 million. I don’t think he gets anywhere near that, but the crowd is projecting around $55-$60 million and others have guessed as high as $75 million. If he gets anywhere near those prices, I want no part of his deal, especially with a TJ surgery on the resume. Lynn is a solid pitcher whom most teams could use in their rotation, but if he wants to get paid like a frontline guy, run away.

If you look at Holland’s monthly splits, you can talk yourself into his results being dragged down by just one lousy month. In August, he allowed a .455 wOBA and ran a 13.50 ERA; in every other month, he ran a wOBA allowed under .300 and an ERA under 2.25. For five of the six months, he got outs and saves, at times looking like the dominant relief ace he was in Kansas City.

But the reality is that several of Holland’s good months were high-wire save acts, and this version of Holland only really has one trick that works: throw a slider in the dirt and hope the batter chases it. It’s a good slider, most of the time, and gets enough strikeouts for him to get by, but Holland no longer misses bats in the zone like he used to. If hitters can manage to take his slider, he doesn’t have much else with which to go after them.

A slider-heavy 32-year-old with a recent history of arm problems isn’t someone to whom I want to give a big contract, but he’ll probably get a nice deal based on his track record and the 41 saves he racked up in Coors last year. And maybe he’ll trust his fastball more when he’s not pitching in Colorado. It wouldn’t surprise me much if Holland were just fine again in 2018.

But Holland walked away from a $15 million player option for 2018 because he wants that kind of salary in a long-term deal, and you can imagine his representatives will be comparing him to Mark Melancon while asking for similar money. I doubt he gets the fourth year, but even at three years, there’s too much risk here for me. I want my highly paid relief aces to have a plan of attack besides throwing breaking balls out of the zone.

It isn’t that hard to see why scouts like Eric Hosmer. He makes contact, hits the ball hard, and runs much better than most guys who play the position. And his small-market team reached the World Series two years in a row, so it’s easy to draw up a narrative about how he has magic winning beans or something.

But Hosmer is also now 28 years old, has over 4,000 plate appearances in the big leagues, and has a career wRC+ of 111. For the sake of comparison, here are other players who have the same adjusted batting line since 2011, Hosmer’s rookie year: Matt Adams, Todd Frazier, David Freese, Chase Headley, Howie Kendrick, and Josh Reddick. None of those guys are seen as franchise superstars. For the bulk of Hosmer’s career, he’s been a slightly above-average hitter while playing a position where hitting is the primary job description.

Using career numbers is a bit unfair to Hosmer, since aggregating everything puts equal weight on his terrible 2012 season as his excellent 2017 season, and obviously those two shouldn’t be counted as equals. But even just looking at the last three seasons, his 120 wRC+ ties him with Chris Davis. It puts him one point ahead of Lucas Duda, and two points ahead of Carlos Santana, whose contract he’s expected to dwarf.

Hosmer’s big 2017 offensive season was mostly driven by a .351 BABIP, and Statcast doesn’t support a batted-ball profile that can sustain those results. He still hits the ball on the ground far too often to really tap into his power, and while maybe another organization can tweak the swing enough to get more production, they’ll have to pay like he’s already made that adjustment in order to have the chance to try.

If Hosmer were really an elite defensive first baseman, that would be one thing. But the numbers suggest otherwise. Whatever you think of UZR and DRS, a lot of their problems tend to get washed away once a player has played 9,000 innings in the field, as Hosmer has, and his career totals put him at -29 UZR and -21 DRS. Even if you think those figures are selling him short, you’re still looking at a conclusion that he’s maybe a slightly above-average defender even if the systems are wildly underrating him. It’s almost impossible to believe that he’s really a great defender who has just been incorrectly rated as a poor one for seven straight years.

None of this makes Hosmer a bad player. Steamer projects him for +2.7 WAR in 2018, and you can round that up to +3 pretty easily if you think that UZR is low on his fielding abilities. He’s an above-average big leaguer in the prime of his career, coming off the best season of his career, so Hosmer should get a nice contract this winter.

But a nice contract for this kind of skillset would be $80 or $90 million. I guessed that he’s actually going to get $125 million. Jon Heyman projected $160 million. At those kinds of prices, Hosmer could very easily become one of the most overpaid players in baseball, especially if he continues to just pound balls into the ground.

There’s enough youth and upside here that a team can rationally justify $20 million a year for four years, but once they pass either of those marks, they’d very likely be better off just signing one of the cheaper first baseman and throwing the difference at another quality free agent. Especially if the price gets up to $150 million; for that kind of money, you might be able to sign both Carlos Santana and Lorenzo Cain, and it’s not clear that Hosmer is definitively better than either one of those two, much less both of them.

On Tuesday, Major League Baseball levied punishments on the Atlanta Braves after completing an investigation into the club’s methods of talent acquisition. In addition to the departure of general manager John Coppolella (who was banned from baseball for life), special assistant Gordon Blakeley (who has been suspended for a year), and president of baseball operations John Hart, the Braves are losing 12 players signed during international free-agency periods ranging from 2015 to 2017. Scouting reports on those players, who are now free agents subject to international amateur bonus restrictions, are below.

In addition to losing these players, Atlanta will be barred from signing shortstop prospect Robert Puason, who isn’t eligible until the 2019-2020 IFA period, as well as Korean prospect Ji-Hwan Bae, who MLB found was offered “extra-contractual compensation.” In a similar vein, the Braves will lose their 2018 third-round pick in the domestic amateur draft for extra-contractual compensation violations involving 2017 second-round pick Drew Waters, a high-school outfielder. Waters is remaining with the Braves.

As further punishment, Atlanta will be prohibited from signing players international players for more than $10,000 during the 2019-2020 signing period, and their bonus pool will be cut in half for the 2020-2021 period.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s statement on the investigation and punishment details:

“During the 2015-16 international signing period, the Braves signed five players subject to the Club’s signing bonus pool to contracts containing signing bonuses lower than the bonuses the club had agreed to provide to players. The Club provided the additional bonus money to those players by inflating the signing bonus to another player who was exempt from their signing pool because he qualified as a ‘foreign professional’ under MLB rules.”

“As a result of the 2015-16 circumvention, the Braves were able to sign nine high-value players during the 2016-17 signing period who would have been unavailable to thhem had the Club accurately accounted for its signings during the 2015-16 signing period.”

Those players are the ones listed below, as well as 18-year-old Cuban OF Juan Carlos Negret (who spent 2017 in the DSL) and three players who were part of an illegal package deal — Brandol Mezquita, Angel Rojas and Antonio Sucre — who had yet to make their pro debuts.

Below are the scouting reports on the prospects cut loose.

Kevin Maitan, INF
The crown jewel of the 2016 signing period, Maitan signed for $4.25 million out of Venezuela after a late push from Washington increased an earlier agreed-upon figure. Scouts were on Maitan early, around age 13 or 14, and monitored his development closely. By age 15, he was drawing comparisons to Miguel Cabrera and Chipper Jones. They thought he’d hit for average and power from both sides of the plate and, though he was likely to move to third base eventually, thought he had a non-zero chance to stay at shortstop. All-around talents like this are rare, and Maitan ranked No. 1 on our July 2 board in 2016.

I saw Maitan firsthand during his stateside debut in the 2016 Fall Instructional League. He had already thickened up quite a bit at that point and seemed likely to move to third base sooner than anticipated. But the bat speed, arm strength, and feel to hit were all as advertised. I left satisfied that Maitan, whom I had already projected to third base anyway, was as advertised.

Then 2017 reports started coming in. Scouts expressed concern over Maitan’s thickening body, some dropping a 30 on his lateral range at shortstop and projecting him over at first base. Others didn’t like his swing, citing stiffness and length. Pro scouts couldn’t understand what all the international fuss was about.

Maitan still has enviable bat speed and bat control, but any team that pursues him is pursuing a talented reclamation project, not a presently enticing talent. He’s still just 17 and it’s far too early to give up on Maitan as a prospect, but unless you view him using his amateur reports as context, you might not even think he is one.

Abraham Gutierrez, C
Also from Venezuela, Gutierrez’s frame started filling out early, and some international scouts believe he rose to the forefront of the 2016 J2 class simply because he had something resembling adult physicality sooner than his peers did. He signed for a lofty $3.53 million but ranked 23rd on that year’s July 2 board after scouts soured on him as signing day approached. He has viable catch-and-throw skills but will need to keep his frame in check to retain them as he ages. Offensively, the hit and power tools are fringey, requiring a long-term stay behind the plate for Gutierrez to be an everyday big leaguer. He spent 2017 in the Gulf Coast League.

Yunior Severino, INF
Signed for $1.9 million out of the Dominican Republic, Severino is a switch-hitting middle infielder with surprising power for his size. Scouts think his long-term defensive home is second base and are skeptical about his long-term ability to make contact. He takes big, violent swings but still hit .286/.345/.444 in the GCL this year.

Juan Contreras, RHP
Contreras touches 97 with his fastball and sits 92-95. There’s some effort to the delivery, but Contreras’s lower half is long and strong, and the arm works fine. His best secondary is a slider with purely vertical movement, a result of Contreras’ vertical arm slot. It flashes plus. It’s hard to generate any changeup movement from a slot like Contreras’s. Due to a combination of that arm slot, his size (a slightly built 6-foot-1), and issues with command (Contreras walked 21 hitter in 18 innings this year), there’s a good chance he’s only a reliever. He signed for $1.2 million in 2016.

Yefri Del Rosario, RHP
A Dominican righty who might be the most sought-after name on this list, Del Rosario signed for $1 million out of the Dominican Republic in 2016. Physically projectable, athletic, and the owner of efficient arm action, Del Rosario sits in the mid-90s with a potential plus curveball. Scouts have projected heavily on the changeup and command due to Del Rosario’s athleticism. He started the year in the Dominican Summer League but was quickly promoted to the GCL, where he struck out 36 hitters in 37.1 innings.

Livan Soto, INF
Another Venezuelan infielder from the 2016 class, Soto was considered a utility prospect by scouts who saw him this year due to a lack of physicality. He signed for $1 million.

Guillermo Zuniga, RHP
A Colombian righty, Zuniga was 18 when he signed as part of an illegal package deal. He’s a projectable 6-foot-3 with a fastball in the 88-93 range and a potential above-average curveball. His fluidity allows for command projection.

Yenci Pena, 3B
Pena is from the Dominican Republic and signed for $1 million. He has a big frame and above-average power projection. As he grows into that power, he’ll almost certainly move off of short and to third base. The actions, footwork, and arm strength will play there, possibly as plus.

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As teams pursue these players, they’ll be restricted to signing them to bonus amounts governed by the current international-signing bonus pools, although, as a Yahoo!’s Jeff Passan reports, teams will be allowed to use their 2018-19 pool money to sign the Braves’ cast-offs.

Here are clubs’ remaining bonus pools for this year, as compiled by the Associated Press:

TEX: $3.53 million
NYY: $3.25
MIN: $3.25 (after voiding the $3 mil bonus of INF Jelfry Marte)
PIT: $2.27
MIA: $1.74
SEA: $1.57
PHI: $0.90
MIL: $0.76
ARI: $0.73
BAL: $0.66
BOS: $0.46
TBA: $0.44

This mess is complicated by the yet-unknown fate of the Japanese posting system and its impact on Shohei Otani’s potential earning power/signing restriction — and even more complicated by the presence of recently defected Cuban OF Julio Pablo Martinez, a short but athletic and tightly wound 21-year-old center-field prospect with speed and some pull power.

Many teams have deals in place with prospects for next year’s signing period, but teams have reneged on deals in the past, as the player/trainer have little recourse when that occurs, since the initial deals were technically illegal.

It was a little over three years ago that I first took a look at this question. The article was a hit!

Now I think it’s time to run the numbers again. People change. Situations change. Statistical projections change. Mike Trout is fantastically good. He is probably the best player in baseball, and he’s under contract with the Angels for another three seasons. Albert Pujols used to be fantastically good. He’s not so much anymore. He was just one of the worst players in baseball, and he’s under contract with the Angels for another four seasons. You know where this is going. You’ve probably wondered about this before, even though the hypothetical is stupid and unrealistic.

Trout isn’t going to get traded. Aside from everything else, he has no-trade protection. Pujols isn’t going to get traded. Aside from everything else, he also has no-trade protection. But let’s say the Angels wanted to make a trade. Let’s say they wanted to package the two players together. Does Pujols’ negative value outweigh Trout’s positive value? Would the Angels trade these players, combined, for nothing? Again, this is stupid. Let’s dive in.

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Trey Mancini had a successful first season with the Baltimore Orioles. The 25-year-old University of Notre Dame graduate hit .293/.338/.488, with 24 home runs. Last week he was rewarded with a third-place finish in American League Rookie-of-the-Year balloting.

Every bit as notable is the fact that he played the majority of his games as an outfielder. Coming into the year, Mancini had served exclusively as a first baseman or designated hitter. At 6-foot-4, 215 pounds, he profiled as a slightly more athletic version of Mark Trumbo.

Neither would dispute the comparison. When I talked to the Orioles teammates late in the season, both agreed they have a lot in common. The body types, the determination to overcome their defensive limitations, the plus power and the strikeouts, the hot and cold streaks. By and large, Mancini is Trumbo 2.0.

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Trey Mancini: “This season has been a whirlwind, for sure. Changing positions in spring training and learning to play the outfield at this level has been the coolest experience I’ve ever had. I grew up a first baseman — I’ve been a first baseman all my life — and nobody really thought much of me switching positions. People didn’t think I was athletic enough.

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Last week, I released my top-50 list for the free agents available this offseason, including both my own and our community’s forecasts for the contracts those players will receive this winter. Over the next couple of days, I’ll provide a few names that I think look like particularly good or bad bets based on our contract expectations.

Today, we’ll do the expected bargains. I think that, last year, my picks turned out okay. I had Justin Turner and Rich Hill as the two best bets for the price, with Neil Walker, Brett Cecil, and Matt Holliday rounding out my top five. Walker was pretty good when healthy, but health is part of why he took the Mets qualifying offer. Cecil was lousy early in the year but ended up being fine overall, while Holliday was the opposite, posting a good first half until injuries caused him to collapse in the second.

Of course, my track record isn’t always that good, and several of the players I identify as potential bargains below will probably be terrible next year. So it goes when signing free agents. But if I had some money to spend this winter and were looking to make my team better in the short-term, here’s where I would be looking to spend it.

As always, more credit is given for higher-impact players; getting a bargain on a role player isn’t as useful as finding a good everyday guy. On to the list!

Outside of the top few arms available, this starting pitching class is mostly filled with pitch-to-contact starters who a contender should slot in at the back of their rotation. There are some solid innings-eaters around who will get paid for their ability to produce solid results in bulk, but if a team wants to shop in these waters, I’d suggest Fister as a lower cost option than most of his peers.

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If the Giants weren’t 2017’s biggest disappointment, it’s only because the Mets lived their own waking nightmare. The Giants remain a popular product, but with popularity comes expectations, and the Giants have been garbage for a year and a half, in large part because the home-run spike seems to have passed them right by. Fast-forward to the present day, and the Giants find themselves in a situation of some urgency. They want to maintain their market share in the region, and they could stand to add some dingers. The Giants haven’t hit many dingers. They don’t want to spend another year in the basement.

It seems like the stars are aligning almost perfectly. When the Giants have needed help the most, there has become available a certain player, a certain dinger-hitter and league MVP, a lineup-changing colossus who’s rumored to want to play out west, around where he grew up. It’s no secret the Marlins are looking to trade Giancarlo Stanton, and it’s no surprise the Giants are deeply involved in the mix. Nothing has yet actually happened, but the two current favorites would have to be the Giants and the Cardinals. They’re the suitors who’ve been most aggressive.

And yet I’m not sold the Giants make such great sense. One can speculate only so much about a move that would be undoubtedly complicated, but the Giants don’t find themselves in an enviable position. Acquiring Stanton could be an awfully dangerous commitment.

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“I know all teams have plenty of money.”

—Giancarlo Stanton

This season’s National League MVP, Giancarlo Stanton, recently addressed rumors that Miami might trade him, noting that the club could immediately become a postseason contender with the addition of pitching. His suggestion that all teams have plenty of money certainly appears to be a response to speculation that the Marlins intend to slash payroll a few months after having been purchased for more than a billion dollars.

It also stands to reason that he was commenting upon the fact any club could theoretically afford to acquire Stanton and the $295 million remaining on his contract. In one sense, he’s probably right. Revenues in baseball are at an all-time high. For a number of reasons, however, there’s not a direct correlation in baseball between revenues and spending.

One main reason is the competitive-balance tax, formerly known as the luxury tax. The cap for the tax has increased at only about half the rate of MLB payrolls. Accordingly, more teams find themselves up against a tax that was made more painful in the last CBA. Those taxes have pretty drastic effects on the trade market for Giancarlo Stanton, putting some teams out of the bidding and making the cost for others high enough that a competitive offer might be unreasonable.

Two years ago, Nathaniel Grow wrote an excellent piece about the implications of the luxury tax this century, showing how many teams used the tax as a cap, which has driven down spending relative to revenue over the last decade. In the last few years, the tax threshold has grown at a very slow rate, such that, by the end of the current CBA, teams with an average payroll will find themselves just a single major free-agent signing away from transcending it. The graph below depicts both average team payrolls and the tax threshold since 2003.

Over the last 15 years, payroll has grown at a pace 50% faster than that of the competitive-balance tax amount. However, the chart above actually overstates the rate at which the competitive-balance threshold has grown. From 2003 until the beginning of the previous CBA in 2011, the luxury tax grew at a rate pretty close to MLB payrolls, even if it did depress salaries compared to revenue. Beginning with the CBA that started in 2011 and the new CBA, which goes through 2021, the competitive-balance tax has seen barely any growth, especially when it comes to payroll.

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