In 2021, Fernando Tatis Jr. is one of the Padres’ brightest stars. In 2031, he’ll presumably also be one of the Padres’ brightest stars, because he just signed a 14-year, $340 million extension to remain in San Diego, as Dennis Lin and Ken Rosenthal first reported.

That’s a lot of years, and a lot of money, and don’t you worry, we’ll have some ZiPS projections and some calculations of dollars per WAR and an explanation of how the arbitration system impacts this deal. First, though, here’s Tatis having fun:

With that important message out of the way, let’s get down to business. Tatis is one of the best players in baseball right this minute, and he turned 22 a month ago. When he broke into the majors in 2019, he truly broke in. His .317/.379/.590 line was scintillating, and also too short; a stress reaction in his back limited him to only 84 games. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the great unknowns in this season of great unknowns is what 2020 means for salaries. Not 2020 salaries, mind you: we’ve already figured that one out, give or take some J.A. Happ corner cases and Jacoby Ellsbury grievances. This offseason, however, is an entirely different ball of yarn. Will teams commit as much money to free agency and arbitration this year as they did last year, knowing all the while that fans in stands might be an iffy proposition in 2021? Heck, even with fans back in 2021, would teams avoid free agency to recoup the losses, real or imagined, that they suffered in 2020?

Today, the first new data point is in: per reporting by Jeff Passan, the Dodgers have signed Mookie Betts to a massive extension, totaling $392 million over 13 years. His 2020 arbitration salary ($27 million, of which he’ll receive a prorated $10 million) is in that mix; the new part of the deal is 12 years and $365 million. Per Ken Rosenthal, the deal will include salary deferrals totaling $115 million. Also per Rosenthal, there’s some financial tomfoolery on the front end; a $65 million signing bonus that confers some tax benefits and a salary structure that pays him only $17.5 million per year in 2021 and 2022, shielding the Betts from any loss due to prorating of salaries over the next two years should something unforeseen happen. Depending on how you feel about the specifics of Mike Trout’s extension and deferred money in general, it’s either the biggest or second-biggest contract in MLB history, and it takes the biggest name out of the upcoming offseason’s free agency market.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean that money will flow like wine this offseason. The contract Betts signs doesn’t have all that much bearing on what a mid-tier veteran will get, or whether teams will be more aggressive about non-tendering arb-eligible players to save money. Top tier free agents have hardly been the ones getting pinched in free agency in the past five years.

The biggest point of interest from an economic side, in my opinion, is the length of the deal. Everyone knows that Mookie Betts is wildly valuable. Still, I wondered if he might be forced to accept a short but lucrative contract while teams sorted through the long-term fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Will stadiums fill to quite the same capacity ever again? Likely, but it’s no longer a certainty. Owners off-lay risk onto players wherever possible; short-term deals leave the risk of a fall in baseball revenue squarely on the guy taking the field every day. They also, of course, give the player upside should baseball’s economic fortunes improve, but that’s not at the forefront of anyone’s mind at the moment. Read the rest of this entry »

With their eyes shifting from rebuilding to contending, the White Sox have been on a spending spree lately, not only signing a fistful of free agents this winter but also locking up some of their most talented young players via long-term extensions. They struck again on the latter front on Thursday; via The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, they’ve agreed to a five-year extension with Yoán Moncada, their most valuable position player in 2019.

Moncada, who signed with the Red Sox out of Cuba for a record $31.5 million back in February 2015, topped the FanGraphs Top 100 Prospects list in 2017, shortly after being traded from Boston to Chicago in the Chris Sale blockbuster. He put together uneven performances at the big league level in 2017 and ’18 but began living up to that top prospect billing by breaking out in a big way in ’19, his age-24 season. While he missed three weeks in August due to a right hamstring strain, he hit a sizzling .315/.367/.548 with 25 homers and 10 steals. He tied for sixth in the AL in wRC+ (141) and placing ninth in WAR (5.7).

There was much to like about Moncada’s breakout on both sides of the ball. Despite a more aggressive approach at the plate that saw his O-Swing% jumped from 23.3% to 32.7%, and his overall swing rate from 41.1% to 47.3%, he cut his strikeout rate from 33.4% (yielding a league-high 217 strikeouts) to 27.5%. Not only did he make more frequent contact, he hit the ball much harder; his average exit velocity jumped from 90.6 mph to 92.8, seventh among all qualifiers, and his xwOBA shot from .302 to .362. On the defensive side, he seamlessly handled the move from second base, where he was subpar in 2018 (-3.7 UZR, -11 DRS), to third base, where he was more or less average (4.3 UZR, -4 DRS). Read the rest of this entry »

Christian Yelich has emerged as one of the game’s elite players while playing under a very club-friendly contract. Now it appears as though the Brewers’ right fielder will be paid like the superstar he’s become, even while staying put in the game’s smallest market. According to The Athletic‘s Ken Rosenthal (with a substantial assist from the New York Post’s Joel Sherman), the Brewers and Yelich are nearing agreement on an extension that will cover nine years and be worth around $215 million, with a mutual option for a 10th year.

Yelich won NL MVP honors in 2018 while leading the Brewers to a division title and helping them come within one win of a trip to the World Series. He hit .326/.402/.598 with 36 homers and league bests in batting average, slugging percentage, wRC+ (166) and WAR (7.6), then followed that up with another MVP-caliber campaign that featured even better numbers, including a slash-stat Triple Crown (.329/.429/.671), 44 homers, and again league bests in both wRC+ (174) and WAR (7.8). Alas, on September 10, he fracture his right kneecap by fouling a pitch off of it (OUCH), ending his season and, as it turned out, his MVP hopes; he finished second to Cody Bellinger, over whom he had a slight statistical advantage at the time of the injury.

Including his 2016 and ’17 seasons, which were worth a combined 10.0 WAR, Yelich has been the majors’ third-most valuable player over the past four years. You can probably guess who’s first and second:

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